James Shields has cleared waivers

[jwei]

Per twitter

[tweet]https://twitter.com/buster_espn/status/630042336966406144[/tweet]

Would be a great fit for hutch's spot no?

What would it take for us to pick him up?

[Randle McMurphy]

Money from Rogers that they won't give us.

[Schad]

Might not take much; he cleared because teams were afraid that the Padres might simply allow him to leave on waivers, leaving the team with the $65m remaining on his deal.

[UN-Owen]

Shields and Price were teammates in Tampa for 6 seasons

If they're close friends it could only help our chances of re-signing him this off-season

[Schad]

Having Shields' contract on the books would likely have the opposite effect on our chances of re-signing Price, assuming we have chances of re-signing Price.

[jwei]

Can you imagine if we face KC in post-season with Shields? haha

[North_of_Border]

Im not saying the JAYS should have claimed Shields, even for free. He is having a horrible season and theres a chance he might be a huge contract burden for years.

Howvever, my Spider senses are saying, he is just having an off year. He will recover next season and the rest of the MLB will be banging their heads. he is over paid now, but at his true potential, it is a reasonable contract. Padres might even have covered some of the salary.

[joseph227]

Having Shields' contract on the books would likely have the opposite effect on our chances of re-signing Price, assuming we have chances of re-signing Price.

No chance. And I'm not sad about it, 200+ mil to a 30 year old pitcher is franchise crippling.

[UN-Owen]

Im not saying the JAYS should have claimed Shields, even for free. He is having a horrible season and theres a chance he might be a huge contract burden for years.

Howvever, my Spider senses are saying, he is just having an off year. He will recover next season and the rest of the MLB will be banging their heads. he is over paid now, but at his true potential, it is a reasonable contract. Padres might even have covered some of the salary.

I wouldn't say "horrible"

3.75 ERA & 1.285 WHIP in 2015 is comparable to his career numbers: 3.72 ERA & 1.224 WHIP


It should be pointed out that Shields has started at least 33 games a season since 2008 (he started 31 games in 2007) and is on pace to do it again this year

In terms of minimizing the injury risk factor with pitchers, Shields looks to be as safe a bet as any starter in baseball

I see him aging relatively well and it wouldn't surprise me, that as he ages, he posts similar numbers to Buehrle - who has had an amazingly long streak of health as well

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Shields and Price were teammates in Tampa for 6 seasons

If they're close friends it could only help our chances of re-signing him this off-season

The only thing that will help to resign Price is 6 years 200 million.

[JaysRule15]

This is where I wish we had an ownership group who saw an opportunity and gave the team extra funding to take advantage of it. Instead, we have such an inflexible payroll that AA has to trade a decent prospect to get another team to eat the salary of a bench player we want to get.

[hyper316]

not going to happen. we got cliff pennington because arizona is paying for his salary.

[North_of_Border]

Having Shields' contract on the books would likely have the opposite effect on our chances of re-signing Price, assuming we have chances of re-signing Price.

The question would not be if we can still sign Price with Shields on the roster. Cause the chances of re-signing him would go down to 3% if we have Shields on the team. Without Shields, still nothing more than 5-6%. Just random numbers off my head.

The true question should be:

If we got Shields, and then Price like inevitably bolted anyway, could Shields regain form for the 2016 season and be our Ace?
or is if done?

[wajr]

I'd much much rather roll the dice and try to re up Price.

[SharoneWright]

Bizarro AA be like:

"We're happy to acquire James Shields for our pennant run, without having to surrender top-prospects like Daniel Norris. We also like the fact that his contract includes multiple years of "control"..."

[rarefind]

The Jays have no money left to spend. It is why we gave up Lugo for Pennington so Arizona pays the remaining salary on him. This team can't afford Shields and even if they could it would be a bad move.The only waiver type move this team will make is on a guy getting paid zilch (who wouldn't pass through waivers) or a guy coming off the books at the end of the year while the team eats their salary, like Pennington.

[tecumseh18]

It gave me a bit of extra insight into this team when AA admitted last week that he purposely hadn't spent his budget in the off-season, so that he could accept salary in the deadline deals that he clearly wasn't able to make last year at this time. In other words, once he exceeded his off-season budget there would have been ZERO available dollars at the deadline, even if the team was close. That's not what management has said in the past.

Every year AA learns a bit more how to do his job, within the constraints set by Rogers.

[J-Roc]

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/88224/david-price-paying-big-dividends-for-blue-jays

It's a sign. Literally.

The note hung atop David Price's locker on a piece of yellow paper.

Price, one of two marquee acquisitions by the Toronto Blue Jays at the trade deadline, wrote it himself.

It was a slogan Price learned from James Shields while the two were pitching together in Tampa Bay.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT PITCH BETTER!!

"It's something I live by, and it works," Price said.

[StopitLeo]

I think it is crazy that teams sign players to these big deals and then want to dump them in the first year. Shields would be a great replacement for Hutch but that contract would be an albatross unless he exercises his 2016 option, which I think is extremely unlikely.

[Santoki]

Did Shields receive other offers in the offseason? I thought he took slightly less than he wanted to be able to go home to San Diego. Sucks for him they want to ship him out and he'd have to leave his family again less a than year into that deal.