Sports Time Radio

All off season it’s been said that the Toronto Blue Jays would be active in the free agent market. Well until yesterday they hadn’t made any big free agent signings, but they changed that yesterday as they landed two of the bigger free agents on the market.

It had been reported that there where two teams with serious interest in George Springer; the New York Mets and the Blue Jays. Well yesterday it was the Blue Jays that landed the free agent outfielder. It took a 6 year $150 million dollar contract to bring Springer into the Blue Jays line up.

To this point Springer had spent his entire seven year career as a member of the Houston Astros. Springer has played more games in rightfield than any of the other outfield positions, but for the Blue Jays he’ll be their everyday centerfielder. That means Randall Grichuk will have to moved either to another position in the Blue Jays outfield or possibly designated hitter. Will have to wait and see how the Blue Jays line up defensively in 2021.

Springer is a career .270 hitter and has reached 30 plus home runs twice over his seven seasons. What will be interesting will be to see where Springer fits into the Blue Jays batting order. Springer more or less always led off for the Astros. At one point in his Houston Career they tried to move him down in the order to take advantage of his power and see if he could drive in more runs. Unfortunately he struggled after the Astros moved him out of the lead off spot and it wasn’t long before they realized it was a mistake and moved him right back to the top of their batting order. If Springer does take over as the Blue Jays lead of hitter it will allow Toronto’s young players like Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to move down in the batting order and might take a little pressure off of them.

Springer will also upgrade the Blue Jays defense. While Grichuk was a solid defender he’s not in the same class as Springer, but keeping Grichuk in the outfield will also help Toronto’s defense. You have to think that it’s going to end up being Teoscar Hernandez who’s oved to the designated hitter role and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. will continue to be the everyday leftfielder.

Now Springer wasn’t the only big signing the Blue Jays made yesterday. Toronto also answered their question at closer by signing now former San Diego Padres closer Kirby Yates.

Yates signed a one year deal with the Blue Jays. Yates will make $5.5 million dollars guaranteed, but has incentives in his contract that could added another $4.5 million dollars to his deal.

Now adding the incentives to Yates’ contract makes sense for Toronto as he only pitched in 6 games last season covering just 4 1/3rd innings due to injury. Now in 2019 Yates led Major League baseball in saves with 41 and posted an ERA of 1.19. Obviously that’s the closer the Blue Jays are hoping they signed and if Yates does return to that form he’ll be a free agent again next season and can try to get an even bigger deal then.

The Blue Jays also added one more arm as they signed right hander Tyler Chatwood to a one year $3 million dollar deal.

It appears right now that Chatwood will fill a role in the Blue Jays bullpen, but he has plenty of starting experience if the Blue Jays need to call on him. Remember that Toronto is planning on having Nate Pearson in their starting rotation and this will be his first full year at the Major League level; so it won’t be a surprise if his innings are monitored closely. So it’s possible that Chatwood could be the guy if Pearson is skipped in the rotation or if someone in the Blue Jays starting rotation gets injured Chatwood could easily step in and fill that starting role.

What do you think of these moves the Blue Jays made? Of course the biggest question is; do these moves make them competitive with the New York Yankees in the American League East?

Chatwood is now a former Chicago Cub and two other now former Cubs starting pitcher found new homes yesterday.

First it was Jon Lester who signed a one year deal with the Washington Nationals. The Nationals inked Lester to a very team friendly deal for 2021 as he’ll make $5 million dollars. Lester’s contact does include a mutual option for the 2022 season.

The other Cubs pitcher to sign yesterday was Jose Quintana. He received a one year $8 million dollar deal from the Los Angeles Angels. This means that Quintana will be reunited with former Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

Well it looks like we’re finally starting to see some of the free agent with name value gets signed. That makes me wonder; how long before a team steps up and signs Trevor Bauer?

Don’t forget that the Sports Time Radio podcast airs live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you do miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen whenever you want.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime