The Royals are “in talks” with the Blue Jays on starter Francisco Liriano, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). Kansas City has been rumored to be looking at starters even after striking a deal to add Trevor Cahill from the Padres. The club may also have some interest in Jays righty Marco Estrada, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation notes on Twitter.
Liriano, a 33-year-old southpaw, has had a rocky season thus far, posting a 5.99 ERA over 76 2/3 innings over 17 starts. After providing good results late in 2016 upon arriving in Toronto, his longstanding walk problems have resurfaced as his swinging-strike rate has fallen to a career-low 9.7%. On the year, he has managed only 8.2 K/9 to go with 4.9 BB/9.
The Jays are surely interested in finding a taker for Liriano with the club sputtering in the standings. Doing so will undoubtedly require eating a significant portion of the remainder of his $13MM salary. As K.C. looks to find improvements without giving up much in the way of prospects or taking on huge additional payroll obligations, the pending free agent could represent something of a buy-low candidate; he might also conceivably pair well with Cahill if the team sees merit in the idea of piggybacking the two pitchers rather than dedicating a single rotation spot to either.
That said, it is unclear as yet whether the Royals will ultimately choose to go after Liriano. MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan hears (Twitter link) that Kansas City has watched his last two outings. But the southpaw’s “inconsistency has been concerning” to the Royals’ talent evaluators.
Inconsistency has indeed marked Liriano’s career. He was one of the game’s most productive hurlers from 2013 through 2015, when he turned in 510 innings of 3.26 ERA ball. But he has managed only a 5.11 mark in his 239 innings since. And this year, Liriano has made it through more than six innings only twice; he also spent time on the DL with shoulder inflammation.
I don’t know how any wannabe contending team can look at Liriano and think he’ll help. Unless he’s used as a reliever, he’ll likely be useless. I guess he could be exactly like last year though, and instantly turn better the second he is traded.
Liriano had a brief resurgence last year because he switched leagues. It didn’t take the AL long to learn what the NL knows. He never throws strikes. Don’t swing. And he’ll serve meatballs when he’s actually forced to pitch in the strike zone.
Yinzers still whine about the “dumping” of Liriano as if he were the Cy Young favorite this year….instead of a $13 million box of grenades that will blow up your season.
Come to think of it, they still whine about Neil Walker as if he’s competing for the triple crown this year, instead of admitting that he’s a guy with a bad back making $17 million on the DL.
And there is even one blowhard here who whines about them getting rid of Pedro Alvarez. PEDRO. The guy who is playing in Norfolk. And has been all year.
Worst local media in MLB. Dumbest fan base in the league (on average).
Wonder if the Jays will throw in Ramirez and McGuire in the deal for the Royals to consider taking Frankie? That would be hysterical. The local guys would be speechless.
Speechless as in they wouldn’t mention it at all.
They could not mention it as they would not be able to blame the evil Bob Nutting for another team doing the same thing. It would be priceless!
The weirdest one is the guy who vouched for Bob Nutting years ago and who now blames the front office for having some sort of mind control over Nutting rather than blame Nutting.
So, the front office has absolutely hoodwinked the owner into….operating cheaply to pad his profit instead of winning? Odd.
It’s so convoluted that you can’t believe they keep doubling down with this pretzel logic and yet…here we are.
Also, I love it when the local guys (basically) brag about not knowing the players on other teams. So, they acknowledge judging the Pirates with zero context…basically, against the Pens and Steelers instead of other MLB teams.
And this is who informs and educates the Pirates fan base.
Jbelltolls..I’m not sure where you’re finding these Pirate fans at (one of the newspapers?) but there are several Pirate blogs where there are actual smart Pirate fans. Those fans realize that, despite the initial reactions, it seems that NH was smart unloading Frankie’s contract.
Why would the Jays add prospects for them to take Liriano when he’s a free agent at the end of the year
My initial reaction was the same, because the Pirates never actually came out and told the world “hey, this guy Reese McGuire blows and will NOT be the catcher of the future” but I did some homework and found out that McGuire blows so it was no big loss.
Jays will only eat salary if a half- decent prospect comes back (which seems unlikely but who knows?). Otherwise what’s the point?
There’s no way anyone will trade for him without some salary offset. He’ll go for a #20-#25 prospect in the Royals org and the Jays will pay half his salary going forward. There’s not much else you can expect. If there was, the Jays would have already done it in my opinion.
True. The Jays are not cash strapped and makes no difference to them regarding remaining salary. Liriano is good. Sometimes. His inconsistency is frustrating.
Something is better than nothing.
Something like going for the second wildcard? Believe it or not the Jays are still only 6 games out. Theres no point in trading anyone for a small step up from nothing.
Remember that 6 (actually, 6.5) is a lot harder when you have to pass 7 other teams too. It’d be a little different if they were the first or second team out and had to gain 6.5 on one or two teams. You can’t count on the whole league to play poorly, so the Jays will have to start winning and win a lot from here on out. At this point their playoff likelihood appears to be between 3 and 5% depending on the source, and I personally would rather sell all my pieces than shoot for a 5% chance of a one-game wild card berth.
Dude, we’re not making the playoffs outside of a miracle. Liriano, Estrada, Bautista, Smith and even Happ should be traded if they can get anything halfway decent. I’d even include Smoak to that list since I have serious doubts that his value will ever be higher than it is now. I’m not for blowing up the team and moving guys like Osuna, Sanchez, Stroman and maybe Donaldson (I’d consider moving him though as he’d net them a ton still), but you might as well get SOMETHING for the guys whose contracts expire at the end of the season (Happ of course having one more year left).
I totally get that but if you are not going to get any return then why bother. Unless they see a lot of value in pieces that the royals do not see, they are better off rolling with what they have and hope that either one of the impending free agents goes on a roll, and they can actually get a potentially useful peice for next year ), or that the team somehow starts playing to their ability level and gets back in the race.
My point is just paying liriano and getting a lotery ticket back doesnt make a lot of sense for them.
I don’t think Liriano is gonna be much help for the Royals either but if the bluejays can get a prospect like Nolan Watson it could be a steal Toronto
No way three months of Francisco Liriano is worth Nolan Watson even though he’s been getting rocked this year.
True
Toronto should include Reese McGurie and Harold Ramirez in any deal that involves Liriano.
That’s great work right there — well done Greg.
I said the same thing above. Hoping for it. Would be great if it happens cause I would love to hear what the local talking heads in Pittsburgh would say about that.
Do the Royals feel the need to make a stupid trade to follow up the great one they made a few days ago?
Stupid might be a bit strong, if we can pick up Liriano for a song and Dave Eiland thinks he can get him, fine. If it’s a prospect I’ve heard of, then it’s a bad deal.
I do tend to trust Eiland with this one. He doesn’t look very good to me, but if the KC pitching staff sees a couple tweaks in his delivery to fix him up, I get it. They do a good job with serviceable pitchers.
Perhaps, but Liriano had Ray Searage as a pitching coach in Pittsburgh. He tends to do very well with ‘reclamation projects’, forgive the term. Look at players like Happ, Ivan Nova, etc. Even he couldn’t fix Liriano at the end of the day.
Why not just trade for Miguel Gonzalez
Please don’t make this trade unless it doesn’t cost much. I don’t see Liriano helping the Royals make a push for the playoffs.
He won’t.
Cleveland fans everywhere are cheering for the Royals to make this trade.
Lirano can probably be a very good reliever. I think he is done as a starter. His body mechinics are awful for a pitcher, not a repeatable deliver, falls away from the mound, and tough to find a balance point. If he can come into a game and only focus on using 2 pitches for strikes, then he can still be very very effective. His slider is still awesome. Other teams know this but the stumbling block appears to be his contract and trade compensation.
He probably only has 40-50 innings left in him this year so the Blue Jays should take whatever they can get for him in a prospect. He won’t make it to the playoffs unless he’s only used as long reliever to eat some innings.
As a Royals fan, I would much rather see them make a run at Estrada. Unfortunately the Royals have a very weak farm system, so I would be shocked if the Royals could land Estrada without giving up someone on the MLB roster.