Dickey packs knuckler and goes home
Atlanta perfect fit after four Jay years, more good than bad
On Thursday morning, the Atlanta Braves signed free-agent right-hander R.A. Dickey to a one-year contract, plus an option. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the former Blue Jays starter will receive $7.5 million in 2017, plus an $8-million club option for 2018 with a $500,000 buyout. The 42year-old knuckleballer was earning $12 million with the Jays in the final season of a four-year deal.
Most Jays fans will simply say good riddance to Dickey and his capricious specialty pitch and, hey, let’s find a legitimate backup catcher for Russ Martin. Dickey’s declared free agency was greeted with an apathetic shrug from fans: Make sure you re-sign Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista. Realistically, Dickey deserves a better send-off for his four-year body of work in a Toronto uniform.
Fans mainly remember and resent him for the frustrating nature of his everdancing knuckler. They will remember the fact that he needed a personal catcher, Josh Thole, and many fans will vividly remember one or more of the 15 frustrating starts in which he failed to last at least six innings while also giving up five or more earned runs. In those 15 horrible starts out of 130, his ERA came out to 11.09. In his other 115 Jays assignments, Dickey averaged more than 61⁄ innings
3 with a 3.39 ERA. That’s a mainly solid portfolio, but when he was bad . . .
Fans will resent Dickey for the fact that he won a Cy Young Award with the Mets in 2012, but never came close with the Jays. They will remember him poorly every time Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard pitches on television, flashing his 100-plus miles-per-hour fastball, while Dickey topped out at 84 m.p.h.
Manager John Gibbons — who, at times, would become as frustrated at Dickey as any Jays fan after one of those failed starts — remembers some of the positive reasons why the durable righty stayed in the rotation, until being bumped in August.
“He was steady as can be for four years,” Gibbons said upon hearing the news.
“He won in double figures, ate up a lot of innings and there was something to the knuckleball effect on other teams. He became the odd man out after we picked up (lefthander Francisco Liriano from the Pirates at the deadline).”
Dickey’s arrival in Toronto was a classic case of being in the wrong place, but maybe at the right time. Then-GM Alex Anthopoulos had flown personally to his home in Nashville and agreed to a contract extension, lucrative considering he was a 38-year-old who had just posted his first good back-to-back years, including the Cy.
Though Dickey sounded unsure about his future plans during the playoffs, it was clear that even at his advanced baseball age he never had any thoughts of retiring. He just didn’t wish to be the malcontent story, taking the focus away from teammates. Dickey told reporters Thursday that the velocities on his knuckleball “were as high as they’ve ever been” and he expects to pitch 200 innings in 2017.
“I’ve grown up a Braves fan and have always admired the organization,” Dickey said.
Dickey agreed to the deal after meeting in Nashville with a Braves group that included former manager Bobby Cox and knuckleballer Phil Niekro. He considers Niekro part of the “Jedi council of knuckleballers” who influenced his career.
“Phil and I have a good relationship,” Dickey said. “I consider him a friend. We filmed a documentary together.”
If he was going to continue his career, it would never be with the Jays. After four years, he needed a return to the NL East, with no DH and several teams that always under-compete. Consider that in his three years with the Mets he was 39-28 with a 2.95 ERA, allowing 55 home runs in 6162⁄ innings. But in
3 the AL East — with its bandbox, hitter-friendly parks and lineups loaded one through nine — he was in the wrong place, even if it might have been the right time. In four Jays seasons he was 49-52 with a 4.05 ERA, allowing 114 homers in 8241⁄ innings.
3 Don’t consider age as a reason for his decline. It’s not a factor with knuckleballers. For proof, see Niekro, Hoyt Wilhelm, Tim Wakefield, Wilbur Wood, Charlie Hough and others who were effective into their mid-40s and beyond.
Dickey’s arrival in 2013 coincided with the return of Gibbons and the acquisition of big-name players including shortstop Jose Reyes, left fielder Melky Cabrera and starting pitchers Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson. That was supposed to return the Blue Jays to the postseason for the first time in 21 years.
The Jays’ payroll was the highest in team history. Anthopoulos and president Paul Beeston brought back the franchise’s original blue jerseys and made the bold roster moves to revitalize a flagging brand. Vegas odds listed the Jays as winter favourites. They failed, but the plan did bring new fans to the show.
The blueprint didn’t work in 2013 and 2014 because pitching and defence win games, and the Jays lacked both. With tweaks and some huge deadline moves in 2015, the post-season eventually returned as ownership realized, via sellouts and huge TV ratings, that they could spend money to make money. The Jays reached the ALCS the past two seasons, but Dickey was left off the playoff roster last month. Gibbons had six starters and only needed four, even with Liriano moved to the bullpen.
“Bullpen wasn’t something he was used to,” Gibbons said of the Dickey situation. “And the catching situation, the way we set up with roster complications, made it very difficult to carry him in the playoffs.”
The Braves need to sign solid players — even on short-term, bridge-tothe-future deals like Dickey’s — because they will be opening a sparkling new ballpark northeast of Atlanta in 2017 and need to win some games.
There’s good news and bad news for Dickey in signing with Atlanta.
The good news is that the new park is close to his Nashville home — “three hours, 15 minutes from doorstep to doorstep.”
The bad news is that Atlanta’s elevation is 1,050 feet above sea level, with the thin Georgia air creating a type of east-of-the-Mississippi launching pad for homers.