Roster Machinations June 6-7, 2013
In typical Alex Anthopoulos fashion, the Blue Jays had a busy day of roster machinations on Friday. According to the team’s official transaction page, Henry Blanco was designated for assignment (DFA) while Anthony Gose was optioned to AAA the day before. This opened up two sports on the Jays 25-man roster and one spot on the 40-man roster. With the Henry Blanco era officially over, the Blue Jays recalled Josh Thole from AAA to take his role as the Dickey Catcher ™. In addition, Andy LaRoche had his contract selected (added to the 40-man roster) from Buffalo and was called up to take the spot of Gose and serve as a third base option with Lawrie out.
This removes Blanco and his putrid .240 wOBA/45 wRC+ from the 40-man and opens the job to someone who can actually hit a bit. Thole is a career .295/85 hitter who provides almost no power (.072 ISO) and posted a dismal .290/60 last year while fighting a concussion. However, he put up a .327/103 and .307/94 in the two years prior. Thole has hit .395/140 (.188 ISO) with a generous .345 BABIP in Buffalo. He is a definite defensive downgrade but he has caught Dickey previously with reasonable success and the bat should easily cover his deficiencies value-wise. The LaRoche recall (.367/121 in AAA) offers the Jays somebody who can actually throw across the diamond, unlike Izturis, who has to use the carpet frequently.
After the game – a tidy dismantling of the Rangers, where the bullpen retired the last 15 in a row – the Blue Jays optioned RHP Todd Redmond to AAA and activated the oft-injured and long-awaited Dustin McGowan from the 60-day Disabled List and placed him on the 25-man roster. However, a 40-man roster spot is not currently available for McGowan at the moment and the corresponding move is not yet official.
As my friend and fellow blogger @Mentoch of Blue Jays Plus points out, it would seem logical that Evan Crawford is the primary DFA candidate given his miserable 10.4% walk rate (combined A+ and AA) and disappointing 17.0% strikeout rate (AA only). Languishing in AA at the age of 26 (#AAby26 – hat tip to those who get this reference) and stuck behind three lefties on the big-league staff and a right-hander with reverse splits (Cecil, Loup, Oliver and Delabar respectively), there just is no opportunity for him to seize a role on this team.
The Jays also signed ex-Yankee staff ace and sinkerballer Chien-Ming Wang to a Minor League contract and he will be added to the rosters and start on Tuesday in Chicago against the White Sox. I do not love the matchup in that park, which while down this year, has been consistently in the top third of the league in park factors for runs and home runs since 2001 (breadth of ESPN dataset). However, this effect may be mitigated somewhat by the fact that the White Sox rank 29th in wOBA and wRC+, 28th in walk rate, 27th in ISO and 23rd in strikeout rate. In terms of batted balls, the White Sox rank fifth in line drive and flyball rates, while ranking 29th in ground ball rate. A .280 BABIP and the line drives would indicate that the Sox have been somewhat unlucky, but the flyballs would account for at least some portion of the depression. Wang has not really walked or struck out anybody in 58 AAA innings this year (4.2%/10.5%), but he will keep the ball on the ground (career 59.1 % groundball rate) and with any luck the defense will not fail on him.
UPDATE (June 11, 2013):
Stats from MLB, ESPN and Fangraphs. Roster information from http://www.mlbdepthcharts.com. Hat-tip to @mentoch of http://www.bluejaysplus.com & http://bjppodcast.blogspot.ca for suggesting Evan Crawford as a DFA candidate
Hume's Jays Bullpen 