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On Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays acquired Canadian outfielder Michael Saunders from the Seattle Mariners. While it’s great to see Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos keeping pace with Boston Red Sox GM Ben Cherington in trying to retool his roster for an AL East championship push in 2015, the Jays’ shot-caller needs to be getting more bang for his Canuck buck.
That’s two fairly significant trades Anthopoulos has pulled off now. The first of which was him sending a flurry of prospects and Brett Lawrie to acquire Josh Donaldson. It was a four-for-one deal. What’s troubling is that he should have demanded at least one above-average bullpen arm be thrown into the mix in return.
Toronto’s bullpen was atrocious in 2014. Lawrie is a player with a high ceiling who has not panned out yet mostly because of injuries. Shortstop Franklin Barreto is now the Oakland Athletics‘ third-highest ranked prospect, and SP Sean Nolin is ninth. The latter spent most of 2013 in Triple-A for the Jays, and could easily compete for playing time in the big leagues this upcoming season after compiling a 3.50 ERA over 87.1 IP.
Again, it feels as though Anthopoulos passed up an opportunity to improve the bullpen. While Saunders will likely replace the outfield position vacated by Melky Cabrera, he too comes from something of an injury-riddled past like Lawrie. Neither has appeared in more than 132 games over the last two seasons.
J.A. Happ is the player being sent to Seattle for Saunders. His WAR of 1.4 last year was not great, but it’s serviceable in comparison to Roenis Elias‘ 1.0 or Erasmo Ramirez‘s -0.4. Happ’s contract should be substantially more than Saunders’ 2014 pay. Given these factors, it would have made sense for the M’s to free up more salary space by giving the Jays another player. Dominic Leone, Yoervis Medina or Tom Wilhelmsen would have made for a pleasant addition to the Jays’ pen.
In the same breath, freeing up some money while acquiring their starting left fielder for 2015 may have laid the groundwork for signing someone like free agent Andrew Miller to come in and shore up the back end of the Jays’ staff next year.
Anthopoulos’ proactive approach to improving his team is appealing. However, if he does not eventually address the club’s weakest unit, a lot of Jays fans may be shaking their heads late in ball games again come 2015.
Jordan Wevers is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @JordanWevers, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.
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