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Before the 2016 season started, the Toronto Blue Jays wanted to ship Michael Saunders to the Los Angeles Angels as part of a three-way deal to acquire Jay Bruce from the Cincinnati Reds.

Bruce, by the way, is having a resurgent season, slugging .544 with an OPS of .858 and 17 dingers - The kind of numbers that make Jays executives weep about the trade not working out.

At least they would if the guy they failed to trade - Saunders - wasn’t having the best season of his career.

Saunders is now one of the Blue Jays’ best hitters and that’s saying something because the team isn’t light on great hitters. Saunders has been better than Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Kevin Pillar and Troy Tulowitzki, sporting a career-best wRC+ at 140.

wRC+, or weighted runs creation, is a metric that measures runs per plate appearance, scaled, where 100 is average. It is both league and park adjusted and based on weighted on-base percentage (wOBA).

A wRC+ of 100 is average. Any wRC+ above 100 represents an above average big league hitter, and Saunders is at 140, or worth 40 runs more than the average major leaguer. Only Josh Donaldson is besting Saunders with a 151. Bautista is at 118 while Encarnacion is at 133.

What was Saunders’ highest wRC+ before this season? It was 126 in 2014 - the year the Jays felt he was a player about to break out and worth acquiring. I think it’s safe to say that Saunders has broken out.

By comparison, Jay Bruce’s wRC+ is 123. He would have made an impact in Toronto, just not the profound impact that Saunders has made.

As it stands, the best potential free agents in baseball as ranked by wRC+ are Yoenis Cespedes, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Michael Saunders, Mark Trumbo, Franklin Gutierrez, David Freese, Carlos Santana and Luis Valbuena. Note that there are three Blue Jays on that list, good for over half of the Jays’ current home run production. Saunders is the youngest of those three Blue Jays and is also among the youngest going on the free agent slugging market. That makes him much more desirable assuming he sustains his power production.

And this newly-found power production is something everyone will be scrutinizing. How, exactly, has Saunders become this good this fast?

Many would say his results this season is what happens when a good player finally gets healthy. Others would even argue that Saunders had a lot to prove going into a walk year, coupled with a chip on his shoulder because the Jays tried to flip him out of town. Or is it that he’s simply gotten better?

All of the above.

bluerap23 wrote:They would have to be complete idiots to miss the correlation between competing and attendance. If they lose all 3 (without significant replacements) this team will not be able to compete in our division. The one downside to not getting Jay Bruce is he had an extra year on his contract. Will be interesting to see what Saunders gets in the open market. Any predictions?

I am hoping they will resign him and one of EE/JB. Don't really favour one over the other.

engageTHEmasses wrote:Feel Saunders should be the 'must' of the three, with EE a close second. I'm quite over JB.

North_of_Border wrote:On the positive side, That's 3 extra first round Draft picks next year.

Black Watch wrote:

North_of_Border wrote:On the positive side, That's 3 extra first round Draft picks next year.

No, the CBA is up at the end of the year.

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The_Hater wrote:

engageTHEmasses wrote:Feel Saunders should be the 'must' of the three, with EE a close second. I'm quite over JB.

That could easily change in a month. Jose could be the hot guy and Saunders could be the guy struggling.

Of course it all depends on their salary demands too.

Fairview4Life wrote:I remember Jose hitting that massive home run against Texas, and then hitting 2 home runs in game 6 against the Royals and I will never be over him.

The_Hater wrote:

Fairview4Life wrote:I remember Jose hitting that massive home run against Texas, and then hitting 2 home runs in game 6 against the Royals and I will never be over him.

And he's been the best hitter in Jays history. People have short memories though.

rarefind wrote:

The_Hater wrote:

Fairview4Life wrote:I remember Jose hitting that massive home run against Texas, and then hitting 2 home runs in game 6 against the Royals and I will never be over him.

And he's been the best hitter in Jays history. People have short memories though.

2nd best. Bautista has a few of the top 10 home runs in franchise history, though.

Fairview4Life wrote:

rarefind wrote:

The_Hater wrote:
And he's been the best hitter in Jays history. People have short memories though.

2nd best. Bautista has a few of the top 10 home runs in franchise history, though.

In my memory, 8 of them are off Darren O'Day.

dagger wrote:As for the financial capabilities of the organization to bring back at least two of the three without compromising the downstream flexibility of the franchise:

1. The Jays are on track to get over three million paying customers at the Rogers Centre.
2. It was reported today that 23 games on Sportsnet have drawn audiences in excess of one million viewers. At this point last year, only two games had drawn over a million.

Centre Court wrote:I think that Saunders and Edwin are back next year, with Jose walking elsewhere.

During tonight's game I voted 30+ times for Captain Canada.