Are The Toronto Blue Jays Interested In Gavin Floyd?
It’s been reported that the Toronto Blue Jays are interested in Gavin Floyd. Any trade rumour involved with the Jays should be looked at skeptically, as GM Alex Anthopoulos never talks about a potential transaction until after it has already occurred. Nonetheless, the Jays biggest weakness heading into the season is the uncertainty in the rotation, and the addition of Floyd could provide a veteran arm behind Brandon Morrow and Ricky Romero.
My colleague, Adam Sager has recently written an article about what the Blue Jays might need to trade to the Chicago White Sox in order to pay fair value for Floyd. And while it’s an interesting exercise, it appears that Adam has given far too much credit to Floyd’s value. Let’s take a look at some other players who were traded this offseason, and compare that to Floyd.
San Diego trades Mat Latos to the Cincinnati Reds for Brad Boxberger, Yasmani Grandal, Yonder Alonso and Edinson Volquez.
The Seattle Mariners trade Michael Pineda to the New York Yankees for Jesus Montero.
The Oakland Athletics trade Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Ryan Cook, Collin Cowgill and Jarrod Parker.
The Oakland Athletics trade Gio Gonzalez and Robert Gilliam to the Washington Nationals for AJ Cole, Derek Norris, Tom Milone and Brad Peacock.
These are four of the biggest trades involving young starters during the offseason. Since the Jays are unlikely to trade an elite, major league ready prospect like third baseman Brett Lawrie, the Yankees trade doesn’t fit our comparison. So let’s take a look at how Floyd compares to Latos, Cahill and Gonzalez over the past 2 years.
Gio Gonzalez – 31-21, 3.17 ERA, 8.2 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 3.71 FIP, 6.7 WAR.
Mat Latos – 23-24, 3.21 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 3.09 FIP, 7.2 WAR
Trevor Cahill – 30-22, 3.58 ERA, 5.9 K/9, 3.23 BB/9, 4.14 FIP, 4.7 WAR
Gavin Floyd – 22-26, 4.23 ERA, 7.13 K/9, 2.43 BB/9, 3.64 FIP, 7.9 WAR
As we can see, Floyd has arguably the worst numbers of any pitchers in this group. Normally having a strong FIP and a poor ERA like Floyd does would indicate that he’s a great candidate to improve in the following year. However, when one takes a look at his numbers with runners on base, it’s clear that Floyd has issues pitching out of the stretch. Let’s take a look at his numbers in low, medium, and high leverage situations during his career. For those unfamiliar with the concept of leverage, take a quick look here at the Fangraphs Glossary.
Low Leverage: 7.41 K/9, 3.07 BB/9, 42.% GB
Medium Leverage: 6.61 K/9, 2.89 BB/9, 44.6% GB
High Leverage: 5.31 K/9, 2.65 BB/9, 53% GB
What you should notice is that the drop in strikeout rate is intentional. Floyd wants the ball put in play, and the upward trend of the groundball % indicates he’s trading strikeouts for ground outs or double plays. And with a fantastic defensive shortstop in Alexei Ramirez, that’s not a bad idea. But clearly it hasn’t been working for Floyd, and it’s one of the main reasons why he allows so many runs to cross the plate. Floyd would likely be better off trying to strike out more hitters in these situations, as his current strategy of waiting for the double play and keeping the ball on the ground is simply not working.
Stranding runners is an important skillset, and with nearly 1000 innings to his credit it’s safe to say that Floyd is not very effective at doing this. This is one of the main reasons why Floyd hasn’t been able to keep his ERA as low as some of the other pitchers, despite posting a similar FIP. What it also means, is that as far as Floyd’s trade value goes, he’s not in the same realm as Cahill, Latos or Gonzalez. When you factor in that Floyd is the oldest of the trio and has the least club control (at the time the trades were made) his value drops considerably.
So there’s simply no justification for my colleagues’ hypothetical trade, as a potential A grade pitching prospect by John Sickels (essentially making him one of the best pitching prospects in the minors), an outfielder with a ton of upside, a breakout candidate and a fourth player would be a significant overpay for Gavin Floyd. At best the White Sox would be able to get Deck McGuire, a quality innings eater that will pitch in the majors, and a second player from the Blue Jays extremely deep and talented farm. McGuire is near major league ready, and should be a quality middle to back end starter, which is a fairly solid return for a slightly above average pitcher coming off a disappointing season with little club control. More likely is that if McGuire was to be traded, it would be a one for one deal for Floyd.
And even that may prove to be too high a price for the Blue Jays to pay, as McGuire might be ready to make the jump to the majors by July.
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Toronto definately needs to upgrade their rotation but I highly doubt anthopolous will over pay. He is way too savvy for that and the jays will just go with what the have if the right deal can’t be worked out. I would rather see Brett Cecil get dealt as the soft tossing left type does not play well in the AL east and his much talked about weight loss has not increased his 87 mph fastball velocity. Maybe Cecil and a ptbnl in the event Floyd signs a contract extension. That would make me happy but I wouldn’t be upset with Deck McGuire being traded as the jays have lots of middle to back of the rotation help