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Full story for those interested:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/ja ... yday-role/

Speaking about his situation with media afterwards, it’s clear everything is not. One year after putting together a productive year for the Blue Jays, Navarro finds himself in a difficult situation.

“Obviously it is,” he said. “I think I put myself in a really good position last year and I expressed throughout the whole year last year how grateful I was with the Blue Jays for giving me the opportunity, and I don’t know where or if anything did go wrong. I’m a pro, I’m going to do my job, I’m going to be ready for whatever and see what happens.”

Immediately after the signing, Navarro said he asked Alex Anthopoulos for a trade, but the GM sought real value in return and wasn’t able to find a partner.

“Up to today (a trade) is still my goal,” said Navarro. “I’d like to go to a place where I can play every day, because I already know that I can do it. There was doubt on myself last year and I felt strong throughout the whole season, I think I did a pretty good job. I signed a two-year deal here to catch every day and unfortunately they felt they needed to make a move. I just would like to play every day somewhere.”

Fortunately, Donaldson's quotes late last week were pretty good, he's really up for the challenge.

As for Navarro, I'd love to know what offers AA received early in the winter, whether he overplayed his hand by not proceeding with a deal in hopes of getting a better one.

Good. For all the good AA did in the off-season, not dumping Navarro as soon as Martin was signed was a bad move. Maybe Navarro speaking up publicly will force AA to make the move that everyone except him seems to know is common sense.

Gibbons talking about Edwin at 1B full-time while Smoak/Valencia/Navarro battle it out for DH is terrible roster management. Hopefully it's just Spring talk and not something he actually thinks is the right move.

Trade him. He won't fetch us a pick after he expires this season so at least get somthing for him. Better roster management than having him only catch limited games and get paid 5 mill plus have thole in the roster.

I have no idea why Navarro thinks he's good enough to keep making trade demands, its not like he's a clear cut starting catcher who many teams would love to have. He's terrible behind the plate and one of the worst framers in the whole league, as a fulltime catcher he'd be in the bottom 5 and he keeps acting like he's a top 5 star catcher.

dagger wrote:Fortunately, Donaldson's quotes late last week were pretty good, he's really up for the challenge.

As for Navarro, I'd love to know what offers AA received early in the winter, whether he overplayed his hand by not proceeding with a deal in hopes of getting a better one.

Agreed; there's potentially upside in having him as a trade chip right now (one spring injury and a team could get pretty needy), but it's mitigated by Dinner wanting out.

If we're looking at relievers as a return, and club's are unwilling to create a depth chart hole, one option might be to ship Dioner plus a reliever (Jenkins, Rasmussen, whatever) for a more substantial pitcher. Of course, given that we're talking about bullpens, that leaves open every possibility that the reliever we send out will perform better than the more highly rated one coming back.

Looking at the D-Backs roster, Cliff Pennington makes a lot of sense in a 1-for-1 deal. He'd easily be the best 2B option on the team (assuming Travis is destined for AAA), and can slide over to short in case of need. The Jays would only save about $1.7M, but they'd get the better player in return and eliminate the roster clutter. If he is adament about a reliever in return, then I'm not sure what type of pitcher he expects to get.

Thanks for driving your trade value down, jerk. You really think AA wants you as his DH? and isn't turning over every possible stone to find someone willing to trade for you?

AA flat out said he was looking to trade Navarro back when he acquired Martin, so I don't think Navarro lashing out will change much. Davidi keeps saying the Jays can dump Dinner whenever they want but are looking for value. Worst case they dump him for nothing and save $5M, but I don't think the best case is much better than the salary dump. Maybe a decent MLB reliever, tops.

Ok well, fair to say, DN ain't helping his own cause if AA wants value back.

SharoneWright wrote:Ok well, fair to say, DN ain't helping his own cause if AA wants value back.

Agreed, but AA's biggest mistake may have been expecting to get value for him in the first place. I hope there is still a team out there willing to take the $5M hit.

Yeah, a pure salary dump for Dinner would be just fine at this point. That would purportedly give us $10-11M to improve the club.

Lateral Quicks wrote:Yeah, a pure salary dump for Dinner would be just fine at this point. That would purportedly give us $10-11M to improve the club.

Or the ability to take back quite a bit of money in midseason trade. At this point, that'd be my preference...perhaps sign one of the cheaper decent relievers on the market, but keep a sizable warchest because god knows we aren't getting a top-up if we're in the race.

I tinkered with the title because now, in my old age, I can't remember if Navarro ever "iterated" his trade request the first time.

This is pretty much on AA. He had a guy in his walk year looking for a trade for 3 months now and it's almost spring training. What would you expect Navarro to do? He's using his only point of leverage to force Alex's hand.

No team really wants him right now- they think their catching option is better. Once the season starts and either catchers get hurt or really struggle the trade market will open up for him.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-done-enough-fix-bench-issues/

Go ahead and say I am drinking DeRosa's kool-aid but I think Navarro could easily be traded for some important bench help.

...bench players can account for close to one third of a team’s plate appearances – whether it’s because of injuries, substitutions or days off...

AA / Rogers has already made it clear they are not going to upgrade the bullpen so why not improve the bench?

The other thing pointed in the article about Blue Jays lack of bench depth is you have 2 back up catchers because of Dickey. Even before Martin was signed I think I remember the same situation last season too, when the Jays had Thole and then Navarro's actual back up.

On the other hand, the thing is that if you keep Navarro the whole year, make him honor his contract and he stays professional the whole year... then you finally have that scenario of a reliable veteran, clutch, switch hitting bat the Blue Jays have always seen opposing teams in the league have. Paradox of the donut.

The only part of this story that irks me is that I wasn't told what kind of shape Dioner was in. I'm hoping it was the best of his life, but without confirmation how can I be sure?

People really shouldn't sweat someone like Navarro saying these things now. It is and was known. It will have zero effect on his tradability, which is just very low because C's are a strange commodity. It's not that he doesn't have value, he just doesn't have value to many people, which sounds like it should be the same thing, but somehow isn't.

I still think his best chance for being traded comes once there've been a few games in ST and teams get more and less comfortable with their depth charts, likely exacerbated by injuries. This is true for the Jays too. Once Smoak or Barton or even Valencia look more like a real hitter in front of the coaches, then it'll be easier to take the best offer for Dinner. Until then, he's a pricey, but not exorbitant, insurance policy and back-up C.

Funny, but I think the Jays bench will be pretty good this year, especially if it's Thole that goes and Navarro that stays. And what team has all-stars waiting in AAA in case injuries happen? If enough injuries to your big guns happen, your season is over unless you're fortunate enough to have a stud rookie ready to step in or the resources with which to go out and plug some holes via trade. This is true for every team. I think DeRosa is wrong on both counts here. I'd certainly rather have this bench and some money in the bank to make a big-time acquisition mid-season than blow $5M on a big bat off the bench.

Lateral Quicks wrote:Funny, but I think the Jays bench will be pretty good this year, especially if it's Thole that goes and Navarro that stays. And what team has all-stars waiting in AAA in case injuries happen? If enough injuries to your big guns happen, your season is over unless you're fortunate enough to have a stud rookie ready to step in or the resources with which to go out and plug some holes via trade. This is true for every team. I think DeRosa is wrong on both counts here. I'd certainly rather have this bench and some money in the bank to make a big-time acquisition mid-season than blow $5M on a big bat off the bench.

Agreed on our bench. We don't really need to platoon anyone but we could. Some games we could have 2-3 switch hitters on the bench. Let's say we are facing David Price. DH'ing Valencia puts Smoak, Navarro on the bench and put Tolleson at 2nd, has Izturis on the bench in that scenario. So 3 switch hitters are waiting on the bench in that situation if need be or 2 if we trade Dinner.

Valencia, Smoak, Tolleson, Pillar, Thole..until rosters expand in august.