Jays sign Steve Pearce: 2YR, $12.5M

[Sizzle]

Edwin Encarnacion is currently focused on three teams in free agency -- the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and a third team, according to a source.

The Red Sox are looking to replace David Ortiz, but aren't believed to have serious interest in Encarnacion given his price tag. In addition, the Blue Jays have already signed Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce.

Rob Bradford reports that the third club is not the New York Yankees.

ROB BRADFORD/WEEI

from Wiretap.

I bet its the Rangers. They have some money to spend and a place for him to play

[The_Hater]

Edwin Encarnacion is currently focused on three teams in free agency -- the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and a third team, according to a source.

The Red Sox are looking to replace David Ortiz, but aren't believed to have serious interest in Encarnacion given his price tag. In addition, the Blue Jays have already signed Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce.

Rob Bradford reports that the third club is not the New York Yankees.

ROB BRADFORD/WEEI

from Wiretap.

I bet its the Rangers. They have some money to spend and a place for him to play

I'm betting on the Indians. They haven't splurged on a single free agent and that big bat in the middle of the lineup is the one piece missing.

[polo007]

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[Asianiac_24]

Not a bad signing, but there definitely needs to be one more power batter in our lineup. I think the Jays need one more power batter to go with Donaldson/Morales, especially since the AL East is notoriously competitive.

[Ado05]

Not a bad signing, but there definitely needs to be one more power batter in our lineup. I think the Jays need one more power batter to go with Donaldson/Morales, especially since the AL East is notoriously competitive.

Tulo and hopefully Smoak and Pearce provide good power too.

[Skin Blues]

So, Gibby plans on benching Pearce for 2/3 of our games. Awesome! I'm glad he's still our manager.

[KL78192020]

So, Gibby plans on benching Pearce for 2/3 of our games. Awesome! I'm glad he's still our manager.

He'll most likely be injured, so it shouldn't be to hard.

[agk47]

It's starting to look like we're building towards Bautista being our lf'er and part time dh and third string 1b.

Management has been preaching flexibility; pearce, smoak and morales seem like very logical pieces to have around joeybatts.

[The_Hater]

So, Gibby plans on benching Pearce for 2/3 of our games. Awesome! I'm glad he's still our manager.

He didn't say it would be a straight platoon. Cola and Smoak weren't deployed that way. And Gibbs had no problem benching Smoak in 2016 when the smell got really bad.

[polo007]

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[polo007]

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[agk47]

Yeah people really underestimate the value of a guy like Pearce. He's not much worse than Edwin at all. In fact, last year Pearce had a higher wRC+, was a better baserunner, and was a better fielder. Pretty much every aspect of baseball, he was more valuable on a per-game basis. It was in fewer games, sure, and Edwin projects to be a better hitter in 2016, but it's melodramatic to claim that the sky is falling now that we've swapped one for the other in addition to adding a hitter like Morales. Signing Edwin just didn't make sense, especially since it costs us a first round sandwich pick. It's still possible we could bring Bautista back. He's just as good a hitter as Eddie, and can play the OF, albeit not very well.

This is why statistics and stats like war are very limited.

Pearces per game numbers are elite for a utility player who is incapable of being a middle of the order threat that a lineup is built around.

You sir have spent too much time reading spreadsheets and not enough time looking out from your cubicle.


And on another note, if the Jay's sign fowler for 15+ million long term, I puke a little. He's a glorified role player coming off a career year. Everyone knows speedsters decline in their 30'es.

Just sign pagan for peanuts, platoon him with carrera and or upton and invest the 10 million you saved in the middle of the lineup.

You can go cheap and use sabermetrics and platoons to find top notch defense, depth and lead off types. It just doesn't work that way with the truly elite high demand hitters. I hate Bautista but platoons won't replace his production or psychological edge that he brings to a lineup. Back to EE...

4 and 80 for EE is spectacular value. 4 and 60 -75 million for some one else's coco crisp is as gross as Coacoa crisp cereal.


Spreadsheets aren't gospel and Pearce is a fraction of what EE is, regardless of what his ops+ was last season.



.....I just read a bunch of posts from some war-heads that claim trout is worth 81. Million per year....... clap clap clap. Brilliant! but but war =s 9 million and 9 war times 9 million ='s you don't know how to think lol.

You can't look at numbers in a vacuum. If you do, you come to conclusions like Pearce is pretty much equal to Eddie and outperformed him last season. He did not, has not and will never.

Pearce is a great part time starter and bench player who should start less than half the time and pinch hit almost every game he doesn't start. He's somebody else's injury prone version of Danny Valencia not a misunderstood version of Eddie - light.

[Skin Blues]

This is why statistics and stats like war are very limited.

Pearces per game numbers are elite for a utility player who is incapable of being a middle of the order threat that a lineup is built around.

You sir have spent too much time reading spreadsheets and not enough time looking out from your cubicle.


And on another note, if the Jay's sign fowler for 15+ million long term, I puke a little. He's a glorified role player coming off a career year. Everyone knows speedsters decline in their 30'es.

Just sign pagan for peanuts, platoon him with carrera and or upton and invest the 10 million you saved in the middle of the lineup.

You can go cheap and use sabermetrics and platoons to find top notch defense, depth and lead off types. It just doesn't work that way with the truly elite high demand hitters. I hate Bautista but platoons won't replace his production or psychological edge that he brings to a lineup. Back to EE...

4 and 80 for EE is spectacular value. 4 and 60 -75 million for some one else's coco crisp is as gross as Coacoa crisp cereal.


Spreadsheets aren't gospel and Pearce is a fraction of what EE is, regardless of what his ops+ was last season.



.....I just read a bunch of posts from some war-heads that claim trout is worth 81. Million per year....... clap clap clap. Brilliant! but but war =s 9 million and 9 war times 9 million ='s you don't know how to think lol.

You can't look at numbers in a vacuum. If you do, you come to conclusions like Pearce is pretty much equal to Eddie and outperformed him last season. He did not, has not and will never.

Pearce is a great part time starter and bench player who should start less than half the time and pinch hit almost every game he doesn't start. He's somebody else's injury prone version of Danny Valencia not a misunderstood version of Eddie - light.

Would have been faster for you to just say "I hate numbers except for the ones I can understand".

When people say Trout was worth $81M (I don't know about that, it's your claim, so lets go with it) they mean in retrospect. In the same way that a lottery ticket that you maybe paid $5 for turns out to be a winner worth $15 but the other two lottery tickets you paid $5 for are worth $0. Paid $15, got $15 of value, and value between lottery tickets (AKA players) is drastically different even though their costs are similar or the same. So, a healthy Trout, one a one year contract in the free agent market, at peak performance, is worth $81M. That's reasonable. We never see contracts like that because players that are as good as him (of which there are arguably none) sign multi-year contracts if they're a free agent. The team is forced to take a player projected to be worth maybe $50M in year 1 of the contract (with maybe 10% chance of being worth $81M, 80% chance of being worth $50M, and 10% chance of being worth $19M, for a total expected value of $50M) but maybe he's expected to be worth barely anything by the time year 6 or 7 rolls around, and we only look at the AAV which is spread out evenly across the contract, which for this hypothetical situation, the AAV might be $30M even though the player is worth $50M in year one and $5M in year 7. And there's risk associated with them. They could perform poorly, get injured, or both. So even a guy capable of being worth $81M would never be paid that much, because that's the best case scenario. In other words, you don't spend $100 for a lottery ticket with a maximum payout of $100. You see? If you actually analyze the things you're complaining about instead of just making off the cuff remarks without any sort of detail or knowledge of the subject, you look silly.

And nobody came to a conclusion that Pearce is as good as Eddie. You created a strawman and then argued against it. Pearce is being paid $6M/yr compared to the $20M Edwin is expected to get, and on a longer term. Nobody thinks they're pretty much equal. I think that the gap between them is much smaller that their projected salaries are, but I definitely think Edwin is the better bet given his much longer and more consistent track record and relatively better health.

[agk47]

This is why statistics and stats like war are very limited.

Pearces per game numbers are elite for a utility player who is incapable of being a middle of the order threat that a lineup is built around.

You sir have spent too much time reading spreadsheets and not enough time looking out from your cubicle.


And on another note, if the Jay's sign fowler for 15+ million long term, I puke a little. He's a glorified role player coming off a career year. Everyone knows speedsters decline in their 30'es.

Just sign pagan for peanuts, platoon him with carrera and or upton and invest the 10 million you saved in the middle of the lineup.

You can go cheap and use sabermetrics and platoons to find top notch defense, depth and lead off types. It just doesn't work that way with the truly elite high demand hitters. I hate Bautista but platoons won't replace his production or psychological edge that he brings to a lineup. Back to EE...

4 and 80 for EE is spectacular value. 4 and 60 -75 million for some one else's coco crisp is as gross as Coacoa crisp cereal.


Spreadsheets aren't gospel and Pearce is a fraction of what EE is, regardless of what his ops+ was last season.



.....I just read a bunch of posts from some war-heads that claim trout is worth 81. Million per year....... clap clap clap. Brilliant! but but war =s 9 million and 9 war times 9 million ='s you don't know how to think lol.

You can't look at numbers in a vacuum. If you do, you come to conclusions like Pearce is pretty much equal to Eddie and outperformed him last season. He did not, has not and will never.

Pearce is a great part time starter and bench player who should start less than half the time and pinch hit almost every game he doesn't start. He's somebody else's injury prone version of Danny Valencia not a misunderstood version of Eddie - light.

Would have been faster for you to just say "I hate numbers except for the ones I can understand".

When people say Trout was worth $81M (I don't know about that, it's your claim, so lets go with it) they mean in retrospect. In the same way that a lottery ticket that you maybe paid $5 for turns out to be a winner worth $15 but the other two lottery tickets you paid $5 for are worth $0. Paid $15, got $15 of value, and value between lottery tickets (AKA players) is drastically different even though their costs are similar or the same. So, a healthy Trout, one a one year contract in the free agent market, at peak performance, is worth $81M. That's reasonable. We never see contracts like that because players that are as good as him (of which there are arguably none) sign multi-year contracts if they're a free agent. The team is forced to take a player projected to be worth maybe $50M in year 1 of the contract (with maybe 10% chance of being worth $81M, 80% chance of being worth $50M, and 10% chance of being worth $19M, for a total expected value of $50M) but maybe he's expected to be worth barely anything by the time year 6 or 7 rolls around, and we only look at the AAV which is spread out evenly across the contract, which for this hypothetical situation, the AAV might be $30M even though the player is worth $50M in year one and $5M in year 7. And there's risk associated with them. They could perform poorly, get injured, or both. So even a guy capable of being worth $81M would never be paid that much, because that's the best case scenario. In other words, you don't spend $100 for a lottery ticket with a maximum payout of $100. You see? If you actually analyze the things you're complaining about instead of just making off the cuff remarks without any sort of detail or knowledge of the subject, you look silly.

And nobody came to a conclusion that Pearce is as good as Eddie. You created a strawman and then argued against it. Pearce is being paid $6M/yr compared to the $20M Edwin is expected to get, and on a longer term. Nobody thinks they're pretty much equal. I think that the gap between them is much smaller that their projected salaries are, but I definitely think Edwin is the better bet given his much longer and more consistent track record and relatively better health.

Ya ya they really do. Many times I have read that on the open market he would earn 81 million dollars.

and ya youre right, I spoke to quickly. You didnt say hes better.....

you wrote: "Pretty much every aspect of baseball, he was more valuable on a per-game basis"

....you talking about pearce, right?


Now maybe I'm as weak at statistical analysis as I am english comp, but Im pretty sure you used stats to justify saying pearce had a better season than double E last year. :-p

Nah seriously, I assure you, I'm pretty adept at analyzing numbers. And I apologies for coming on to strong, borderline trollish of me, I was just having a laugh for the most part.

TBH I get the point your making. Im quite bullish on Morales.... Pearce + morales is better value than paying frank thomas junior well into his thirties. Thats what kills me about rogers. The time to spend money was last season. be proactive and recognize we're a year away from a sh*tty free agent crop highlighted by both joey and EE. writing was on the wall last year too, the best play is to walk away from both. Now were stuck spinning our wheels, looking to spend big on role players like fowler. Just curious, did anyone think the alex gordon contract KC signed last year was a good deal? Similar stats, similar profile. Deal was panned from day one. Epstein knows what hes doing, and he recognized Fowler for the stopgap that he was. Not a core player.

Back to WAR. Its a statistical theory that's used to provide a train of thought and logic. its not a replacement for reality. 81 million for trout is a benchmark used to illustrate his relative value, not define his value. In short, WAR's only purpose is to provide a "language" for the logic behind the thought process and decision making in the game we love.

short and sweet, if trout was on the open market he gets about 10 - 12 years and the elusive $350 - $400 milly contract often bandied about the media in recent years. $81 million a year never comes up, its never in the picture, as a number, its completely out of touch with reality.


I think often time the line between backing ones opinions with facts and hiding ones opinion in facts gets blurred.

Give ya an example, Baseball prospectus has vlady jr as the jays number 4 prospect. Thats a load of crap. From the first pitch he faced in short season, he was our number 1 prospect.

Ditto for moncada in a loaded boston system.

Prospect prognosticators are all full of crap lol. They hide behind stats to not only justify their opinion, but their very existence.

Me and my boys for years have joked that baseball Americas top 100 prospects should be renamed the top 21 - 23 year old prospects and everyone else.

The point is, if the jays wanted to get involved in the Sale sweepstakes, they could have. not saying they should, just that they could. The conversation would have to start with Vlady, and not anyone else.

Warheads are no different.

the $81 mllion only exists to justify the logic behind it.

[Skin Blues]

Ya ya they really do. Many times I have read that on the open market he would earn 81 million dollars.

Maybe you misinterpreted what they said in the same way that you misinterpreted what I said.

and ya youre right, I spoke to quickly. You didnt say hes better.....

you wrote: "Pretty much every aspect of baseball, he was more valuable on a per-game basis"

....you talking about pearce, right?


Now maybe I'm as weak at statistical analysis as I am english comp, but Im pretty sure you used stats to justify saying pearce had a better season than double E last year. :-p

Yup, you are pretty bad at statistical analysis. Pearce was indeed better at every aspect of baseball on a per game basis, but since Pearce was injured for a lot of the year and missed so much time, he wasn't as valuable overall as Edwin was. And even if he was more valuable than Edwin last year, that doesn't mean he is a better player, or "pretty much equal" which is the way you characterized my argument. It woudl ahve meant he was more valuable last year. Tanner Roark had a better ERA than Max Scherzer last year. Do you think that means they are pretty much equal? No, of course not. Nobody in their right mind would predict Roark to put up a lower ERA than Scherzer next year. It could happen, sure. But it's very unlikely.

Nah seriously, I assure you, I'm pretty adept at analyzing numbers. And I apologies for coming on to strong, borderline trollish of me, I was just having a laugh for the most part.

You can't just say you're good at something, you need to demonstrate it! I understand trolling, but you aren't even making good troll arguments and aren't demonstrating any kind of awareness of statistical analysis.

Now were stuck spinning our wheels, looking to spend big on role players like fowler. Just curious, did anyone think the alex gordon contract KC signed last year was a good deal? Similar stats, similar profile. Deal was panned from day one. Epstein knows what hes doing, and he recognized Fowler for the stopgap that he was. Not a core player.

Kind of a non-sequitur, not really sure where you're going with this. 28 GMs, including Shapiro/Atkins and Theo/Hoyer, chose not to sign either of Fowler or Gordon.

Back to WAR. Its a statistical theory that's used to provide a train of thought and logic. its not a replacement for reality. 81 million for trout is a benchmark used to illustrate his relative value, not define his value. In short, WAR's only purpose is to provide a "language" for the logic behind the thought process and decision making in the game we love.

short and sweet, if trout was on the open market he gets about 10 - 12 years and the elusive $350 - $400 milly contract often bandied about the media in recent years. $81 million a year never comes up, its never in the picture, as a number, its completely out of touch with reality.

The only thing out of touch with reality is your comprehension. The idea that a season is worth $81M does not mean that is how much he would be paid if he was a free agent. That's not how that works. I explained, in what I thought was pretty good detail with a lottery ticket analogy, exactly where that line of thought goes off course. Again: you don't spend $100 for a lottery ticket with a maximum payout of $100. Especially when, in this analogy, you'd need to buy 10 increasingly worse lottery tickets in a package deal. If teams knew Trout would be healthy and at peak performance, and they had no similar insights about other players so taht the market remained similar to what it is today, and Trout was for whatever reason only allowed to sign a one year contract rather than a multi-year contract, then yeah, they might pay $81M. But obviously that is not a realistic situation. That doesn't mean we are unable to calculate how much value Trout brings in one season. This is basic stuff. The biggest downside to WAR and sabermetrics in general, is the inability of many people to understand what is being said.

I think often time the line between backing ones opinions with facts and hiding ones opinion in facts gets blurred.

Give ya an example, Baseball prospectus has vlady jr as the jays number 4 prospect. Thats a load of crap. From the first pitch he faced in short season, he was our number 1 prospect.

Ditto for moncada in a loaded boston system.

Prospect prognosticators are all full of crap lol. They hide behind stats to not only justify their opinion, but their very existence.

Me and my boys for years have joked that baseball Americas top 100 prospects should be renamed the top 21 - 23 year old prospects and everyone else.

The point is, if the jays wanted to get involved in the Sale sweepstakes, they could have. not saying they should, just that they could. The conversation would have to start with Vlady, and not anyone else.

Another non-sequitur. So, you think "prospect prognosticators" are lying? For what reason? Certainly guys like Vladdy Jr have a very high ceiling but they are in the low levels of the minors so we also know there's a huge risk of them flaming out in the next few years, which needs to be taken into account.

Warheads are no different.

the $81 mllion only exists to justify the logic behind it.

You should really make more effort to understand concepts before you get so passionate about hating them. If you understand WAR and don't like the way it's used or the way it's formulated (and there are lots of those people), that's great. But it's just lazy to barely scratch the surface of what it all means and then rail so hard against it. You'd think that the fact every single MLB front office has fully embraced sabermetrics would make people like you look a little deeper into it, but... nope. Just digging in the heels even more.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I dunno, SB. If I read his posts correctly, everyone should just ignore stats, pick an opinion for an unstated and purely random reason because they feel it's best, and start making obnoxious posts about how any other logic but the unstated (or unexplained - and no "watching" isn't explaining) - logic they used to form their own opinion and insult everyone else. Basically, it's a justification of the internet being, well, the internet, and there is a certain element of beauty to that.

[ldnk]

So, Gibby plans on benching Pearce for 2/3 of our games. Awesome! I'm glad he's still our manager.

He didn't say it would be a straight platoon. Cola and Smoak weren't deployed that way. And Gibbs had no problem benching Smoak in 2016 when the smell got really bad.

Even last year with Cola and Smoak he gave Smoak more game time despite Colabello having a better year

1st half of the year he gave Colabello 184 plate attempts when he had an .871 OPS.
1st half of the year he gave Smoak 172 plate attempts when he had an OPS of .826

2nd half of the year he gave Colabello 139 plate attempts when he had an OPS of .911
2nd half of the year he gave Smoak 156 plate attempts when he had an OPS of .723

[polo007]

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“We were in Boston,” Pearce says, standing and answering questions at the Rogers Centre for the thousandth time, but his first as a Blue Jay. “Ball comes off the left field wall, I go and get it, turn to throw, and I felt a pain in my elbow that was just… I’ll tell you what, I did not want that feeling anymore.”

If you go back and watch the play you’ll see Pearce doubling over and grimacing under intense pain the moment he releases the ball. He paced around the left field grass for a while, clenching his teeth and shaking out his arm, before taking his position for the next batter. Naturally, because baseball is baseball, the very next ball in play was laced straight down the left field line.

It bounced around in the corner, where Pearce ran over to collect it. Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy, keenly aware of how much Pearce was suffering, ran all the way to medium-depth left field to give his teammate the shortest possible relay throw. Pearce struggled to even get the ball that far.

The official diagnosis was damaged flexor tendons in his right elbow, which feels much more awful than it sounds and can sometimes be an early indicator of a need for Tommy John surgery. Pearce, fortunately, did not, which meant in his case the injury was a pretty easy fix. The surgeons go in, clean it up. It’s all around the muscles; they don’t have to mess with any ligaments. The hardest part for the athlete isn’t the surgery or the rehab—it’s missing 4 to 6 months of action to let it fully heal.

"That’s actually why I got the surgery when I did," says Pearce, who went under the knife on September 21. "So I could be ready for spring training."

Currently, Pearce is on that track. He began swinging off a tee last week and will begin a throwing program this Monday. Even if the latter stages of his rehab bleed into spring training, this year’s camp is extended due to the World Baseball Classic, which he feels will give him all the time he needs to be ready for opening day. The Blue Jays are banking on that as well, especially after signing Pearce to a two-year, $12.5-million deal this off-season to platoon at first base with Justin Smoak and play some games in left field as needed.

Pearce actually feels like he’s ahead of schedule and has been pushing Blue Jays trainers in Dunedin to let him begin ramping up his workload for weeks. Naturally, those medical professionals have been less than receptive to his suggestions. "Yeah, they’re slowing me down. They want me to make sure everything goes well and that I feel great," Pearce says. "I feel like I’m ahead of the game. But I definitely want to make sure it’s right. I don’t want to rush it. I don’t want to have a setback."

[bluerap23]

Read on Twitter

“We were in Boston,” Pearce says, standing and answering questions at the Rogers Centre for the thousandth time, but his first as a Blue Jay. “Ball comes off the left field wall, I go and get it, turn to throw, and I felt a pain in my elbow that was just… I’ll tell you what, I did not want that feeling anymore.”

If you go back and watch the play you’ll see Pearce doubling over and grimacing under intense pain the moment he releases the ball. He paced around the left field grass for a while, clenching his teeth and shaking out his arm, before taking his position for the next batter. Naturally, because baseball is baseball, the very next ball in play was laced straight down the left field line.

It bounced around in the corner, where Pearce ran over to collect it. Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy, keenly aware of how much Pearce was suffering, ran all the way to medium-depth left field to give his teammate the shortest possible relay throw. Pearce struggled to even get the ball that far.

The official diagnosis was damaged flexor tendons in his right elbow, which feels much more awful than it sounds and can sometimes be an early indicator of a need for Tommy John surgery. Pearce, fortunately, did not, which meant in his case the injury was a pretty easy fix. The surgeons go in, clean it up. It’s all around the muscles; they don’t have to mess with any ligaments. The hardest part for the athlete isn’t the surgery or the rehab—it’s missing 4 to 6 months of action to let it fully heal.

"That’s actually why I got the surgery when I did," says Pearce, who went under the knife on September 21. "So I could be ready for spring training."

Currently, Pearce is on that track. He began swinging off a tee last week and will begin a throwing program this Monday. Even if the latter stages of his rehab bleed into spring training, this year’s camp is extended due to the World Baseball Classic, which he feels will give him all the time he needs to be ready for opening day. The Blue Jays are banking on that as well, especially after signing Pearce to a two-year, $12.5-million deal this off-season to platoon at first base with Justin Smoak and play some games in left field as needed.

Pearce actually feels like he’s ahead of schedule and has been pushing Blue Jays trainers in Dunedin to let him begin ramping up his workload for weeks. Naturally, those medical professionals have been less than receptive to his suggestions. "Yeah, they’re slowing me down. They want me to make sure everything goes well and that I feel great," Pearce says. "I feel like I’m ahead of the game. But I definitely want to make sure it’s right. I don’t want to rush it. I don’t want to have a setback."

Kind of shocked that they gave this guy 12.5 million when there is no way he can pass a physical.