2:42pm: Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star adds (via Twitter) that the two sides also discussed possible matchups for John Danks and Gordon Beckham, but in the end Toronto ended up settling on Santos "for now."
10:46am: The White Sox and Blue Jays have discussed a trade involving Carlos Quentin, tweets Jon Heyman of MLB Network. However, Heyman adds that talks appear to have cooled, as the White Sox are seeking other suitors.
With the White Sox looking to rebuild, Quentin is one of many veterans that could be had in the right deal this offseason. The Padres, Red Sox, and Orioles are among the teams reported to have had interest in the 29-year-old.
The Blue Jays and White Sox have already worked out one trade this offseason, swapping Sergio Santos and Nestor Molina during this week's Winter Meetings.
Would be nice to see him in a blue jays uniform.
Why would the Jays want Quentin? Or does AA and Kenny just love dealing with each other?
AA apparently likes dealing with Kenny , stating he’s aggressive and can usually get deals done. Clearly this was more then just getting quentin i think which is probably why it felt apart , for now at least.
Strong right handed hitting power hitter who is more reliable than Encarnarcion
107 wRC+ to 115 over the past three seasons. no defensive value, so it’s really not enough of an upgrade for me to want to give up much if i’m the jays
There’s no reason to think that Eric Thames won’t be the left-handed version of Carlos Quentin. Something of a 2.5-3 fWAR player with no defensive value.
Not sure what to think of this… Used to only follow jays and just this year decided to get into the whole MLB.
Bad or good that we didnt get him???
Neutral. Depends what we would have given up. He would be better
protection Than Lind has been the past two seasons in the 4 spot but
only if he played a FULL season ( 140 + games at least) , which he hasn’t in a while. He would also cause even more of a block in left field , most likely would have meant a trade involving Snider or Thames at some point. The trade was probably alot more complex then just aquiring Quentin which is why it probably cooled down.
Hmm, alright thanks for clearing that up.
I don’t really understand this logic. The Blue Jays already have a crowded outfield, and appear to be happy with Encarnacion at DH. The only thing that really makes sense to me is if this is part of a bigger deal such as a three-team trade for pitching.
unfortunately crowded outfield doesn’t mean good outfield
besides bautista who in the outfield can they rely on?
Quintin is a lock for a .800 OPS in the dome.. out of all our outfielders you can only say that about bautista, high hopes for rasmus and a big who the heck knows for snider, thames and davis
I agree to some extent. I like Quentin, but where the franchise is at this point, I’d rather see Snider or Thames out there.
I am thinking more along the lines of Quentin replacing Encarnarcion at DH.
Quentin for the jays opens up a snider ot thames to be packaged for Gonzalez or Garza type of deal. Would make sense
I think you can quite certainly pencil Davis in for a below .800 OPS. No question mark there.
Or we unloaded some outfielders. Quentin’s a work horse and would be great in our lineup to back up Bautista and make sure they don’t walk him in every big situation. On the field, I think LF and DH are his only real options.
I’m not saying the time is now, but at some point if Snider doesn’t produce like he’s expected to, he might be best used as trade bait, along with all of our other extraneous OF…
He’s a work horse? My big issue with Quentin is that he’s never played more than 131 games in a season… I wouldn’t want to give up too much for a guy with that kind of injury history.
Bye Bye Prince Fielder Dreams!
Jays need more pitching. As for Fielder..
lets discuss this… do they really?
Last year the following pitchers made multiple starts
Jojo Reyes, Villanueva, Crappy Kyle Drabek, Crappy Brett Cecil, Slow Starting Morrow..
is the pitching really in that dire of shape?
Yes. Do you want Cecil back in the Rotation?
I do.
def not.. but a strong spring by drabek, and he’s our 8th inning guy
nope. Assuming no additions, I would like to see them break camp with Romero, Morrow, McGowan, Alvarez, and Drabek.
(my picture envisions Drabek coming to Spring Training with his head cleared and a renewed ability to throw strikes).
Yes…if he can regain his 92 MPH velocity…and…only as a placeholder while we wait for some of the top pitching prospects to arrive.
Do you follow what the Blue Jays brass says about their own team? They’ve said they want starting pitching. Another guaranteed innings eater would be nice. All the names you mentioned have the issue where they can’t get consistently deep into games. That’s what the Blue Jays need now.
Now, you could be attempting to be sarcastic, but since my response is this, I guess you failed.
you failed sir.
Yeah I’d say they do. Romero really wasn’t that good last year. Morrow needs to get ground balls a lot more. Drabek should be in the ‘pen to start the year, Cecil can be a solid #4-5 guy, but he needs to pitch at the knees for once. Litsch needs to stay in the pen, as does Villanueva.
No, Romero wasn’t good. That’s why he got votes in the AL Cy Young and posted his best numbers across the board, including wins. His HR was up, sadly, and his win percentage was down. But a lot of that can be attributed to lack of run support. Romero has ace stuff, especially considering he put up those numbers in the AL East.
I agree with Litsch and Villanueva, they’re great for the pen. I don’t see them putting Drabek in the pen. They’ll either keep him in the minors or rotation. And I think you’re bang on about Morrow. If he can keep it up, stay healthy, he’ll be great.
Also, Ricky was pitching against the other teams Ace, which leads to low run support for him.
Romero wasn’t that good last year!?!?! I guess a sub-3.00 ERA and 1.14 WHIP isn’t good?
ERA! WHIP! Blah!
I thought Romero was fantastic last year. His FIP didn’t look all that good because he was pretty unlucky with his HR given up. You could say he was a bit lucky too last year as he didn’t give up many hits but part of that was because he had an extremely low LD%. Is it sustainable? Probably not but Romero did an excellent job at inducing weak groundballs which helped him get a lot of DP to get out of bad situations.
I’d think his LD% returns back to normal and his HR rate goes down next year so he should still be a roughly 3.5-3.70 FIP pitcher.
Also, I completely disagree with Drabek starting in the pen next year. Yeah he’s struggled but he was also rushed and I don’t see why you would move him to the pen so early in his career. I would let Drabek start in the minors and work on his command.
What a ridiculous statement to make. Romero wasn’t really that good last year. The guy pitched 100 times better than Sabathia and didn’t need 14 blowouts to win 14 games of 19. Pitchers that can win with 3 runs or less support are way more valuable than guys that need 10 runs a game to win, per Sabathia. Look at his numbers. He dominates in blowouts and has won exactly 3 games in two years with 3 runs or less. He is 12 – 18 in games where he had more than 3, but less than nine runs a game. Only idiots look at wins or what they do when there is no pressure to pitch, which is very obvious from what many write here. Give Romero 10 runs a game and you see another 30 win pitcher in the majors. That is the difference. Didn’t pitch that good in 2011. Give your head a shake because you are delusional.
The Jays will keep those pitchers for 3 years finish 4th and make good bargain trades for them.
Gotta nuke something
well done.! hahaha
You will find heavy drinking is more effective than baiting us if you are trying to forget about the loss of Pujols.
The numbers Pujols put up in the past 11 years for the Cardinals will not be matched in the next 10 years in LA.
Cardinals paid a total of 104 Million for 11 years = Average 9.45 Million per year (Age 20-31)
Angels paid a total of 254 Million for 10 years = Average 25.4 Million per year (Age 31-41)
Thats is 2.5 times more money than the Cardinals invested in Pujols. LA better hope they win at least 1 World Series in the next decade.
Thats right there is enough to make me forget about Pujols.
What are the chances he stays healthy, he has missed a ton of time over the last few years. Everytime he dives for a ball hes placed on the DL.
I heard the Rays wanted Quentin as well 🙂
I heard the Rays wanted Quentin as well 🙂
Yeah, I just heard that.
Where was this rumor?
Some poster named @tycobb reported it.
I bet they the talks included Sox 2B Gordon Beckham, and when the Jays kept their 2B Johnson, that kinda killed the hot talks. If Quentin can play 140 games though, he’ll be productive: 30+ hr, 100+ rbi, 80+runs, so I bet he gets moved within the next week or so after the non-tenders go out.
Quentin has been injured a lot, but they were kinda freakish injuries, getting hit on the wrist during his breakout season screwed up the possible MVP award that year & messed with his next season though he came back as good as anyone who had a broken wrist, and then his shoulder injury diving for a ball, which looked like a horrible injury, but is now ok. He plays with quiet passion, angry, almost vicious, if he got to DH a little & maybe play LF, that would slow down his injury rate I think.
On this, I can agree. Getting Encarnacion to learn LF, and having Johnson available, could mean you can give Quentin either DH days or days off, with people to fill in the holes.
Not to be picky, but when Quentin broke his wrist in ’08, it wasn’t because it was hit. Rather, he slammed his fist into his bat in frustration after an AB in Cleveland. That little move cost him the final month of ’08 and a really good chance at MVP, as you mentioned.
He also dealt with plantar fasciitis during ’09, but it really hasn’t come up since.
Adding Quentin in a move to open up Snider and/or Thames for trade would be a viable option. Adding a bat like his to protect Bautista, then using the young guys as trade chips for starting pitching. AA is all about multi-team deals, as we’ve learned in the past, so I would not be surprised if this was a plan. That also means that talks could have cooled because AA was unable to make progress on other deals. Acquiring a closer was easy, but I see a much more convoluted process to get us a great starter.
Think a lot of people are giving up wayy too early on a 23 year old kid with this much potential. And since it would be such a sell-low situation, you wouldn’t get anything good in a starting pitcher with him in the deal anyways. They’re probably waiting on Darvish to sign somewhere before making their move for the rotation, but def wouldn’t mind seeing Edwin Jackson end up here to eat up an easy 200 innings as a No. 3 starter if Yu lands elsewhere.
Also not sure why the jays aren’t taking a harder look at Aramis Ramirez on a 1-3 year deal as a way to add a power bat without giving anything up in a Quentin deal — nice insurance at third in case Lawrie slips out of the gate or EE/Lind aren’t consistent enough at 1B/DH.
Carlos Quentin – Orioles are among the teams reported to have had interest in the 29-year-old. I don’t think the Orioles were ever interested in Carlos.
1st he’s a right fielder.. we have Markakis
2nd I think the White Sox were trying to dump him and his salary on us if we got Gavin Floyd in trade.
3rd If anyone had interest it was Duquette and let me tell you, I am ready to run him out of town with the way things are progressing in “Charm City”
It wasn’t fan interest that wanted to bring ol Carlos to town, that I am sure of!
1- Carlos played left as well, other than the last 2 years. He plays both corner positions
2 – White Sox ARE looking to shed salary, since they are tearing the team down completely. They aren’t trying to trade a dud player, they want to rebuild, as it was said earlier in the paragraph.
3 – GMs are meant to do the best for their team. Look at Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopolous. Traded Halladay, then next year traded Marcum. Fan loved starters. He got good returns out of them though, wasn’t LOVED at the time but we knew what was going on. Imagine if you had Quentin and Markekis on your corners. Not too shabby my friend.
not particularly great on the corners either. Doesn’t really seem to make sense given where the O’s are at right now in their rebuild.
CQ is inevitably going to be gone by season’s start…whatever
Probably smokin a litte too much on these thoughts, but IF Quentin is brought in, the following could happen
Trade Snider or Thames, Lind and Drabek or another SP prospect for high end SP perhaps Gonzalez, Latos, etc…
Fielder gets signed
New Lineup
Ramus
Escobar
Bautista
Fielder
Quentin
Lawrie
Johnson
Arencibia
EE/Thames/Snider
But, I’ve been wrong before
You still aren’t better than the Sox, Yanks, or Rays with that line up.
I’d say that lineup is prety easily better than the Rays’.
Of course, pitching and defense is another matter.
Ryan Howard for Adam Lind. Done.
Consider though, I think the White Sox really want to tear it ALL apart, including Danks (who may be of interest to the Blue Jays), Floyd, Quentin, Beckham, but also Kornerko, Pyrzyinski (tho, who would want him?), Peavy (same thing). I think Williams is closing the book on his last few years & wants to get rid of the almost the whole damn team, except of course the untradeables, Dunn & Rios. Most GM’s get fired for getting themselves into this much crap. I guess that championship really meant a lot to their owner.
Danks/Floyd and Quentin for some pitching prospects could get interesting. Maybe like Deck McGuire, Drew Hutchinson, Asher Wojciechowski and Evan Crawford for either Danks or Floyd and Quentin
I don’t think it’s worth it for the Jays to empty half their pitching depth in the farm system for a year of Danks and Quentin.
ya, they really wouldn’t make the jays that much better now and it would definitely hurt in the long run.
Unless the Jays extend Danks.
Yeah, pretty much. If they can get a window for extension, then I think it’s worth it for them.
that’s a separate deal from the trade. Of course you’d try to extend him, but why would you give the ChiSox a package that would be worth extended-Danks?
Because you can do a trade that is conditional on a contract extension. I think it happened with Halladay to Philly trade a few years ago.
Halladay had 2 teams he was willing to play for
Danks will probably not want to sign when he can hit the open market
I’m just saying it’s possible to make a trade that hinges on a contract extension, not saying Danks would be open to it.
I must be lost somewhere, I thought Evan Crawford was with the cubs? was there a trade
Seeing as KW asked for Montero and Banuelos for Floyd/Danks, I assume he would start with Gose and D’Arnaud just to warm talk.
Probably why it cooled down so quickly.
I would love to have Quentin, he would be a good 4 behind Bautista, or a good 5 behind Fielder ;), I’m not sure what it would take to get him, I know its not Gose and D’Arnaud like the person above me said. But I would give them a package around Jiminez, Thames and a pitching prospect (decent ones), he is a beast at the plate when he stays healthy.
The Sox want pitching back. They wouldn’t want Thames. They might want Jimenez, but I think they would rather have something like McGuire and another decent pitching prospect for Quentin.
Quentin is not going to make the Jays that much better.
Wow!! Jays must be @&$! awesome.
nah, Quentin just isn’t that great.
He is when he is healthy. Guy has huge power and is solid at getting on base (tons of HBP). Plus, without looking up the numbers, I would say he is probably better with the bases loaded than any Jays player.
Thats the problem. He’s hurt alot and can’t be counted on for a full season. I wouldn’t trade any top prospects for him thats for sure.
He has played in 75% of his games in his career, and none of his injuries, IIRC, were re-occuring. He is only a health risk because he seems to have bad luck, not because he is not healing properly or has bad mechanics or anything like that.
Agreed. Maybe with the addition of Fielder or someone of that type.But Quentin alone in the lineup isn’t gonna be that great of improvement. Especially with his injury past.
What, did the Blue Jays run out of 25 year old A-ball players to give to the Wite Sox?
None of that comment makes sense. Who was the last 25-year-old A-ball player the Blue Jays gave the white sox?
I think he was describing either Nestor Molina or Zach Stewart
in both cases, he’s wrong. but ya
Right, that’s what I was getting at, how wrong he was on all accounts.
It’s always suprising how fans never learn how risky “prospects” are. I mean, cause a guy does well at AA & Jim Callis puts him in your teams Top 15, doesn’t mean that player is worth more than a halfway decent OF with an injury history. As a Sox fan I am tired of Kenny Williams’ way, I really am, but he has moved more supposed star prospects around, Aaron Cunningham, Chris Carter, Anthony Webster, and on & on as much as anybody else has traded “prospects” and the only time it has been regrettable was trading Gio Gonzalez that second time. Chris Young, meh, whatever, maybe he’ll keep moving it forward and make another on that regret list, but Kenny has been doing this type of stuff for as long as he’s been GM. His real prpblem is what he’s dealing with now, trading the vets, he’s not so good at that.
Here’s a proposal for the Jays which Might work, but all would have to fall in place:
Jays Sign Prince Fielder for 5 years with vesting options for 6 and 7; which would negate criticisms about his weight, and completely goes against AA’s philosophy when signing longer-term contracts.
To TB:
Adam Lind
Prospect? (if needed)
To TOR:
Joel Peralta
JP Howell
Jays move JP Arenciba to Part time DH/1B, alternating with Prince.
Jays call up D’Arnaud for full-time starting duty.
This would help make the team’s core players younger, and unblock D’Arnaud, and thus increase his value. Everyone in the Jays starting lineup would have 20HR+ power, with two 50 threats, and potentially two 30+ threats (Arencibia, healthy Snider with a full year).
Potential Lineup
SS Escobar
LF/CF/RF Thames/Snider
3B/2B Lawrie
RF/3B Bautista
1B/DH Fielder
CF Rasmus
DH/1B/C Arencibia
2B/LF Johnson
C D’Arnaud
Bench
C Mathis
DH/1B/3B (hopefully not 3B) Encarnacion
2B/SS Valbuena
OF/PR Davis
Rotation
SP Romero
SP Morrow
SP Alvarez
SP McGowan
SP Cecil/Drabek/FA Acquisition
Bullpen
RP Janssen
RP Villanueva
RP Howell
RP Peralta
RP Carreno
RP Perez
CP Santos
(with maybe a FA Aquisition as a RP)
Seems to be a contending lineup to me.
Thoughts?
arencibia isn’t a good enough hitter to be playing 1B/DH. I’d rather they keep d’Arnaud down, at least until midseason.
I think JPA will be fine; he battled thumb/wrist problems throughout the year, and still hasn’t had 500 MLB at bats. At 1B/DH, he’s less prone to injury, and thus potentially more productive.
Projected to 550 abs, he’s at 29 HR, with 95 RBI.
That’s better than Lind’s production.
I think it’s better to just keep JPA at catcher for the year, no need to rush d’Arnaud, and DH EE. I really like EE’s bat and plate discipline. I’m positive that if EE get’s full time DH duties, maybe spell 1B or 3B several games, he’ll post very good numbers. I think he could have an OPS of.800-.850.
I didn’t quite get the motivation to call up D’arnaud. Why not give him full playing time at AAA and JPA full catching duties with the Jays?
D’Arnaud is coming of an AA MVP year, he should be able to scratch his way through a full MLB year. AAA will definitely be more beneficial at this point, but the idea is purely speculative.
Alternatively: You could leave JPA at catcher, have EE DH/1B platoon with Fielder, and have room for another bench player.
D’Arnaud isn’t ready for ML action yet. He’s had 114 games at AA level. With JP as Catcher theres no need to rush a young catcher up just to fill a spot. Anyone on the teams capable of DH’ing.
I just threw up in my mouth
Yikes.. three 21 year olds in key spots in your rotation and starting lineup. Might be a good idea to look up how players in their early 20’s usually perform, or you’re probably going to be up for a major let down. Possibly a great lineup/rotation in a couple years, but expectations for this upcoming season might be a little too high imho.
First off you uninformed people… Quentin is awesome but a bit streaky. He can carry a team from like late May until July 1 and kind of tail off a bit at the end. As far as his defense goes its as sound a right field as you can play. Ive seen him lay out and really get a few in mid air. Not sure how much he is worth because of him only being signed for a year but if the Jays could extend him he would be a good pick up.