Trade could create MLB’s best infield
When Major League Baseball decided to lock out its players on Dec. 2, all big-league transactions were shut down. What had been a whirlwind off-season of free-agent signings stopped in its tracks.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said at the time, in an open letter to the fans, that MLB was “forced” to lock the players out in hopes that the move would “jump-start the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time.”
MLB then waited six weeks to table its next offer to the Players’ Association, which is an excellent way to jump-start the negotiations, if you ask me.
Whenever the two sides manage to come to a deal — be it next month, early summer or somewhere in between — the off-season carousel will again begin to spin, and the Blue Jays will have some work to do.
The Jays saw Cy Young winner Robbie Ray leave for Seattle before the shutdown and replaced him with Kevin Gausman. Second baseman Marcus Semien signed with Texas and left-hander Steven Matz packed up for St. Louis. The bullpen was bolstered by the addition of former Marlins closer Yimi Garcia, and the Jays took flyers on David Phelps, back on a minor-league deal, and Shaun Anderson, a waiver claim.
Holes remain. The biggest need left to fill is in the infield, where not only do the Jays have to replace Semien, they also have to figure out third base.
The hot corner was anything but that this past season. Though Santiago Espinal had a terrific year, hitting .311 with a .376 on-base percentage, he only managed to get into 92 games. Seven Jays played third base and combined to post a .692 OPS as a group, the worst of any position on the team, while hitting only 10 home runs.
There seems to be a ready replacement for Semien at second base, though the word “replacement” is used very loosely. A healthy Cavan Biggio could combine with Espinal to provide strong defence and solid offence. They wouldn’t give the team nearly as much as Semien provided with his 45 homers, but it would likely be a lot better than what came out of third base last year.
The new third baseman would be the one who has to pick up most of the Semien slack. Two elite hitters may be available on the trade market: Cleveland’s José Ramirez and Arizona’s Ketel Marte.
Ramirez has been mentioned in trade talks for a while but he’s still in northeast Ohio, which means that either no one has been willing to meet Cleveland’s price or the Guardians aren’t as interested in moving him as we’ve been led to believe. The switch-hitter has finished in the top six in MVP voting in four of the past five seasons.
Marte, also a switch-hitter, is a ray of light trying to shine its way out of a black hole. The 28-year-old put up a .909 OPS for the 110-loss Dia- mondbacks in 2021 after a .981 in his breakout 2019. He played only half the season because of a couple of hamstring injuries.
Both players are under contract at reasonable rates — Ramirez has two years left at a total of $25 million (U.S.) while Marte is locked up for three years at an average of just over $9 million per season (the last two years are team options, making the contract that much more attractive).
The price would be steep for either one.
There’s no question that any team with which the Jays want to make a big trade would come asking for the organization’s top prospects, catcher Gabriel Moreno and shortstop Orelvis Martinez. There’s just as little question that the Jays would politely decline, and put together a different package. An offer of Jordan Groshans, Alejandro Kirk and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. could get a deal done.
If that seems heavy, it is. Groshans, a shortstop, is a top-60 prospect who had an .817 OPS at Double-A last season; Kirk is a 23-yearold catcher with a big-league OPS of .791; and Gurriel has a career OPSplus of 118 (18 per cent better than the average hitter) with two years of cheap control remaining. But Ramirez is among the game’s best players and Marte isn’t that far behind.
With Moreno on the way up and Danny Jansen having found his stroke late last season (1.072 OPS and 13 extra-base hits in 14 games over the final month), the Jays can spare Kirk, who has terrific offensive potential. Groshans is a top prospect, but the odds that he’ll ever accomplish what Ramirez and Marte already have are slim. Outfield bats are easier to replace than infield ones, so losing Gurriel isn’t untenable.
It would be nice, though, if a package could work that would keep Gurriel in Toronto, flashing his rocket arm in left field and carrying the team when he gets on one of his hot streaks. Maybe the answer is to dig deeper into the prospect pool, perhaps for Groshans’ high school buddy, Adam Kloffenstein, along with either Kevin Smith or Josh Palacios, two players who made their big-league debuts in 2021. Could that be enough? Maybe for Marte, given the years of control and the place Arizona finds itself in its competitive cycle. Probably not for Ramirez, though.
If Gurriel has to go, the Jays go from having holes at third base and DH to having holes in left field and at DH. But an infield of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Biggio, Bo Bichette and Ramirez or Marte would easily be the best there is.