A pre-Deadline deadline for Doc?
If the Blue Jays are going to pull the trigger on a trade that sends ace Roy Halladay to a contender for a blockbuster package of players, the deal isn’t likely to be of the last-minute variety. In fact, Toronto may be inclined to set an internal deadline prior to the July 31 non-waiver Trade Deadline.
“If you ask me today if we’re going to trade Roy Halladay, I’d say no,” Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi told the New York Times. “Something could happen between now and the Trade Deadline, but this isn’t something that’s suddenly going to happen with someone on the 30th.”
As things currently line up, Halladay is scheduled to start on the road against the Mariners on July 29. According to the report in the NY Times, Ricciardi indicated that he doesn’t want Toronto’s ace taking the hill in Seattle with the thought that he could be dealt in the two days following his start.
Beyond that aspect, the Blue Jays would likely become sellers in the event that Doc is dealt. If Toronto is blown away by an offer and opts to trade Halladay, doing so before the 30th would give the club more time to shop some of its other players. Other Jays players involved in rumors include Scott Rolen, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay, Jason Frasor and Scott Downs.
SIDE NOTE: I will not be at the ballpark tonight. For some Blue Jays’ updates, you can follow @BlueJays or @e_gilbert on Twitter. Catch you from the ‘yard tomorrow.
~JB
Major League Bastian 
Could Daniel Farquhar be the next reliever called up?
This 22 year old RH pitcher was drafted in the 10th round in 2008 and was the 309th pick overall and today after being a pro for just over 1 year is closing games for The Jays New Hampshire affiliate, going from Auburn to Lansing to Dunedin to New Hampshire in under a year. He’s a rapid riser under the radar with improving performance at each level so far.
From various reports, Farquhar has a very deceptive delivery who throws over the top, side arm and maybe even lower than side arm or in between with a fastball that gets to either low 90’s to mid 90’s depending on arm slot with lots of late movement. Hitters say he comes at them from out of nowhere.
?There?s a lot of toughness to him,? scouts say. He?s got a lot of life on his fastball, whether he throws from the side, up top or in between.?
His aggregate minor league line this year is 41.2 innings pitched, 22 hits, 28 walks, 56 k’s and 4 earned runs (era of .86), with hitters hitting just .150 against him.
It appears he’s getting better control, which could have been a concern and in his last 7 outings, totaling 7.2 innings, he’s walked 4, struck out 12 and given up no runs. He is effective against both left and right hand batters, although a bit better against left handers-which is interesting considering he’s a rightie.
I suspect he either gets promoted to AAA soon, or possibly be a September call up. Looks like he could be a good one.
The other reliever that is interesting is Tim Collins. He is only 5’7, went undrafted out of high school and didn’t go to college but signed with the Jays instead. He is a bit further away but is putting up a second full season of solid pitching. His BB are a little high but he is K’ing over 13/9 this year. Apparently doesn’t throw that hard (89-90ish) but his curve is a hammer.
Another prospect that is intriguing to me is McDade. He is a huge (260 lbs) switch hitter, but struggles from the right side (.197). Will probably take a lot of time to develop but he has 9 HRs in 250 ABs in a pitchers league at 20.
I liked Collins more last year than this, I just hope he hasn’t peaked out at Dunedin and continues to improve.
The kid I like in Lansing, who’s having a good year, is 20 year old Johermyn Jose Chavez who’s hit 14 hr’s and knocked in 62 rbi’s.in 329 at bats.
The other outfielder I like who’s made a big improvement this year is 20 year old Moises Sierra in Dunedin, who I think could be a real good one in a few years.
In addition, one of our high cost draftees of 2008, John Tolisano, is finally starting to show promise and has hit 11 hr’/s as a 2nd baseman in a tough league and is now tied for 3rd in league hr.’s. and tied for second in rbi’s with 52.
One thing we have to remember about Collins is that he is playing in A+ and I don’t think he will be 20 (maybe 21) until the end of the year. Right now he is playing against competition that on average is probably a 1-2 years older.
Chavez and Sierra were both relatively big name prospects at the time of signings so I’m not that surprised with them.
The big signing a couple years ago Pierre is playing with the GCL team. It will be interesting to see what they do with him next year; whether he jumps to full season or not.
Something I keep reading is that the team needs a catcher in any trade package for Halladay. I really just don’t see it with Arencibia, Jeroloman, and Jaspe not to mention what seems like a tonne of catchers 20 or under in the lower leagues. Seems to me like they don’t have enough consistent playing time for the catchers they have now.
Is anyone else concerned that it is the 3rd and from what I’ve seen Cecil hasn’t thrown anything other than fastball, slider?
Gameday says he threw a change but I’m pretty sure that was a slider.
Personally, he has to atleast show 1 other pitch the odd time.
I agree on the catchers. Arencibia is starting to settle in at AAA. It’s not surprising that he struggled at first since he’s only been playing pro ball for 2 years. But in the last 10 games he’s hitting .350 with 5 doubles, 2 hr.’s (10 in total) and 9 rbi’s, so I’d say he’s starting to adjust.
I also think Vegas weather has something to do with it. Some game time temperatures are 110, and with all that gear on, it has to wear him out.
Maybe there’s concern about Jeroloman, who’s seriously struggling in AA. I still wish we hadn’t traded Robinson Diaz, who’d have been a perfect partner with Arencibia and is now loved in Pittsburgh, while we’re sitting with Bautista.
Must be something wrong with the lighting in the Rogers Center, Millar hit a double.
Cecil dodges another bullet
2 innings in a row runner on 2nd, 0 out and we can’t in the least make a productive out.
Jeroloman’s calling card is defence though. I wonder if there is any effect on him getting sent down after his promotion late last year?
Twice in a row, Wells didn’t do his job. First time up-GIDP. Second time up Hill on 2nd none out. Wells job in a tight game like this is to get Hill to 3rd. All he had to do is slap a ball on the ground towards right field. He struck out instead.
We have to play fundamental baseball particularly against a pitcher like Lse.. First run in this game is going to be huge and we should have already had it on the board.
Sloppy start for Shawn Marcum in New Hampshire tonight. 3 innings, 5 hits ( 1 home run), 1 walk, 4 k’s, 5 runs given up-only 1 earned.
I surely hope we’re not rushing him back.
Great start by Cecil, lets hope we bring it home for a win for the kid.
Crap time to commit an error.
The 9th inning shows exactly what’s wrong with this team. This kind of scenario has played out over and over again this year. Overbay commits an error which costs us a run, so we go to the bottom of the 9th down 1 instead of tied. No blame on Downs here, closers sometimes don’t get it done, and that’s the first runs he’s given up since May 26th.
So at the bottom of the 9th, we have our high paid guys up-Wells, Rolen, Overbay and Rios-the 4 guys paid to deliver when its needed.
So Wells hits a soft fly to center, Rolen does his job and gets a single, Overbay and Rios both pop up to end the game and we lose a heart breaker.
Wells goes 0-4, Overbay goes 0 for 4 and Rios goes 1-4. Other than Rolen, none of these guys deliver when its needed, their hits come when it doesn’t matter, their hr’s the same.
At the start of the year who would have though that Hill or Lind would have as many home runs as a combined two of three of Wells, Overbay and Rios-and it doesn’t matter which two were picked against Hill or Lind.
Who would have bet that Hill or Lind would have 60% more rbi’s than Vernon Wells, the guy we still owe over 100 million dollars to.
Well done JP, nice contracts on Wells and Rios. Now for the ones how think a few twinges here and there turn this team into a winner-think again, because that isn’t going to happen until these losers (Wells, Rios and Overbay) are shipped out of town. They’re scared of winning.
My god, hindsight is wonderful. When Wells and Rios were signed, they were both playing well enough to deserve their contracts, in which they traded long term job security for below market value salary. The fact that they have been inconsistent this year is a reflection, not on JP, but on the fact that it is very, very difficult to put up consistent numbers season after season. These guys both have the ability to turn it around and have a good season next year, but for chrissakes stop blaming JP because you have 20-20 hindsight!
Inconsistent, is that what you call what Wells has done this year-just inconsistent. And you think the Wells contract was below market salary. Please, drink your coffee before posting.
Wells hasn’t had a good year since 2006 and he’s only had 3 years in total that would justify him being paid above average for a center fielder. Above average does not mean elite or the most, it means above average. His career has been “inconsistent, 3 good years, the balance either mediocre or poor and this year-disaster.
Wells has never, not once in his career, performed under pressure, he can’t handle it and never has. The majority of his hits have always came when the game is over, as have his home runs-that’s the most consistent thing about him.
I wish Vegas would give odds about particular batting situations, cause with runners on 1st and 2nd, Wells almost always gidp, one could get rich taking that bet.
Even his defensive skills have declined since 2006 and they are declining more this year than last.
I was never for this contract when it was signed and certainly not now, and other than JP you must be the only one in the universe to think it was a good deal, cause no other team in baseball will touch this guy.
JP has been a disaster as a GM. All you need for further proof is how he started this Halladay fiasco and how he’s handling it. JP’s biggest problem has always been his mouth and his amazing burning need to see himself being quoted by the national media, particularly the MSM in the USA. Maybe he goes home, shows the clipping to his kids and says “look Daddy’s in the papers.” I don’t know. But every time he opens his mouth, he looks and acts like an idiot, he always has and he always will.
I find its funny how anytime anyone ever posts anything negative about JP, you jump to JP’s defense, almost like as if you are JP. Maybe you are or maybe one of the staff that works for him, because your continual defense of a non defendable record of losses, miscalculations, screw ups, bad trades, bad signings and bad statements makes no sense.
Marcum’s start may be due to “dead Arm” that most pitchers go through in the Spring before their arms are really stretched out. I hope so anyway. Assuming he stays on schedule, August will be like April for him, and we can probably expect him to be on a reduced pitch count, and we will get some inconsistent starts from him until September. There is no way they are going to overwork him.
While I don’t think JP is a bad ‘baseball guy’; he has drafted pretty well particularly after the Comp A round (See: Marcum, Lind, Janssen, Jeroloman, Mills, Zepper, and more)
That being said he isn’t polished enough to be a GM. If you really look at his mistakes them seem to revolve around the media and when he was given money he spent it like a drunken sailor regardless of who and where he it went. To me JP is a better ***’t GM, Director of Scouting, etc…
From some of the stuff I’ve heard though JP was pretty much flying solo making decisions before and since Beeston has come in it is more consensus using JP, Beeston, LaCava, and Antho in particular. Antho is apparently supposed to be next in line for the job.
It’s funny how they censored the abbreviation of Assistant.
I’m not convinced JP has drafted all that well, particularly in his first years here. I think he continually played it safe with drafting college players (as per moneyball) versus high school kids and drafted, for the most part, a number of kids that might make it but with limited upside, just nice players-with very few exceptions on that.
In addition, JP decimated the scouting department, instead relying on central scouting and until Beeston made changes, we had probably the smallest scouting group in MLB.
The point is of the 400+ kids drafted by JP, only Lind and Hill on the current MLB roster are showing they might be better than average players. It’s too early to tell on Romero and Cecil.Remember as well, if it hadn’t been for Cito, Lind would have either been traded or left in AAA. Second, remember how many Russ Adams, Zach Jacksons and other top draft choices JP made who never made it.
Continuing the discussion on draft choices, I wonder why 8 of our first 10 draftees from this year are not yet signed, including the top 5 and only one of the top eight. The minor league season ends September 1st, there’s only 5 weeks left, we’re at risk of these kids missing their first year development or losing them as draft choices.
I wonder what the problem is.
I think when evaluating the draft though one always has to remember that there is a structurally high amount of draft picks that never do pan out. I know I was reading an article on the NHL and there only 50% of first round choices play any meaningful time in the league. (The Jays also have to draft with an eye towarsd signability because of their budget.) I would assume baseball is even lower because of injuries, especially to pitchers, and the long incubation time of development in baseballs minor leagues; most players don’t even make it until they in their mid-20’s and CAN be drafted when they are 17 depending on when the finish HS.
I agree that the scouting by video method never realy panned out. It was an experiment at best.
I’ve read that a lot of draft choices that have options (High Schoolers, Jr. College, and College Underclassmen) tend to wait until the top draft choices start signing. They determine their value off of comparisons of those signings based on a number of factors. Apparently, Strasburg and the Nationals haven’t even talked yet and he isn’t the only one. Also, the Commish has declined some contracts in the lower rounds because they were above slot (not sure who or which team).