http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/12/ ... key-trade/
The Toronto Blue Jays cannot control what happens when the season starts, but they can hope. R.A. Dickey is 38, and he won the National League Cy Young in 2012, and the Jays are very close to trading for him. If Toronto can agree on a contract extension with the warrior poet of baseball — and the sense is that it won’t be a problem — they will send two of their top three remaining prospects to the New York Mets, swap backup catchers and warm bodies, and hope not to look back. It will be a bold move.
But it will be a reasonable gamble, and that’s what matters. Yes, it will pain general manager Alex Anthopoulos to send catcher Travis d’Arnaud and pitcher Noah Syndergaard — No. 1 and No. 3 in their minor-league system, if you believe Baseball America — for Dickey. The rest of the deal sends backup catcher John Buck and a warm body for Dickey’s personal catcher, Josh Thole, and a different warm body, but the prospects make it go. It will be a steep price, plus the extension. This isn’t a heist. The Mets aren’t the Marlins.
But that is where the Jays are. This is what they are. They are not waiting for players to develop anymore, for the crop to come in. They added US$166-million in contract commitments when they raided Miami for Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle, and that’s before a Johnson extension is discussed. They threw another US$16-million at Melky Cabrera. Dickey is 38 years old, but he’s great right now. Now, to Toronto, is what matters.
And if it didn’t, then they would be going the other way. They would be trading Jose Bautista (32) or Buehrle (33). They would be restocking the minor leagues, rather than using them as currency. At this point, the Jays are either in or they’re out, and clearly they’re in. D’Arnaud and Syndergaard might be good major leaguers, but it won’t be this year, and it might not be next year. Next year, they don’t help.
Dickey does. The deal hinges on him, obviously, and if his knuckler loses its fairy dust then it’s a bust, and Anthopoulos will get killed for chasing the wrong guy. That’s fine.
But Dickey’s magic seems replicable, which means the rotation could go Dickey, Johnson, Brandon Morrow, Buehrle, and Ricky Romero. Dickey doesn’t throw Tim Wakefield’s 66 mph floater; his knuckler doesn’t bob and float and dance in the traditional way. He throws a fast one and a slow one, and he mixes in fastballs for effect, and his pitches aren’t mere objects of faith, even though he’s a religious man. He threw four wild pitches last year, and his walk rate is low and steady. He appears to have unlocked something, and it’s only gotten better.
