Yankees, Red Sox winning paper race
NASHVILLE— Hundreds of plastic Santas — scattered through the various atriums and indoor gardens of the opulent, overdone Opryland Resort & Spa — appeared sad as baseball’s annual winter meetings came to an end Thursday morning. After the Rule 5 draft, 30 teams broke down their suites, packed up their rooms and headed home for the holidays. The Blue Jays return empty-handed.
Yes, the Jays will enter the 2016 season as defending AL East Division champions, and while they did fill two starting pitcher roles before the meetings — re-signing right-hander Marco Estrada and inking free agent lefthander J.A. Happ, plus trading for swingman Jesse Chavez — the Red Sox and Yankees have since moved quickly with key acquisitions designed to make it, at least, a three-team race in the East.
There were 40-plus transactions, either free-agent deals or trades involving major-league players, over the five days of the meetings. These are transactions officially announced or waiting to be finalized. The Jays were involved in one, signing reserve infielder Darwin Barney.
“I always look at it from a distance and not in small stints,” first-year GM Ross Atkins said after the Rule 5 draft that brought the curtain down on the proceedings. “What we’ve accomplished over the course of an off-season, we feel very good about. A lot of the heavy lifting was done earlier. But still (we) feel good about a couple of things that are really close. I don’t want to call them imminent.”
After the Jays traded away 13 minorleague pitchers at the deadline last summer, the upper shelves of the farm system prospect cupboard are very much bare. Atkins said that he has at least three transactions in the air right now, including the not-yet-announced signing of Barney.
“You’ve got 60 to 65 spots in spring training that are coming to major-league camp,” Atkins explained of the Jays’ pitching numbers crunch. “Typically half those guys would be pitchers. But over the course of a season, that number could grow. It doesn’t mean you’re limited to 30.
“It doesn’t mean you’re going to need them, but if you’re looking for a ballpark number of pitchers that you want to pull from, to complement your major-league team, I would say that’s the ballpark number.”
These are daunting numbers for the Jays. They currently have 19 pitchers on the 40-man roster — 12 that logged any time with the majorleague club this season — but only 16 hurlers in the entire organization that have ever worked an inning in the majors. There is clearly much work to be done.
“Rosters will shift, opportunities will shift,” Atkins said. “The landscape will change. I think there will be opportunities (to add) in spring training. We are not going to rely on that, not going to sit back and wait on every front. We’re looking to make the team better every day, any way we can.”
If the rosters for all five teams in the East remained the same as they were on Thursday, this is the predicted order of finish: Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays.
The Red Sox were playing as well as any team in the AL at the end of the 2015 season, with a good mix of speed and power, youth and experience. Then they added free agent David Price, for seven years and $217 million U.S., to lead a rotation that includes lefthander Eduardo Rodriguez and righties Clay Buchholz and Rick Porcello.
The Sox also acquired flamethrowing closer Craig Kimbrel from the Padres, joining incumbent Koji Uehara, who has already been one of the game’s best ninth-inning relievers. The Red Sox have a rebuilt, young outfield in Mookie Betts, Rusney Castillo and Jackie Bradley, Jr. That trio will do much over a full season to revitalize an aging lineup that includes veterans David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez.
Meanwhile, the Yankees acquired talented second baseman Starlin Castro from the Cubs, continuing them on the road to getting younger and more athletic. The 25-year-old Castro is under contract for five more years. The Yanks still have the duo of Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances at the back end of the bullpen and they discovered two young starters last season, Luis Severino and Nate Eovaldi.
The Orioles are a clear fourth right now, but they are looking to upgrade their roster. GM Dan Duquette is in negotiations to bring back first baseman Chris Davis — the Orioles reportedly pulled back a seven-year offer — and if those talks don’t work out, the Rockies are listening to requests for outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, and Justin Upton might be a leading option in a free-agent class that includes outfielders Alex Gordon and Gerardo Parra and first Hyun-Soo Kim and Pedro Alvarez.
Yes, the O’s pitching took several hits, but they re-signed setup man Darren O’Day and the club somehow, more often than not, finds a way to cobble together a rotation to compete at the hitter’s ballpark that is Camden Yards.
Yes, the Jays obtained Happ and Chavez to fill needs, but say they will basically rely on the same formula that carried them down the stretch in 2015—superior defence and scoring plenty of runs. Talented, deep bullpens around baseball have become essential to winning. There are 43 names left in the free-agent reliever pool with 18 of the better ones already having signed.
There is time to add the necessary talent, but fans need to see before they believe.