Did Alex Anthopolous Just Make a Bad Trade?
There’s been a lot to like about Alex Anthopolous’ work so far as the Toronto Blue Jays General Manager. On Monday night, he traded Travis Snider, a 24-year-old outfielder dripping with power, for Brad Lincoln, a 27-year-old maybe-reliever maybe-starter in the midst of a career season in the Pirates bullpen. Twitter was incredulous and awarded Neal Huntington the win immediately. There’s probably more to this… right?
Both players’ value is highly dependent on the strikeout, which is appropriate considering it might be a whiff of a trade for one of the general managers.
That’s a more obvious statement for the pitcher. Lincoln was moved to the pen this year, and gained over a mile per hour on his fastball in the process. Throwing over 93 instead of around 91 has been good for his strikeout rate — his 25.1% so far this year is a career high (he’d never topped 21.8% at any level). He’s always had good control, and that has continued so far this year, but if the strikeouts are dependent on his gas and therefore his role, the fastball/curveball is more useful piece than former first round pick ready to finally perform as a starter in the toughest division in baseball.
Strikeouts are hugely important to your valuation of Travis Snider as well. The outfielder has struck out in 27.2% of his 914 career major league plate appearances to date. Among players 24 and younger with more than 500 PAs before since free agency began, that strikeout rate ranks 24th-worst. Strikeouts are correlated with power, however, and the list is littered with sluggers. If Snider had shown better than a .181 isolated slugging percentage, maybe the Blue Jays would have been more excited about their young outfielder. Only seven of those 24 players had a worse ISO than Snider, and their names don’t inspire confidence: Jared Sandberg, Chad Hermansen, Pedro Alvarez, Benji Gil, Michael Saunders, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Nick Esasky. Add in Shane Andrews, and you’ve got all eight players that didn’t show a .200 ISO along with their strikeouts. Not a great group.
There’s always time to turn it around if you debut at 20 years old as Snider did. If you look at his record since he debuted, there are some medium-sample highs and lows that catch your eye: A .123 ISO in 202 MLB PAs in 2011; A .208 ISO in 391 MLB PAs in 2010; A 24.8% strikeout rate in that same year; and a 35.1% strikeout rate in 37 MLB PAs so far this year. The power and the strikeouts are yo-yo-ing, and one GM is betting on the highs, one’s taking the lows.
Huntington is dreaming on his most recent performances, in a way. This year in Triple-A, Snider has shown a .263 ISO and a 17.1% strikeout rate in 246 PAs, and that’s the best combination of the two that he’s ever shown. It’s added up to a .271/.344/.480 major league equivalent line (.355 wOBA) according to Brian Cartwright and his OLIVER system. Some scouts have praised his work and think he’s turned the corner. The player himself credits being fully healthy after a wrist injury, and also talks of making mechanical adjustments to his swing.
Anthopolous might be fretting about the context of that performance. It’s Snider’s third shot at Triple-A, and he’s 24 and finally age appropriate for his level, and his best work has come in Las Vegas in the PCL, perhaps the most hitter-friendly situation in the minor leagues. He’s shown nice strikeout rates in the minors before (15.9% in 277 Triple-A PAs in 2011) only to lose those gains in the bigs (27.7% strikeout rate that same year in 202 MLB PAs). His swinging strike rate, sampled from over 3400 pitches so far, is well worse than average (12.9%, average is around 8.5% most years). And even though he’s walked in the minors (10.7% career MiLB), he hasn’t managed the same feat in the majors (7.4%).
Given the fact that manager John Farrell has already confirmed that Lincoln is headed to the Jays’ pen, your opinion of the trade hangs directly upon your evaluation of Snider. If he can’t walk or make more contact in the majors, then you like it for the Jays. If he’s destined for more work that looks like his career .247/.305/.429 line, which has been about 6% worse than league average so far, then you’ll take what you can get for him — his glove and baserunning in the corner outfield would not carry a below-average offensive line.
But if you think that 24-year-old Travis Snider can trim the strikeouts while keeping the power (or even showing a little more than he has so far), then you might feel that Alex Anthopolous just made a bad trade.
I would guess that anthopolous has something else planned given that he also traded away thames; just a speculation, but the phillies reportedly asked for lincoln in a victorino trade, so maybe we’ll see a Hunter Pence deal tomorrow.
I’m pretty sure GM AA traded away Snider based on the fact that Toronto has a surplus of OF, and that is not a good reason to make the trade.
Anyhow, Lincoln should at the very least be serviceable, and controllable, and might replace Oliver (Jays should trade him ASAP; he might retire after this season).
So I guess the Blue Jays get Lincoln’s certainty over Snider’s potential. Still not a good move by GM AA. It will look even worse if this trade shapes up to be Jayson Werth version 2.0.
who is their surplus?
Travis Snider = Jeremy Hermida part deux.
BlueBirdBanter, the SBNation page for the Jays, seemed to nearly collectively leap off a bridge at the news of this trade. Some dissension occurred and cooler heads are now taking a wait-and-see approach. The Borg Baseball Collective naturally thinks that if you trade someone with the potential to be an effective everyday LFer (or nearly any position player) for someone with the potential to be a reliever, then you lose the trade.
Anyway, the Jays need some bullpen help. The team is having a somewhat remarkable experience on the pitcher injury front, so dealing for need probably factors into this a little bit too.
AA likes:
Control. Lincoln is under team control until 2018, that’s a LONG time, that’s something your article didn’t mention.
Stealth. Like you saw this coming.
High-ceiling players that are underperforming. You could say that if AA was some other GM, he would probably try and trade for Travis Snider because of this, haha. So why wouldn’t he keep Snider?
Anyway, in an unrelated move, the Jays also traded Eric Thames to the Mariners for another reliever (gotta catch em all!). Was this in the same boat? That AA got anything at all for Thames is good for the team; I’m not entirely certain that Eric “Adventures in Fielding” Thames is going to help solve the Mariners woes either. But he could. That’d be a loss for AA, too.
With Franklin Gutierrez semi-permanently on the DL and Mike Carp playing full-time at AAA, the Mariners were in desperate need of an outfielder who is not terrible. (You joke about Thames, but the guy he’s replacing is Carlos Peguero, who had 22 Ks and 1 BB in 42 PA this year.) They targeted Thames, a guy who is interesting-ish, left handed, strong, and under team control forever. Acquiring Thames is good for the Mariners in several ways. It allows them to demote Peguero. It gives them a DH option who is not a catcher. It fills an outfield hole until Gutierrez gets back, and after that it gives them a young platoon OF bench bat with upside.
Steve Delabar is the guy who was a Padres prospect until his arm exploded, then became a substitute teacher, then somehow got his velocity back out of nowhere and made the Mariners. They didn’t even have to draft him. He has a good fastball with swing-and-miss possibilities and a crazy offspeed pitch, but has been trashed by right-handers all season long. Think massive home runs. This is weird because he’s also a righty, but his primary offspeed pitch (which breaks like a gyroball) is actually death to lefties. As it stands, Delabar is a right-handed LOOGY who also carries an air of the ticking time bomb due to his elbow being literally held together with screws and metal plates. Before injuries to Charlie Furbush and Stephen Pryor necessitated his call up, Delabar was in AAA working on a slider so that he can get righties out as well. If Delabar ever figures out his slider, he could be a relief ace or even a closer. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a LOOGY likely used wrong by the manager because he’s not actually left handed. Either way, he’s a volatile asset who could suddenly become unable to pitch at any time.
I like this deal for the Mariners, since they have a seemingly infinite supply of power relievers in the minors, their AAA OF depth is mostly terrible, and Delabar may explode at any moment.
I’m not sure how well this deal works for the Blue Jays, since they just traded Snider too, but that’s more a criticism of the latter deal than the former, and Delabar adds cheap (albeit volatile) upside to their disastrous bullpen in exchange for a guy who had no place on their team.
It looks even at the moment, but it all really depends on Delabar. If he figures out the slider and starts getting righties out, Blue Jays win. If he doesn’t figure out the slider but stays healthy, I’d say slight edge to the Mariners just for Thames’ upside. If Delabar’s elbow goes (or if Thames turns out to be more than a platoon bat), Mariners win.
Carp is at 1B, Smoak is at AAA. Sorry, typo.
Pedro Alvarez turned 24 before the 2011 season started. So he doesn’t qualify for the list, given he only had 386 PAs prior to that, and his ISO in that time was above 200 as well. He seems like a good comparison to his new teammate though. Almost exactly 1 year older, decent 2010 in roughly half a season, Terrible 2011 resulting in getting demoted, Seems to be back to high power, high Ks, low walks & average for 2012, though Alvarez has done it all year, while Snider’s done it for a couple of weeks.
“Among players with more than 500 PAs before turning 24 since free agency began”.
Read, dude.
No he’s right. I had it worded a little wrong, tried to fix. You can look at the leaderboard link and see I searched for 24 and younger.
I don’t understand how that contradicts what (the other) Matt said. Alvarez didn’t have more than 500 PAs before turning 24.
Ah, cross-post, thanks Eno.
I admit, was very hard to look at this objectively as a Jays fan.
Snider had so much promise/potential! But then again nothing to show for.
Brad Lincoln is a very effective reliever with forever of control! But then again… a reliever!
Idk how to feel about this. But at least it now gives me a good reason to jump on that Bucs bandwagon!!!
AA is a genius, keep doubting him at your peril.
AA could trade Bautista and Lawrie for Juan Pierre and there would be at least one person calling him a genius.
And that person would be everdiso
AA is the new Jack Z.
Are you referring to when Jack Z. signed the best hitter in the game to a far below market contract or to when Jack Z. got a team to not only pick up the entirety of an $86 million contract but to send back a useful piece?
Or to that 22 year old stud 3B he got in return for a no. 3 starter?
Or to when he got a 25 year old power hitting CF for a reliever and a C prospect? (And got 2 relievers back).
Or are you talking about that time Jack Z. ever had a winning record?
I think he’s talking about the #6 organization in baseball.
@DrBGiantsfan
Oh, I know. But what made #6org even funnier was that Jack Z. had zero track record of success and they considered him the best GM in baseball anyway.
AA, on the other hand, has spent the last 3 years showing us that he’s an excellent GM.
(Much as I love NinjaCash, I do have a mild case of AA envy)
YanksFan,
You might want to look at the Rasmus trade again.
Blue Jays got Rasmus, Trevor Miller, Brian Tallet, and PJ Walters. Miller, Tallet, and Walters had negative value. Toronto released all three within two months. So Toronto got three years of Rasmus.
Cardinals got Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson, Corey Patterson, and Marc Rzepczynski (and draft picks from Dotel and Jackson). Patterson was negative value. St Louis got partial seasons from Dotel and Jackson; they also got four years of Rzepczynski. The predicted marginal value for 2011 at the time of the trade was quite high.
Looks to slightly favor the Jays to me, but the two draft picks shouldn’t be overlooked for the Cardinals.
Anon,
Getting Jackson for Stewart and Frasor was the real coup, I forgot about Dotel and Rzepczynski, TBH.
The Cards would make that trade 11 times out of 10 to win a WS, flags fly forever. The Rasmus trade is more impressive to me than his fleecings because he got excellent value in return for spare parts without blatantly cheating anybody.
he got excellent value in return for spare parts without blatantly cheating anybody.
I’ll agree with that.
Unless another move is coming, these trades of Snider and Thames open up a spot for Gose to play full time now. I do think another big move is coming though. Upton????
Gose as a full-timer. Yeah, that should work out well.
Upton is what I was thinking… even tho they keep saying he won’t be moved. Would a straight up for Romero be insane? Both having down years.
I’m a huge Jays fan, and even I think Romero should be sitting for a while, or something to get his head on right. Don’t talk like this please. Have a little sense. Even Tony Reagins would laugh at you for this.
With Joey Bats, Rasmus, and Gose, and Brett Lawrie at 22 and years of team control at 3B (unlikely to move Bautista there anyways but always a possibility) it would be difficult to find playing time for Snider, Gose, and Thames, in conjunction with the fact that they have 29th best FIP in the majors and a shot at one of the wildcards, is probably why AA pulled this move. Toronto is a large market with a lot of potential but the Jays need to win in order to boost their revenue stream.
There doesn’t seem to be much/any mention of the potential scenario where Lincoln is re-invented into an SP for next year, a la Morrow/Villanueva? Thereby increasing his value and the ceiling of the trade.
Is this not a possibility?
You never say never, but probably not. Lincoln is basically a two pitch pitcher – fastball/curve. He’s been trying develop a changeup for years without much success.
I see his path as more likely in the reverse direction– becoming the closer in waiting for Toronto next season.
They mentioned that the only reason he’s good now is because of the velocity he gained from switching to the pen, so I assume moving him to the rotation is a non-starter. (No pun intended)
that was my take. They must have ideas of giving him another shot to start. the deal doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Villanueva is absolutely not a converted starting pitcher, but rather a long reliever pressed into services as a starter. I could see Lincoln’s career path in Toronto following Morrow’s, however, and I can only speculate that AA has this plan, because I can’t imagine anyone would trade Snider for a relief pitcher, no matter how talented.
I like the trade…the Jay’s bullpen looks pretty strong going into next year (Santos, Janssen, these 2 guys, Oliver, Frasor if they want to resign him, then Perez coming back from TJ surgery later on, Stroman..a bunch of good arms). They just need to shore up their rotation now and maybe grab one decent bat and they look like a legitimate threat next season. I keep hearing these wild guesses at what this could mean by opening up a LF spot, I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Alfonso Soriano, especially since the Jays are linked to Garza. If they grabbed those 2, then threw a bunch of money at Greinke in the off-season, check out how amazing this team looks all of a sudden.
could be Soriano. You’d have to think the Jays have something in the works for LF.
Hey guys….. all this talk about AA… maybe Neil Huntington just made a really good trade, because, ya know….. they do that from time to time…even by mistake!
Huntington hasn’t made a truly bad trade since the Bay deal. Love this deal. I’ve always been a big Snider fan and waking up this morning to the trade was quite a pleasant surprise.
And at the time of the Bay deal… we all thought it was great.
The Jose Bautista for Robinzon Diaz deal came a few weeks after the Bay deal, so that would have to be Huntington’s last real stinker. But a lot of his trades since then have been pretty small-bore, where the players that came back didn’t pan out but he wasn’t giving away anything of much valuable. Tim Alderson has been a big disappointment to say the least, and there are lots of trades getting rid of guys like Adam LaRoche and Javier Lopez where the players coming back never amounted to anything.
Also, technically the Akinori Iwamura acquisition was a trade, and that sucked.
The difference between the bay trade and the Bautista trade is that, at the time, Bay had value, Bautista did not. Neil didn’t get enough in return for Bay and has admitted as much since then. Bautista had low value at the time and hadn’t shown much more than a bit of power and a lack of plate discipline. That being said, I agree with your other points.
The difference between the bay trade and the Bautista trade is that, at the time, Bay had value, Bautista did not. Neil didn’t get enough in return for Bay and has admitted as much since then. Bautista had low value at the time and hadn’t shown much more than a bit of power and a lack of plate discipline. The other trades never amounted to much because the players that were traded weren’t much. That being said I agree with the Aki trade, though at the time it made sense, he was Hori-bad.
You gotta like the potential ceiling of that Pirates outfield for next season. Snider, Marte, and this Andrew McCutchen prospect that everyone seems to be excited about could be really good. They are one of the better defensive outfields (Snider has really improved on this aspect this year) and the potential for 80 HRs out of the group is nice.
I know it doesn’t mean anything until people start reaching the upper floors, but I could see this being the best all-around outfield in the majors next year.
UZR seems to really hate McCutchen’s range this season and has him effectively as the second worst defensive center fielder in the league. I’m wondering if he’s under orders to not lay out for balls to avoid the chance of injury? (the last one I remember him going all out for was a ball he sprained his wrist on in June). I hope the Pirates see the light and switch him to left and let Marte take over in center field. During the Astro’s series I held my breath on the long fly ball to the hill in center where he ran blindly up it. If Snider pans out it makes alot of sense to have Gorkys as a 4th outfielder that can really help defensively with late leads in tight games. This also pushes Jones back to 1st where his ability to platoon with McGahee actually makes them an effective 1st baseman. All in all the Pirates now on paper only lack production at SS. Which we can deal with if Barmes continues to play strong defensively until Hanson is ready.
UZR hates his D, but most everyone who sees him play disagrees. Maybe they’re biased because of his bat? I haven’t seen him play nearly enough to make a call either way.
I could see this being the best all-around outfield in the majors next year.
I don’t even know if it is the best outfield in the division. Holliday, Beltran, Jay (with Craig as a backup corner OF) is quite good.
Well, I wonder what this means for the forgotten Jose Tabata. They have him locked down for at least another 4 years with options afterwards.
Yes, Snider is dripping with potential … but he has been for five years. He’s always whiffed too much, then goes down to the minors to shorten his swing, appears to do better, then gets his long swing exposed again when he comes back up.
After five years of telling Snider to work on striking out less, whiffing 35% of the time in his fifth tour of duty was probably the last straw. Might as well trade him before his label changes from Prospect to Bust, which isn’t long in coming.
I think AA just wanted to move on from Snider. He had to hear all year long from everyone asking why he was still in Vegas and probably just wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing.
Soriano is right handed and righties love smacking homers out of Rogers Stadium. Thames, Snider, Lind are all free-swinging lefties.
I don’t know what they expected to get for Snider, the magical “potential” only shines for so long when you don’t have major league success. At least they got a great bullpen arm who can be coached up to be a starter, better than losing him for nothing in a year or two if he doesn’t have success.
They had plenty of chances to see what they had in Snider but didn’t want to give him consistent PT for whatever reason. Seems like they’ve always had it out for him, I’d say they got a decent return but they would rather have just seen him be successful in Toronto.
I saw this trade as of 30 minutes ago, and now that I’ve had some time to calm down, I think I’ve come at it from two different sides.
Emotionally, Snider was one my favourite platers, and was someone who I so desperately wished would have gotten regular playing time. So much power, and so much meat, but it was not to be.
Less-Emotionally, he was a player that did not seem to have a home on the Jays. With CF and RF locked up, it is between him, and a few other players (prospects and Rajai Davis) in the system. I do not believe his incremental value in LF was very high with his current outlook. Therefore, we dealt a player from a position of strength, who only became a “starting LF” 2 weeks ago. Also, with those prospects, Snider is out of options, and would have been very likely exposed to the waiver wire as early as next year.
We then turned him into a pitcher who at the very least, has some above average bullpen value, and in the ideal situation could be someone who gets his change-up working, and turns into a competent starting pitcher. The incremental value of any competent pitching right now, is very large. Especially for how long Brad Lincoln will be under Jays control.
This trade does not seem all that lop-sided as it first did, and in fact I think there is a very good chance that the Jays come out ahead in this one. I just wish that Moonraker didn’t have to be involved.
GM AA lost this one for sure. He probably could have gotten a better deal in the offseason if
1) Snider gets to play full-time in LF until the end of 2012 season
2) Gose gets sent down when Bautista comes back
The Blue Jays lose this one simply because they could have gotten more, BUT at the very least, Lincoln should be a mainstay in the pen for the years to come.
For sure, huh?
I’m glad you can see into the future. Can you tell me who wins the next few World Series so I can lay a few bucks down?
Yes, the potential is there for AA to have made a huge mistake. Snider is all about potential. But sometimes potential does not turn into production. AA is gambling that he can get equal or more production out of Lincoln. He might bet wrong, but he could also be right.
As far as #1 goes, you are assuming that Snider has a good remainder of the season. He could easily have gotten hurt (he has a bit of a history, especially with his wrists) or his hitting could go south (which has also happened before). Both of these would have reduced his value.
#2 Snider and Gose are not connected. I’m now certain that Snider got the call up because Pittsburgh wanted to see him in MLB action before they pulled the trigger. Gose was and is Jose’s injury replacement.
is this a reply to me? I didn’t call him amazing, I said look at how amazing the team would be now if they picked up a (and I quote) “decent bat”, along with 2 starters. Garza + Soriano makes so much sense now given the huge hole they just opened up in LF, it’d give them a decent bat and wouldn’t cost much in terms of prospects or $$, and they’d need just 1 more starter to look like an amazing TEAM.
Very discouraging as a Pirates fan to see our big bat acquisition appearing on the same list as Chad Hermansen.
What list would that be? Us pirate fans are all yelling for an impact player to trade for but don’t want to give up anything in return. No one wants to see Marte, Cole, Taillon, Hanson or Heredia in a trade so how would we acquire an impact bat? What Neil did here made a lot of sense. Take a chance on a young player with years of team control and some left side power and in turn keep our farm system intact and lose nothing more than a reliever who can be replaced easily enough and whom we had no rotation spot for going forward. Should be win/win for both clubs.
If you liked what happened with James McDonald this season, then you should be open minded with this deal. It’s basically the same type of move, and without what James did earlier this season, there’s no way the Pirates are thinking about the playoffs this late in the season. This is a smart wager by the Pirates, even if it doesn’t pan out.
Travis Snider<Tyler Colvin?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/01/blue-jays-rangers-to-swap-napoli-francisco.html
Ninja.
Ya bad swap in hindsight however what would Napoli have done for the Jays? Nothing. They wouldn’t have made the playoffs and his value came after an incredibly HOT second half where his trade value wouldn’t have been that high at the July 31 deadline anyway if they wanted to sell him.
I think the reason AA made that trade was to get the comp pick, which they did
To paraphrase a world champion chess player, “the future will tell which player is better but for now, the trade looks quite even.
I’d just like to point out for those who chalked up last year’s deadline deal as a huge win that Colby Rasmus has continued his streaky ways and come back to earth and that the Cardinals got the use of two good relievers, one good starter, two sandwich picks, salary relief by dumping two pitchers, and $3M for him. The Cardinals “won” that deal.
Lol
The Jays got four players in the Rasmus deal. Three got cut within two months. So they got three years control of a streaky CF with excellent potential.
The Cardinals got a partial season from two good RP, one good SP, and one bad OF. One of the RP has four years of team control. Two of the players were in position to return draft picks (and did).
I’ll give the Jays the edge. However, it wasn’t a steal as most people here seem to think, and the Jays took more risk by betting on one player.
Pretty sure that the Jays got two years of control of Rasmus. I believe he’s a “super 2″ that will be a free agent after 2013. Unless you’re counting the end of his last season as one of the Jays’ seasons of control, that is.
That “lol” above is exactly why I brought it up though. The trade was declared a huge victory for AA when it was made but few seem to have realized that it really wasn’t.
Rasmus is a FA after 2014, so 3+ years of control at the time of the trade.
Frasor, Stewart, Dotel and Rzepczynski for 3 years of a power hitting CF is a pretty huge victory as far as I’m concerned.
And, especially with the new draft system, the supplemental draft picks are nice, but not that valuable.
Three years of a power hitting CF would be a huge victory for the parts AA traded away. Rasmus has the potential to be that, but I’m not convinced he’ll reach that potential.
Here are some stats by year (09 – 12):
wRC+: 89 , 129 , 90 , 102
BABIP: .282, .354, .267, .267
BB% : 6.9 , 11.8 , 9.5 , 7.8
This year’s Rasmus is more valuable than the pieces he lost in the trade.
Rasmus is pretty solid versus righties, they just need to platoon him versus southpaws.
A couple of notes. First, Las Vegas is not “perhaps the most hitter-friendly situation in the minor leagues.” It’s not even close. Its BBTF Park factor is 1.02 for homers and 1.01 for hits. It does appear to significantly inflate doubles (1.09).
Snider had an ISO of 0.219 in AAA and 0.213 at other minor league levels. His average was 0.333 in AAA and 0.294 at other minor league levels. His strikeout rate was 21% in AAA and 29% at otherminor league levels.
Looks like a reasonable bet, but not one guaranteed to succeed.
Hm, not changing that. That park factor for runs in Las Vegas makes it the sixth-best offensive park in the most offensive league. So it’s in the conversation with five other parks for best situation for a hitter, and he hits in the other five parks? Yeah, I think that’s a pretty sweet situation, beyond just the straight PF.
Jays had 39 players under contract for next year with FA’s at 2B (Johnson), two late inning relievers (Lyon and Frasor) and a swing starter (Villa). The Happ deal alleviates concerns if Villa doesn’t sign, and now the Delabar and Lincoln deals mean that they HAVE to sign or replace Frasor or Lyon (not saying they won’t at least sign Frasor). With a couple of DFA candidates in Richmond and Litsch they now have that little bit of wiggle room to address the biggest need which is a front end starter. I thought Snider had more value than this…but it’s time to move on and build this team into a contender.
If I could be held to one bold quote in baseball, it would be this: Travis Snider will mash immediately and will blossom into one of the best hitters in the game by the time Brad Lincoln takes his next piss. If you watch him, everything is starting to click, which is scary given his talent. This guy could start dominating now.
While I think AA has done an excellent job overall I do question the timing of this trade. That the Jays only got back Lincoln shows that Snider’s trade value now is fairly low. If you believe the Jays don’t have much of a shot at a wild card — they are 4.5 games back now –then perhaps it would have made better sense to let Snider play every day from here on out. If he performs as in the past, you trade him for a Lincoln-quality player in the off-season. If he plays better, you’ve increased his trade value as 2-plus months is probably enough to tilt the scales in the eyes of some GMs.
At the end of the day I don’t see the Jays overtaking the Angels or Rangers and the Tigers or White Sox.
This is likely more of case of the Jays being tired of waiting. Snider has been in and out of the lineup for a few years now. He was given every chance to succeed but never grabbed the brass ring. He needed some new surroundings as any MLB success he may have, was not going to happen in Toronto.