TORONTO – The Blue Jays may not have brought in the starting pitcher that they need with their first deal in the week leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline, but they got a whole lot better with the transformative trade with Colorado that brought over shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and reliever LaTroy Hawkins at the cost of Jose Reyes, Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman and Jesus Tinoco.
Was the cost high? Absolutely. But the return was the man who is arguably the best shortstop in Major League Baseball along with a very useful late-inning relief arm.
The Blue Jays already had a shortstop, and the debate for the past two years among fans was whether Reyes’ strong bat made up for his clear deficiencies in the field. From this corner, it very definitely did. With Tulowitzki, though, there are no such concerns.
Not only is the 30 year-old the best offensive shortstop in the game, he’s very good with the glove, as well.
Tulowitzki currently leads all big-league shortstops with an .818 OPS, hitting .300/.348/.371, and while playing his home games at the hitter-friendly Coors Field in Denver certainly doesn’t hurt, Tulowitzki is hitting .299/.343/.459 on the road. That’s an .802 OPS, which on its own would rank third among shortstops in the majors, behind Jhonny Peralta of the Cardinals and San Francisco’s Brandon Crawford.
An all-star five of the last six years, Tulowitzki gives the Blue Jays easily the best left side of the infield in all of baseball, teaming with third baseman Josh Donaldson, a fellow all-star, and not only does he bring a better bat than Reyes, there’s simply no comparison as far as defence is concerned.
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Was shortstop the most pressing need for the Blue Jays to address at the trade deadline? Of course not, pitching is. But third base was hardly the most pressing need for the Jays in the off-season and they still went out and got the best in the business because the deal was available.
In this case, not only did the Blue Jays acquire the game’s best shortstop, they were also able to rid themselves of the albatross that Reyes is rapidly becoming. With Reyes under contract for two years beyond this one at $22 million per year (with a $4 million buyout afterwards), the Blue Jays were going to be stuck with a problem as Reyes’ defence continues to deteriorate. They hadn’t yet been able to move him off shortstop, and the likelihood that they’d have been able to convince him to do so over the next couple of years was slim. And even if they had sold him on a move to left field, the truth is that while Reyes’ bat is elite at short, it’s below average in a corner outfield spot.
So while the Blue Jays had to give up two great pitching prospects in Castro and Hoffman, they were also able to shed the $55 million remaining on Reyes’ contract while replacing him with the player who is arguably the best in the game at his position.
With many Blue Jays fans still scarred from watching Noah Syndergaard’s 13 terrific starts for the Mets so far in his rookie season, there is some trepidation about dealing Hoffman, who has been trumpeted as one of the best pitching prospects in the game since the Blue Jays stole him with the 9th overall pick in last year’s draft.
Hoffman may well wind up being great. And Castro looked so, so good this spring and in the early part of the season, and he may wind up being the dominant closer that we imagined he would be four months ago.
But there’s a reason that the great minds at Baseball Prospectus came up with the acronym TINSTAAPP, and that’s because There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. Young players, especially young pitchers, often have their highest value before they’ve ever set foot in the major leagues. Kyle Drabek was once an untouchable pitching prospect, so was Dustin McGowan. Joba Chamberlain, who the Blue Jays just signed to a minor-league deal having been released by Detroit, was the No. 3 prospect in the game seven years ago.
Included among Baseball America’s Top 20 Prospects going into the 2009 season were Tommy Hanson, Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill along with David Price, Neftali Feliz and Madison Bumgarner. Six years later, that’s two stars out of six – and remember, that’s not the top 20 pitching prospects, that’s the top 20 overall. These were all can’t-miss guys, and two-thirds of them have been unreliable, at the very least.
I’m not suggesting that Hoffman and Castro will fail, but the odds are against them, which is why you move them to acquire someone who has already reached the heights that they likely never will and who remains a top producer – especially if you have the opportunity to shed that Reyes contract in the bargain.
While they won’t be picking ninth overall next year, the Blue Jays will have a first-rounder to replace Hoffman with, and likely two, since they’ll no doubt give free agent Mark Buehrle a qualifying offer. They’ll collect a second first-rounder if he signs somewhere else this winter.
The Blue Jays are a better team now than they were last night. In the space of eight months, Alex Anthopoulos has acquired the two best left-side infielders at their respective positions in the entire game. And don’t sleep on Hawkins, either. The 42 year-old righty, who joins his 11th big-league club, was the Rockies’ closer last year and this year has posted a 1.16 WHIP with 20 strikeouts in 22 1/3 innings.
Away from the hitters’ haven that is Coors Field, he’s holding the opposition to a .209/.244/.279 line, which is pretty impressive. It’s likely Hawkins, who also comes with the reputation of being one of the best human beings in the game, fits in as the Jays’ 7th-inning reliever, bridging the gap to Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna, with Bo Schultz sliding back into earlier work and shortening games even more.
The cupboard is not bare – the Blue Jays still have very highly-regarded young pitchers in Marcus Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Daniel Norris, Sean Reid-Foley, Conner Greene, Matt Smoral, Alberto Tirado, Jairo Labourt, Jon Harris and Matt Boyd, so the idea that they have nothing left to trade or nothing remaining in the system is just silly. Most of those young pitchers will fail, but the same goes for all young pitchers anywhere. It would be great to only trade the ones who won’t ever reach their potential, but no one knows who will and who won’t. The idea is that when you move highly-regarded young pitching, you have to get a significant return.
And boy, did the Blue Jays ever do that.