Wednesday 17 November 2010

Assurance

By now you know - Farquhar and Magnuson for Rajai Davis.

This sort of thing is easy to over-analyze because we are so early in the off-season that the music is still playing and we don't begin to know who will end up in what seats. on the most basic level, we dealt a couple of guys who were, at best, n the fringes of the top 30 on anyone's list. I find Farquhar intriguing but he's not a rare talent. Mags is a fungible part, even if he hits his ceiling. So there's no real loss, per se. On the other hand Davis is 30 years old, and other than being a very fast and very efficient baserunner, he doesn't impress you with his offense. He a competent to good defender in CF, and can play all three positions. He's an almost ideal 4th outfielder, which will likely be his role. if he starts, he's gonna provoke Otis Nixon flashbacks.

There are other side points to note - does this make Lewis a sure bet to be out of town within the next couple of weeks? - would Davis have been non-tendered by the A's? could he be non-tendered by the Jays? - Would they seriously consider moving Wells out of CF for a gy like this (answer: very doubtful)? and does that mean Bautista goes to 3B if he does (answer: almost certainly)?

But honestly, it's useless to get to strident right now. When mid-February rolls around we can look at all the moves as a set ad have a better idea. in the mean-time, Davis gives us some assurance against being caught with our pants on the ground in a few different ways.

Meanwhile, we could address a lot of this if we'd just go out and get Justin Upton!

3 comments:

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

I think Rajai has a role on this team, especially considering the fact he can hit LHP. I've got a post about it that'll be up soon. Looking at some of the numbers, it's shocking just how bad the Jays were against lefties last season.

As for Upton, I don't want the organization to trade Snider. He's so close!

Mylegacy said...

Davis can run, catch the ball and hit - a little.

He's either the replacement for Wise and Lewis - and will be used as a pitch runner instead of JMac - OR - AA wants him as an outfielder - IF SO - then it looks like Snider to LF, Davis to CF, Wells to RF and Bautista to 3rd.

As to Upton - what a nice little trinket he'd be on AA's Xmas tree.

Tom Dakers said...

Are you sure that Henderson Alvarez has to be protected, I see him with 4 years of minor league ball and he signed before he was 18.

Also I think you are one off on the count of the Jays 40 man, they have 33 on it now with Davis added, so 7 free spots.