Sellers? Buyers? The stakes aren’t what you’d like them to be for the Toronto Blue Jays with today’s 4 p.m., ET non-waiver trade deadline approaching.
Indeed, as one MLB executive told me this weekend, the Blue Jays are a lot of teams’ Plan B or Plan C. That might be why there were a grand total of four scouts in attendance for this weekend’s series against the Los Angeles Angels.
Jays aside, here’s our list of teams that need to be buyers today …
1. Washington Nationals: Adding Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson upgrades a bullpen that was, arguably, the single most glaring weakness of any major-league team with World Series ambitions. It’s not enough, however. An intriguing possibility would be Zach Britton, the Baltimore Orioles‘ impermeable closer, but you wonder whether the years of litigation involving the Nationals, Orioles and the MASN regional sports network would leave the Angelos family feeling charitable toward the Nationals. I sure wouldn’t; not sure how helping the Nats helps the Orioles.
2. Houston Astros: All that young talent ensures their window of opportunity will be open for a while but nobody is really afraid of facing Dallas Keuchel or Lance McCullers in a short series – even if they’re both healthy. My friend Dave Cameron of FanGraphs detailed why McCullers should be a huge concern. (Something about 13 per cent of opposing batters reaching against him without swinging the bat since he came off the disabled list, and a strikeout rate below 20 per cent.) Don’t give me Sonny Gray this or Sonny Gray that: this is a team that needs a Yu Darvish or Justin Verlander. It would be sad to squander this season.
3. Los Angeles Dodgers: Darvish would be a perfect fit, here. Shoot, the Dodgers have enough young talent that they might be able to afford to sign Darvish as a free agent this winter; landing him now buys them a few months of exclusive negotiating. Baseball people think Clayton Kershaw is going to re-sign in L.A. after next season when he is eligible for free agency and that’s a big contractual nut. But that’s a bridge I’d gladly cross after winning the World Series. Gray would be a decent fit here, too, while giving the Dodgers some cost-certainty.
4. New York Yankees: Here’s the thing: as rich as the Yankees farm system is – and it’s loaded – they’re going to have to add more advanced starting pitching at some point in the next two years. Gray makes more sense for them than anybody else; he’s controllable, and with the likes of Luis Severino, Jordan Montgomery, Justus Sheffield, Chance Adams and a bullpen core of Aroldis Chapman and Dellin Betances, the Yankees would be set up nicely for the next stage of their prospect influx. Gray could be a way out of luxury-tax purgatory, not a bad thing for a team that will sign one of either Bryce Harper or Manny Machado when they’re free agents. C’mon… you know that’s going to happen.
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WALK THIS WAY
Funny. You follow a team as closely as you can and yet every now and then you hear something that – well, let’s just say I love Buck and Tabby, but when Jose Bautista stepped up to the plate with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth inning Saturday and they said Bautista has never hit a walk-off home run … well, you know.
Yet it’s true. Since joining the Blue Jays on Aug. 21, 2008, in a deal for Robinzon Diaz, Joey Bats has had 4,162 at-bats and signature moments galore, and he has never walked it off with a homer. That’s apropos of nothing other than … baseball, man. Baseball. Steve Pearce has two walk-off grand slams in four days. Kendrys Morales has two walk-off homers this season, Adam Lind had three between the time Bautista arrived and Lind was traded. Ryan Goins – Ryan Goins for Pete’s sake! – has one. Buck Martinez had two during his playing days, and Gregg Zaun took Troy Percival deep in the bottom of the 13th for a grand slam on Sept. 6, 2008.
| Batter | Date | Opp | Situation | Pitcher | Runners on | Home run # Season | Home run # Career |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steve Pearce | 07/30/2017 | LAA | b9 1o | Bud Norris | 3 | 10 | 76 |
| Steve Pearce | 07/27/2017 | Oak | b10 2o | Liam Hendriks | 3 | 9 | 75 |
| Kendrys Morales | 07/26/2017 | Oak | b9 0o | Santiago Casilla | 0 | 18 | 180 |
| Kevin Pillar | 05/14/2017 | Sea | b9 2o | Edwin Diaz | 0 | 5 | 29 |
| Kendrys Morales | 04/15/2017 | Bal | b9 0o | Tyler Wilson | 0 | 2 | 164 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 06/10/2016 | Bal | b10 0o | Brad Brach | 0 | 13 | 281 |
| Justin Smoak | 05/03/2016 | Tex | b10 1o | Phil Klein | 1 | 2 | 94 |
| Josh Donaldson | 09/27/2015 | TB | b9 2o | Steve Geltz | 0 | 41 | 104 |
| Ryan Goins | 09/01/2015 | Cle | b10 1o | Bryan Shaw | 1 | 5 | 8 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 06/09/2015 | Mia | b9 1o | AJ Ramos | 1 | 13 | 242 |
For a full list of every regular-season walk-off home run in Blue Jays history, click here.
While so much attention at the trade deadline has focussed mostly on Blue Jays pitchers, I’m told at least one team – the Cleveland Indians – kicked tires on Bautista, although with a surplus of outfielders that was likely in case the Indians needed to move one out for the bullpen help they seek. Bautista, Pearce and Morales would all be trade candidates, but the Blue Jays would need to throw in some money – and they’d only do that for players with two years or less service time in the majors. Bautista would have to waive his 10-and-5 rights, and would likely not do so without being bought out. That’s all 10-and-5 rights are, a bargaining chip.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
• One of the most remarkable aspects of the Astros’ dominant 2017 is the fact that they aren’t just a product of their tiny ballpark. The Astros average just under seven runs per game on the road this season, which leaves them in striking range of three pretty good Yankees teams that own the top three spots all time: 1939 (7.80), ’30 (7.58) and ’36 (7.35). The Astros’ road winning percentage (35-18, .717 after Sunday), leaves them with a shot at that record, too. It’s also held by the ’39 Yankees (54-20, .730), with the 2001 Seattle Mariners (59-22, .728,) close behind.
• Adrian Beltre collected his 3,000th MLB hit Sunday, one day after committing his first error in 62 games – a Texas Rangers record for third basemen and the longest streak of his career. The MLB record for consecutive errorless games by a third baseman is held by Jeff Cirillo, who went 99 games between errors for the Colorado Rockies and Mariners between June 20, 2001 and April 19, 2002. The American League record is held by Don Money of the Milwaukee Brewers (88) split between 1973-74. Money holds the MLB single-season record of 86 consecutive games.
• Blue Jays prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hasn’t swung a bat in the majors yet but he’s already changed agents, leaving Paul Kinzer – yep, the guy who bolloxed up Edwin Encarnacion’s free agency – and signing with Magnus Sports, an arm of Puerto Rican singer Mark Anthony’s Magnus Media, run by agents Barry Praver and Scott Shapiro. Guerrero’s, frankly, a couple of years away from needing to worry about negotiating (first step: make the majors, second: reach salary arbitration), but Magnus has zeroed in on the game’s higher-profile Latino prospects, in keeping with Anthony’s goals for his agency to become a leading brand management group for Latino singers and athletes.
• Of Justin Smoak’s 29 home runs, nine have come off rookie pitchers. That leads the majors, ahead of Aaron Judge of the Yankees and Mike Moustakas who have each hit eight. Moustakas is having one of the best under-the-radar seasons of 2017: he’s on pace for 47 homers which would crush Steve “Bye Bye” Balboni’s Kansas City Royals club record of 36 set in 1985. This Royals team is on pace to hit over 200 homers, well ahead of the club record of 168 set in 1987. Two things I know: something’s up with the baseball and Moustakas, who turns 29 on Sept. 11, is going to get paid this winter as a free agent.
THE ENDGAME
The NFL is the thing Satan plays on his TV set on a never-ending loop; a bad league run by mostly bad people. And so it is no surprise that the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, Steve Bisciotti, would sound out Ray Lewis on whether the Ravens’ moral fabric was tough enough to handle Colin Kaepernick’s signing. Kaepernick, of course, stands accused of having a brain and a moral compass. Nothing says NFL more than asking someone with neither for advice.
Actually, check that: Nothing says NFL more than the fact that that could be reported without a sense of irony.
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show from 9 a.m. to noon ET and Baseball Central from noon to 1 p.m. ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan
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