The Blue Jays acquired pitcher Merkin Valdez from the Giants for cash considerations, reports CSNBayArea.com's Mychael Urban. Valdez was designated for assignment on January 14th to make room for Aubrey Huff.
Valdez, 28, posted a 5.66 ERA, 6.9 K/9, and 5.1 BB/9 in 49.3 innings for the Giants last year. He throws in the mid-90s and was ranked among the top 60 prospects in baseball before October '06 Tommy John surgery.
i wonder how much dough? can’t be much
YES! a trade!
Jays acquire bullpen depth like nobody else in the Majors.
Wow, Anthopolous is all about reclamation projects… fine by me.
He has a fastball, but nothing else.
He never panned out as my top prospect in MVP Baseball 2005. I’m not sure I can approve this deal.
First Bocock and now Merkin..
ya he is weak!
very true. he does have a fastball but has no control with it.
C’mon, I always liked Merkin the Magician. I’ve seen him look nasty a couple of time, just can’t put it together, definitely a guy worth look.
Cant put it Together lol brandon league to eh?
Could we potentially use this cash to take a flyer on Brynes? He has already said his number one preference is the Giants and he could maybe be good…possibly a 1 million dollar (last year uribe like) minor league deal?
wouldn’t cost a million, it’d only take the major league minimum, byrnes is getting paid the same amount next year no matter what the new team pays him
The problem with this theory is that of our four bench players, we have three outfielders (Torres, Velez, Lewis), and Travis Ishikawa, who is… apparently getting some time in left field during ST. So, if you acquire Byrnes, you need to get rid of one or more outfielders. Most likely Lewis.
Lewis was never meant to be with the Giants anyways.
Yes, but more relevant is, what do you do with him. He doesn’t have a minor league option, so the Giants either have to ditch him (perhaps as they did with Valdez, for cash considerations), or just cut him loose. Can the Giants find an interested team to buy his contract? Probably. But looking at the Giants’ offensive numbers, he could wind up being a better option as a pinch hitter. I don’t think his career is ever going to “take off,” so I don’t feel too bad about keeping him as a bat off the bench. I’d sooner trade Velez, who is just a worse version of Andres Torres.
i have a feeling valdez will figure it out and post a sub 2.00 ERA strikeout 96 batters in 78 innings…the blue jays and the giants meet in the world series bottom of the ninth game 7 Valdez throws a fastball down the middle and Pablo Sandoval hits it out of the park to win it…lawls jk jk…seriously though this guy gave up too many key hits and HRs for the Giants but I wish him the best of luck in Toronto he can still turn around his career.
Isn’t a merkin a ….?
a merkin is a pubic wig, btw…
Cash considerations is more then I expected.
This is unfortunate for Merkin. AL East pitching is going to KILL him. I think he would have been safest in the NL Central to cover up for the fact that he has one pitch that doesn’t move much.
Toronto is all about the players that they think they can magically turn them around.
Reclamation projects is the Jays specialty.
Didn’t the Blue Jays take another hard thrower from the Giants (Jeremy Accardo) and convert him into a decent closer for a couple of years? I hope they have the same success w/Valdez. It wasn’t too long ago that his stock seemed higher than Brian Wilson’s (until he got injured again…).
yes the jays got him for shea hillenbrand, they got one good year out of accardo before he got hurt and lost his knucklecurve
Your wrong he didnt lose anything he saved 30 games a few years back but was the only player in the jays bullpen with options so they could send him back and fourth between the minors and big leaugues. He is still a good bullpen pitcher and could close for some teams possibly the jays when downs and frasor are traded at the deadline.
uhh ya that year with the 30 saves was the one good year they got out of him, what exactly was so wrong with that? and no i’m not wrong, he lost his knucklecurve. why do you think he spent the entire year in the minors when every other pitcher and his dog were called up before him? he hasn’t been effective at all since that year he was the closer.
Because he had options left, making him the easy target to be dogged around between AAA and the Bigs. Also, Cito Gaston pretty much hates him for no apparent reason.
accardo has played his way out of the jays organization. reason why he was offered arbitration is he still has value – from what i understand is after the arm injury he didnt want to throw his knuckle curve and that is what peeved the jays brass. this to boot that after one game in texas his jersey was found tossed in the trash. nice… he also has came out publicly and requested a trade. he will be accommodated.
Jays will be real happy with how quickly the ball flies out of the park when he throws 100.
Eeeeexactly.
The Jays give up only cash for a live arm…its worth a shot …the next move to follow could be a Jason Frasor trade
The Giants are going to regret giving up on Valdez. The Giants have a way of trading or giving up on pitchers that turn into studs for other teams. Jeremy Accardo, Joe Nathan, David Aardsma, Kevin Correia, Francisco Liriano, etc. It’s still mind boggling why Fred Lewis wasn’t designated over Valdez.
He’s been in the Giants’ system for 7 years, is 28 years old, and despite being surrounded by an excellent pitching staff, doesn’t seem to have shown much if any improvement. He doesn’t have a good pitch repertoire and his bread and butter doesn’t have much movement. Even if it’s 100 MPH, it’s just a fastball. He doesn’t have great command, gives up a lot of hits and walks, and gives up the big hit. No matter how hard you throw, if you leave a fastball over the fat part of the plate, a major league hitter is gonna destroy it.
Also, I wouldn’t consider anybody on that list a “stud” other than Nathan, and that trade became legendarily bad, so it speaks for itself. Valdez might look salvageable, but I don’t think he’ll ever amount to anything.
Nathan was a bust on the Giants, they had virtually no way of knowing he would end up doing as well as he is.. sure they could have waited longer but that still wasnt their fault.. Liriano still hasnt done a damn thing in the league (thanks to injuries, however, which could hamper him for the rest of his career), but I do agree they should have held on to Valdez and DFA’d Lewis.. although he only has one pitch with no movement, all he needed to do was develop one more pitch and he could be a serviceable relief pitcher.. but as of right now, he just reminded me of a Felix Rodriguez with a little less control.. its funny though because they actually think they are going to get something of value from trading Lewis.. who would give up anything of value to take that guy?
He sure was good on MVP2005
Was he the guy that gave up the walk-off Grany to Spilborghs and virtually took us off contention? Let him be a stud elsewhere I really really hate him. We have Runzler now…