Blue Jays closer Ken Giles received a cortisone injection in his right elbow today and won’t pitch prior to tomorrow’s trade deadline, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (on Twitter). A visit to Dr. Keith Meister and an MRI exam cleared Giles of any structural damage, but it’s still not a good update with regard to Giles’ trade value.
Giles, 28, was considered to be one of the top trade candidates in the game for much of the summer. Through 35 innings this season, he’s given the rebuilding Blue Jays a dominant 1.54 ERA with 14.9 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. The only reliever in all of Major League Baseball who has topped Giles’ stunning 20.4 percent swinging-strike rate is Milwaukee star Josh Hader. Between that excellence and the Blue Jays’ clear long-term approach at the moment, Giles was as obvious a candidate to change hands as there is in the game. He’s earning an affordable $6.3MM in 2019 and is controlled via the 2020 season through arbitration.
While the latest injury news doesn’t technically eliminate the possibility of a trade, it’s also tough to see the Jays extracting maximum value for a pitcher whose status is somewhat up in the air. President Mark Shapiro, general manager Ross Atkins and the rest of the staff will surely continue to field offers as they gauge how the now-diminished offers stack up against what they might receive in the offseason for a single year of Giles. Toronto will also have to consider the possibility that Giles misses significant time in the final two months and sees his value further deteriorate. It’s a tricky and unenviable situation for the club to suddenly itself in, particularly considering how strong the market for Giles was expected to be a few weeks ago.
steelerbravenation
He is not going anywhere now
To the offseason it is
SecsSeksSecks
Braves don’t need a corner outfielder. Acuna, Inciarte, and Duvall are getting it done just fine. Joyce, Culberson, and Riley are good back ups. When Swanson comes back Camargo is in the mix as a backup corner outfielder as well. Markakis should be back for the last few weeks of the regular season. Everyone is making a bigger deal about this than it really is.
dman07
Perfect timing…smh
twinsfan368
No he can still be dealt cough cough twins
DarkSide830
could just deal him for PTBNL with the undersnading that the value of the players in return will hinge on how healthy he is down the stretch.
jdgoat
That is interesting. Is there precedence for deals like that? The NHL just had its first deal where the return was influenced by how the players performed. It’d be neat if that started to become the new norm, especially with how risk adverse front offices have become.
AllRiseForTheJudge
This is nothing new in the NHL, conditional draft picks are traded all the time and have been forever. My Rangers have been involved in a few and I can’t recall a single time we were actually the benefactors.
The most recent example is the conditional first-rounder we got in exchange for Ryan McDonagh pending Tampa’s advancement out of the first round of the playoffs this past season, which everyone including myself expected was a sure thing given their regular season dominance. When they were swept, we ended up with a believe a 5th, which left Tampa hosing us once again.
jdgoat
All the conditional picks are usually based on players signing or team performance. I’m pretty sure the Neal-Lucic one was the first one that had a condition revolving around player performance unless I’m forgetting something. Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough in the other post.
Nego
That’s based on team performance though. He is referring to the Lucic for Neal swap where the pick is conditional on Lucic scoring less than 5 or 10 and Neal scoring more than 20.
In Giles case you could assign IP totals or something to different prospect classes. I think it’ll be easier to trade him in the summer.
Confortoismyspiritanimal
There’s a big difference between performance and health.
I’m all for health should having an influence, not performance.
Performance is the gamble you’re trading for. That’s where your scouts make their money,
Jim Scott
An example from Wiki about a Dave Winfield trade back in the 90s:
“While a member of the Minnesota Twins, Winfield was traded on August 31, 1994 to the Cleveland Indians for a PTBNL. Under the terms and conditions of the trade, if Winfield appeared in 16 or more games with the Indians, the Twins would receive a Class AA-level PTBNL, but if he played between one and 15 games the PTBNL would be Class A-level.”
The Einheri
I like the idea of a conditional PTBNL when obtaining Giles.
baseballsavvy
Are you crazy? Giles should net a decent return. Hold on to him and trade him at a later date. A PTBNL is ludacris to me.
ThePriceWasRight
no way the Jay’s would take that risk. best case scenario he is awesome and you get a good player (though would still need to agree on a pool to choose from), worst case scenario he sucks this year, you get a mid level player and he comes back as good as thos year next year.
Better off just holding on to your asset till the summer.
DarkSide830
honestly, extending Giles looks like a better idea now. problem is their return for Stroman (and presumably Sogard) were mediocre, so they might be inclined to take a risk to keep the rebulid on track.
thickiedon
Waiting until the last moments to make trades has its downsides
ThePriceWasRight
last moments. they traded stroman Sunday for less than most anticipated.
thickiedon
It goes both ways. Contenders rest on their laurels too rather than acquiring improvement earlier
melochejohn
Atkins isn’t exactly known for getting “maximum” value anyway, so whats the difference
JoeBrady
I still cringe when I think of the return he got for Donaldson. Probably could’ve gotten somewhere around a top-100 & top-50 pick had he been traded in July, 2017.
davengmusic
Whoever trades for this guy is going to get their postseason torpedoed. Ken Giles is the least clutch good reliever in baseball. Great when beating up on also-rans playing for bad teams, shrivels up and dies when it matters.
DarkSide830
he’s about one of the best guys to get you there though. i dont think the Astros were too badly hurt by him in 2017.
rct
He gave up 8 runs in 4.2 innings that postseason. He sure didn’t help them.
JoeBrady
His playoff ERAs were 6.00, 9.00, and 27.00, with an overall 0-2, with a 11..74. He helped win the division that they won by 21 games. But almost destroyed them in the playoffs.
JoeBrady
I’ve seen responses on other threads basically reading ‘The NYMs don’t HAVE to trade Syndergaard and/or Diaz’ and ‘the Pirates don’t HAVE to trade Vazquez’.
While certainly true, you always run the risk or bad performance or injury.
Boyd was 6-6 with a 2.85. But he followed that with a 1-4 with a 5.28. Wheeler slipped a little, and now Giles. Holding guys is not risk free.
66TheNumberOfTheBest
So because of the potential risk of injury, teams should sell low…for prospects who could ALSO get hurt?
bravesfan
Might as well say won’t be traded before deadline or at least say won’t get good return because of this.
Georgiajeff
Guess who isn’t going to be traded?