It’s expected that Indians right-hander Julian Merryweather will be the player they eventually send to the Blue Jays to complete this week’s Josh Donaldson trade, Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports. There’s plenty of time for a resolution here, as the sides have until Jan. 30, 2019, to determine the PTBNL. If it proves to be Merryweather, Toronto will be getting a soon-to-be 27-year-old who does not rank among the Indians’ top 30 prospects at MLB.com right now – likely because he underwent Tommy John surgery in March and hasn’t pitched this season. Merryweather did rank as the Tribe’s 16th-best farmhand at MLB.com after last season.
- Like Merryweather, Donaldson has endured an injury-ravaged 2018. Calf problems have kept the third baseman out since the end of May, and Indians president Chris Antonetti said Sunday that it remains unclear when he’ll debut with his new team (via Davidi). It’s possible the Indians will place Donaldson back on the 10-day disabled list and have him join one of their minor league affiliates for a rehab assignment, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal says (video link). Meanwhile, they’ll prepare third baseman Jose Ramirez to play second base and second baseman Jason Kipnis to head to the outfield. Ramirez – who’s having an MVP-caliber season – does not want to constantly toggle between second and third, per Rosenthal, so Cleveland will have to be certain Donaldson’s healthy before inserting him into its lineup.
- The Blue Jays didn’t commit to trading Donaldson until “late in the day” on Aug. 31, the waiver deadline, general manager Ross Atkins tells Arash Madani of Sportsnet (video link). Asked why the Jays didn’t simply keep Donaldson and issue the pending free agent an ~$18MM qualifying offer after the season, Atkins suggested the player they’ll receive for him is more useful than the pick they’d have gotten had Donaldson rejected the QO. Atkins believes the player’s “an exciting upper-level talent” who will have a near-future impact in the majors.
- Donaldson grew into a leader as a Blue Jay and wanted to sign a long-term pact with the team, but the feeling wasn’t necessarily mutual, John Lott of The Athletic explains (subscription required). While Donaldson and the Jays discussed an extension last offseason, the team’s offer was “significantly” lower than Donaldson’s asking price – particularly with respect to contract length – Lott reports. Still, despite whatever issues he may have had with the franchise, Donaldson didn’t want to be traded, according to Lott.
Do you think he will resign with the Tribe? I’d like for him to go to the Cardinals!!
considering the indians never sign any high profile players (outside of encarnacion), and have andrew miller and cody allen among pending free agents, i would say the chances the indians are even in the discussion is slim to none
They won’t resign Donaldson, but I think that has more to do with trying to resign at least one of Brantley, Allen or Miller. They might have Yandy start 3rd next year & keep Ramirez at 2nd.
Plus Donaldson’s injury history is very concerning.
Please remember. The Cardinals still have John Mozeliak!!! He would never sign a player of Donaldson’s abilities. “Mozeliak loves Low Hanging Fruit!” Rarely works out right for the Cardinals.
Really?? I don’t care much for Mozeliak but he did sign Fowler and Ozuna. It hasn’t gone very well, but he will spend money. You’re a dope.
Ozuna was a trade
Once again your lame attempt to down Mo doesn’t work…seriously you are not a fan so change your screen name to anything but Cardinals
Donaldson is low-hanging fruit.
With one more season of the brutal EE and Kipnis contracts, I seriously doubt it.
Milwaukee’s probable SS in 2019
Not if future HoF Rob Refsynder has anything to say about that
Anybody who tries to drop a Refsynder comment should be banned from this site.
What is this fascination with Rob Refsnyder? Hasn’t he proved to every single one of us, that he’s the real deal?
What are you kookoo
“If it proves to be Merryweather, Toronto will be getting a soon-to-be 27-year-old who does not rank among the Indians’ top 30 prospects at MLB.com right now – likely because he underwent Tommy John surgery in March and hasn’t pitched this season.”
“Asked why the Jays didn’t simply keep Donaldson and issue the pending free agent an ~$18MM qualifying offer after the season, Atkins suggested the player they’ll receive for him is more useful than the pick they’d have gotten had Donaldson rejected the QO. Atkins believes the player’s “an exciting upper-level talent” who will have a near-future impact in the majors.”
That sounds like what Huntingdon said about Drew Hutchison.
Translation: They didn’t want to risk Donaldson accepting the QO and paying him $18 million to rehab another year and took anything in return for him.
Bingo.
If Meryweather is the piece coming back in retur for Donaldson it is a very highly leveraged bet. I hope that the Jays are smart enough and can get better.
Jays front office dropped the ball on the Donaldson matter, they gambled on JD’s health and lost. Why so reluctant to rebuild, Jays? I don’t buy the Rogers ‘attendance’ excuse, that’s hardly a circumstance unique to Toronto. I think Jays fans would embrace an honest rebuild. A timely trading of Donaldson, in place of this last minute dumping of a potential qualifying offer, would have contributed nicely to such a rebuild.
You’re already getting that rebuild! The aging veterans have been playing out their contracts (or rehabbing in Florida) then finishing up their careers elsewhere, while the farm system is getting replenished through drafting and trades. Heck, even a Rule 5 guy the Blue Jays picked up last year just co-won the FSL batting title with one of his teammates.
The Blue Jays farm system is now a consensus top-3, something the organization hasn’t really had anytime in its history except for maybe around 1980. Gotta have a good farm system before you can have a good major-league team.
AA had the Jays system top 3 in 2012 and that was after it being bottom 3 when he started in 2009.
Yeah as the poster above mentioned we are getting that rebuild now. Definitely a sell low situation as it pertains to JD. They were not going to trade him in the 2016 off season given we just came off our 2nd ALCS. There was no way to predict what would happen last year. But they held on a year too long. Last off season was the time to trade him after he finished the year strong. It was a longshot for us to make the playoffs this year going into the year- everything would have to go right. And honestly with JDs age and with Guerrero, Bichette, Biggio and further away Groshans in the system, there was like no chance we would sign JD to a deal longer than 1 to 2 years. And he would want at least 4 most likely before the wheels fell off this year for him.
… the Jays might be rebuilding now, rather sheepishly, but only after the Toronto front office talked openly about “competing” in 2018 – the Jays are 31 games out in the AL East. Now the Jays GM is saying the team will be “extremely competitive” in three years which, from my point of view, is a far more encouraging front office stance than pretending to be competitive in 2018. Halladay, Wells, Rios, Delgado, Bautista, Encarnacion, Donaldson, they all left the Jays and brought no return – remarkably poor strategy in terms of rebuilding.
Yup no arguments with the above. Hopefully we can get there un 3 years but am leery of our pitching in the system
Encarnacion brought back Pearson
Who is stuck in Single-A turning 22. Until he can prove he can dominate in the minors we have to temper expectations with Pearson. For now.
This trade just put the Indians as the favorite to win the American League.
Over Boston? Do not agree.
Hahahahahaha
As a A’s fan I always cherished Josh Donaldson. When A’s Master of all trades Billy Beane stoled away a very young JD from the cubs – he was brought as a catcher – then Billy who needed a third baseman knowing Eric Chavez was leaving as a free agent, then decided to give Donaldson a try at third base and fellows what a turned around that was! Oakland is fine now with Chapman but hey what a stud of a player Josh Donaldson is! Great pic by the Indians!
I agree with most of the posters here. The Jays totally mismanaged JD and mismanaged the trade.
If a player wants to use his own medical staff or hitting coach so be it, it is not the frist time nor the last that a player has found a better solution for himself than the team can provide.
Any last minute decision made to trade a player by team Mgmt is irresponsible. I believe Atkins was told trade him by Shapiro or by the Board of Directors. Atkins looks like a goat and pawn in this scenario.
Let’s hope the Jays get a real prospect back in the deal. Merryweather is a very weak alternative and certainly doesn’t fit into the ““an exciting upper-level talent” pool. Merryweather is an over the hill wounded warrior.
This whole scenario just continues to clearly demonstrate the ineptitude of the Jays front office. Even Atkins reported opinion that the Jays will be “extremely competative” in 3 years says the same about the incompetence. They have already had 2 years to rebuild this mess and failed miserably at the MLB level. Where are the MLB level stars today?
Dombrowski and Cashman rebuilt their whole respective MLB level clubs in 2 years. Why is it going to take Atkins 5-7 years? This stinks.
The Jays have two, yes only two potential stars in the entire organization right now, Vlad Jr and Nate Pearson. All the rest [including Bichette] are just potential MLB pieces. In order to win, any MLB club must have a roster full of stars.
Shaprio couldn’t win in 12 years in Cleveland. Remember the purpose is to win at the MLB level not build a deep farm system and lie to the fans over and over about the chances of winning. Shapiro’s “long term competativeness” strategy means the Jays won’t be winning for a “long term”.
You may not be aware of or have good information regarding Julian Merryweather, if, indeed, he is the PTBNL in this deal.
Merryweather, prior to his injury, was considered a better version of Shane Bieber.. Merryweather had the same kind of control, had two plus pitches and a third pitch that was average or better. Julian’s a big guy that can throw hard (mid 90’s late in games) and controls the running game.
If he comes back healthy & with the same kind of presence, command and control, the Jays will have gotten a solid # 3 SP who they will control for five plus years..
Pretty good return for a one month rental that would have netted a draft pick, otherwise..
Jimmer….about a week or so ago we alluded to the medical staff of the Toronto Blue Jays, which has been somewhat “interesting” over the last decade or so. There have been countless examples only local Jays fans know about. So to explain the issues that have surfaced to outsiders is pointless.
A rebuilding team receiving a 27-year old for a guy that was one of the top players in baseball a short while ago was a waste of time by the Jays front office. It tells us they really wanted to rid themselves of Donaldson, badly. This is not the first time Donaldson has had issues with management. This is now a pattern.
Still, force Donaldson’s hand. Hold onto him and QO him. Jays management opted not to. Awful decisions. That’s ground for dismissal. However….
Shapiro has already alluded to why the rebuild didn’t start last year; Rogers needed business (apparently). So this goes back to ownership. They are sliding under the radar when it comes to being accountable for the Jays failures.
Also, stop with the Top 3 farm system crap. Vlad is a stud. Take him out and the Jays do not crack the Top 10. Not with any future stud pitchers (Nate Pearson is not a stud). Not with weak OF prospects and aside from Bichette being 20 we don’t know what to think of any player under 21. The rest aren’t performing (Alford, Urena, Warmoth). Jays are a LONG way away.
Shapiro is the one who built the core of this Indians team.
Exactly. Farm systems that don’t win anything.
Man, Atkins is brutal. I watched/listened to the sportsnet feed today and Buck asked him if he was excited about Vlad. He said about 70 words with little to no emotion….how does that sell the team??? All the robotic nerdy dudette had to say was “wow, excited? Nobody has come close to his batting achievement in the past 40-50 years”…and it would’ve had substantially more impact on fans than droning on about how well he’s handled it…Damn, no wonder any player with a temperature leaves this team…
Atkins does look and talk like Clark Kent but do not judge a book by its cover. This interview was done before Josh was to have a media session so Russ wants to keep everything low key and positive as I hope Josh does. I can see how Josh would be upset he did not get the years or money he hoped for from the Jays. Well the Jays are trying to see he has the best shot of getting an offer close to what he wants. A healthy Josh and some decent pitching from someone else not named Happ and the Jays may have been closer this year. It did not work out. A lot of teams can hope they will rebuild and contend in a year or two but it is never easy especially when three teams in the AL (Boston, NY,Angels) will spend , spend , spend.
I never mentioned JD…and from what I heard, both parties kept it civil and decent….I’m talking about selling tickets and having a front office who’s as excited for the future as the fans should be…why the diversionary talk about what might have been??…let’s talk about the way things are
Sparkle you’re spot-on. TigerFan pretends to be in-tune with Blue Jays baseball. He isn’t.
I also did not see you mention JD. Proving my point.
My guess is Atkins wants to temper excitement on Vlad because there are no plans to bring him up. With that, getting a feeling the Jays want Vlad to remain in AAA beyond mid-April next year. Just a feeling, not a fact.
How on earth does it prove your point that the guy brought up Donaldson?
TrimReaper I may be wrong but were you the one that last week said it would end with the Jays giving Josh a QO. I stated that if that was the case I would NEVER post again on this site. Well I guess I can still post. The Jays situation is quite simple. They have a lot of good young hitters. Its the SP that is always the deciding factor . teams. They need Sanchez and Stroman to figure it out. Look at the Rays with average hitting throughout the line up but still close to a 500 team because of Snell, Yarborough. What a great trade getting Glasnow is looking like. Small market teams can not make a mistake like the Pirates may have done with Glasnow.
No TigerFan. I said the Jays SHOULD be giving Donaldson a QO. They didn’t. Their mistake. As if I have a crystal ball on this organization.
As for you never posting again, I could care less. That’s up to you.
With regard to the Jays, no, you’re way off. Young hitters they have are Vlad Guerrero Jr who has yet to play in a major league game. Bo Bichette? Well, he’s 20 and needs another year in the minors, maybe longer. Biggio is an overaged AA player the organization hasn’t promoted. So this idea the Jays have good young hitting is off the mark.
Tampa’s got a guy in Blake Snell contending for a Cy Young. Do the Jays have a guy like that? Nope. Snell’s an ace.
Jays are a long ways away. A long way.
Atkins is Shapiro’s puppet. Get used to it.
Shapiro and his protégé Antonetti were going around in a never-ending circular rebuild in Cleveland when they lucked out on Francona not wanting to get into another backstabbing management situation that he had just come through in Boston. Word was that Shapiro was taken away from player transactions by the Indians owners by kicking him upstairs to the business side. The ownership pushed him (out) to Blue Jay management for their open President position (old management trick, give a great reference to a competitor about an employee that you want get rid of). The Indians wanted to build on pitching, but had no clue (terrible pitching coach, they re-hired him last offseason). Antonetti & Francona conducted interviews, Mickey Calloway blew them away. He came in and started developing pitchers. When Bauer was traded for, Calloway looked at some of his training methods, including working with the guy in Texas that taught pitchers to throw harder on his ranch. Calloway-Indians adapted all that. Shapiro-Antonetti were purely stat guys, and forever complaining that Cleveland was a “small market” and they couldn’t compete (hence the never-ending rebuild). Slowly Francona had to teach the major leaguers fundamental play, and teach the MBA’s running the farm system how to develop players. He got the team to play better defense, and slowly got Antonetti to let him have runners attempt steals – which was/is taboo to any analytic theorist (i.e. “giving up an out”). That proved to be a cheap way to generate runs.
If you watch the Jays manager during a game, you’ll see he’s powerless and not in charge of anything. In the Billy Beane style, he’s middle management executing that days game plan put out by the analytic department of the front office, as Shapiro’s managers did in Cleveland before Francona. Shapiro is a genius. According to Shapiro. Interesting to see how his Toronto period will play out.
I buy what you’re selling Samuel. You pinpoint the analytical approach to baseball versus the older conventional approach.
Toronto is not a small market and should never be considered a small market. That’s 1 less excuse for the ex-Cleveland guys in the Jays front office moving forward.
it all sounds plausible….I’m not really overly concerned with Atkins being a puppet or not; he’s just a lousy salesman – the public face – for the team. I think that when they shed salary after next year they’re both gone….they’ll bring in someone who will run the team on a shoe-string for a couple of years while they sell vladdie/Biggio/Bichette bobbleheads and shirts, recoup some money, make the books look good and sell the team…and i’m trying real hard here not to cynical…man, it’s like everyone is just trying to run this thing out to the end in as mediocre a way as possible…even gibbons stating he won’t be back and isn’t interested in a rebuild when he’d do great with a younger team…look what he did as part of the bench with KC. I hope we get the unpolished JD story from JD himself someday…if what you say is true, Tito and JD will be sharing some good stories over October baseball
I wouldn’t fire Shapiro; He is a good executive even if he is tightly wound. I would remove all player decisions from him and give him the business and stadium side of things.
Then hire a truly elite President/Gm in the calibre of a Cashman/Dombrowski/Gillick. And trash Shapiro’s “longterm competative” model.
Stealing bases is not “taboo to any analytical theorist”. That’s a flat out lie. In fact, the fundamentals of stealing a base at a good rate, first to third and second to home baserunning, are key components of widely used metrics.
Don’t push a narrative if it isn’t based on fact.
Wrong!
It has always stunned me why teams don’t attempt to steal often. A catcher throwing out stealers above 30% is considered sensational. So if we go totally by numbers, a baserunner would have a 2:1 chance of stealing, and a quick baserunner that can read pitchers has a much higher chance of success.
Sorry, but most analytic teams discourage a steal attempts. Read the Moneyball book (don’t reference the movie) and you’ll read A’s players complaining to Ron Washington that they wanted to steal, but Billy Beane told his manager not to allow it. I read here in a chat a few months ago where the writer said that each AB counted for a stat, and that the batter should be free to just smack the ball when he gets a good pitch (after taking balls and hitting foul balls, as that tires out the pitcher). The game situation doesn’t matter (i.e. RBI is a meaningless statistic). In addition to discouraging or even attempting steals, heavy analytic run teams don’t like bunting (they don’t teach it in the minors, and don’t have the batters do it in BP as once was mandatory). Those teams also do not execute the hit-and-run, as that too is considered “taking the bat out of the batters hand”. A large reason for the Cardinals success under Mike Shildt is that he reinstituted the hit-and-run, forcing batters to make contact and put the ball in play (along with more stealing, bunting, and hitting to the opposite field, which is how baserunners are moved around).
Watch a Cardinals game and then a Jays game. The Cardinals players and their manager are engaged. The Jays players don’t play as a team, they stand in the batters box and swat, or stand where they’re told to on the field and worry about making their defensive stats come out good. And the Jays manager has been neutered to a point where all he does is argue with umpires, ask his cameraperson if he should challenge a play, and even when he changes pitchers he has to look at the gameplan to determine what inning he’s in, what pitcher is recommended to bring in, and for how many pitches. This is the same as seeing a doctor that can analyze you problem, as opposed to one that asks you a series of questions on their tablet, then gives you canned AI recommendations. Many doctors and baseball managers are now nothing more then trained order-takers at a fast-food drive-in.
All your points are excellent. I will only point out that the reason only 30 per cent of the runner’s are thrown out is that it is only the speedy guys that attempt to steal. Guys like Betts, If the good speed but not great speed guys started running that 30 per cent would go up.
Yep. And now Gibbons will more than likely be let go at season’s end.
Read Moneyball back in the day. What people forget is aside from Zito, the rest of the core players that took the 2002 team to the postseason were not Beane “moneyball” guys despite the focus on Scott Hatteberg.
He will signed with the marlins … him and manny
I love the contrast in the reports:
Atkins: believes the PTBNL will be “an exciting upper-level talent” who will have a near-future impact in the majors.
Davidi: nope, it’ll be a 27yo pitcher who’s never reached the bigs, crashed and burned at AAA last year and is sitting out this whole season recovering from TJ surgery.
Heck of a comedown, that.
Well I guess at 27, he’s as near ready for the majors as he’ll ever be…
An exciting upper level prospect with a 7-9 record and 5.32 ERA in 2017 who is missing 2018 with TJ surgery, yeah, I’m sure teams were lining up for Merryweather!
Dudes really not going to be worth much. Its probably gonna be injury city in forward from this point in his career.
Hopefully it is not Merryweather coming back to the Jays. I tend to agree with you. Tommy John guys are a crap shoot. We hear about the ones that make it, but many do not.
Is there anybody seeing the other side of this??! Management giving Donaldson a chance at a ring! They could of held onto him and let him rot/rehab I mean…
Though that’s an outcome of the trade, I don’t think that was Atkins/Shapiro’s main goal here. They didn’t want to deal with the QO. Options were not qualify him and lose a chance at a draft pick. Or qualify JD at 1 year and $18MM – with high risk that he takes it. Josh also made it pretty clear that he was pretty open to signing long term here. For whatever reason – Donaldson’s age, injury status, length of contract he was looking for, presence of Vladdy Jr, or all of the above – pretty clear Atkins/Shapiro wasn’t on that same page.