David Eckstein is off to Arizona, in return the Jays get Chad Beck. He's a 6'4" 23 year old RHP who spent most of the season in the California league (High-A, the equivalent of Dunedin) and is in his second professional season. The Jays drafted him out of high school (!) in 2004 but didn't sign him so he's been on their radar awhile. Looking at his stat page on MiLB.com, one notes that he handled lefties well, has very good ratios, and had a season of three excellent months and one very bad month. Observe the ERA and OBA pattern:May - 1.46 - .222
June - 2.12 - .183
July - 8.36 - 3.33
August - 2.39 - .182
Which of these is not like the other?
If you look at the GO/AO ratio, you get a good lead on why. Beck gave up 5 HR in July and 3 the rest of the season. It's an easy guess he got bad location for a few games and elevated his pitches and got rocked for it.
Considering that a lot of Jays fans were saying "send us a bag of balls for him", I'd call this an impressive return. Let's see how much praise the Hated One gets for it.
~WillRain
