The Winter Meetings are over, ending a little flurry of activity in the slow off-season.
The Jays big move was the trade for Andrés Giménez and Nick Sandlin. I feel I was a little overly pessimistic about the trade. It surprised me that the team added to an area I felt was already a strength. We have roughly a dozen (slight exaggeration) young MLB-ready middle infielders. I felt (still feel) that all efforts should be focused on adding an outfielder or DH with power after treating us fans with a team that couldn’t beat their way out of a wet paper bag with a bat.
A team that was shut out nine times and scored just one run another 23 times. That’s 20% of the season where the offence didn’t give the team a chance to win.
So adding another great glove, whose bat has been trending in the wrong direction, seemed (trying to come up with the right word) dumb.
But picking up a guy who made it to the majors at 21. He has totalled 16.7 bWAR over the last three years and has been a Gold Glover for a guy who had his first real MLB season at 26. It was a nice but not terrific season, who plays a position we have covered and doesn’t project to get a lot better isn’t all that bad.
Giménez is young enough to have some potential to improve (though I’d bet dollars to donuts that he’ll never have a season like his 2022 season again). I would bet that Giménez will accumulate more WAR points over the next six seasons than Horwitz.
Add in Nick Sandlin, a serviceable bullpen arm; it should be a trade I’d like.
BUT THEY BETTER ADD A POWER HITTER BEFORE THE NEW YEAR OR WE RIOT.
Well, not riot; we are Canadian, but we shake our heads sadly.
Our friends at Covering the Corners had a ‘season in review’ post about Giménez. Read it, but I’ll share this:
In the meantime, I have to say that I really enjoyed watching Andres Gimenez play baseball in 2024. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that he is the BEST relay throw guy in baseball. He’s just so good at everything defensively.
I got an email from someone called BetMaryland.com telling me that the Blue Jays have the second-best odds of signing Anthony Santander (18.2% chance).
I’d be happy to have him on the team.
The team is also talking to Corbin Burnes, who won’t help us score runs, but I’d be happy to cheer for him for the next several seasons.
Angel Bastardo was an interesting pickup in the Rule 5 draft. He’s going to miss most of 2025 recovering from Tommy John, so unless he recovers enough to get 90 days on the roster, the Jays will be able to have it carry over to 2026 and get more time to work with him to see if can be a useful MLB pitcher. It is worth a chance when a guy can throw high 90s.