Blue Jays Acquire Colby Rasmus In Complicated 3-Team Deal
I don’t even know what to say, really. Alex Anthopoulous displayed his ninja-GM skills yet again today, making a flurry of moves with the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals and landing burgeoning 24-year old star Colby Rasmus for what wound up being…well, not very much at all.
Here’s how the deal breaks down: the Blue Jays first struck a deal with the White Sox, sending pitching prospect Zach Stewart and Jason Frasor for starter Edwin Jackson and Mark Teahen (mostly a salary dump). Then, AA packaged talented (but inconsistent) starter to the St. Louis Cardinals along with Marc Rzepczynsky, Octavio Dotel, and…Corey Patterson (!) for Colby Rasmus, and relievers PJ Walters, Trevor Miller (who wound up being dealt back to the White Sox) and..Brian Tallet.
So basically, the Blue Jays landed Colby Rasmus for Zach Stewart, Marc Rzepczynsky, Jason Frasor, and Octavio Dotel. I guess you can put Corey Patterson there too, but it’s not like he’s got any actual value – that Anthopoulous was able to get someone to take him is an impressive feat on it’s own – that we’re getting back a controllable 24-year old potential superstar outfielder-on-a-down-year in Colby Rasmus is just robbery to a ridiculous degree. To think he managed to do it without giving up a major prospect bat, while giving up mostly marginal pieces in the bullpen – when it seemed like there was no way the Cardinals would move Rasmus without one earlier in the year – like I said, I don’t even really have the words.
The deals have yet to be approved by the MLB, and they have 24 hours in which to do so. But I think it’s safe to say that the Blue Jays roadmap to competitiveness just got accelerated some. Rasmus is not having the best of years, and have been at odds with Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa since last season, but his .754 OPS would be 2nd on the Jays squad right now, and 25/20 talents like him don’t really come around all that often. The Jays are now looking at a Escobar / Thames / Bautista / Lind / Rasmus / Snider / Lawrie / Hill / JPA offensive lineup in the near future – and who would have thought that things would turn out like this at the beginning of the season?
On the down side, we had to take Brian Tallet (DL), and Mark Teahen (marginal bench player) back…but we can work that stuff out later. Happy Rasmus everyone! More when the dust settles.
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