November 28, 2015

Happ-y Jays

The Blue Jays signed J.A. Happ to a three-year deal:

David Price’s name didn’t appear in the press release. But in many ways, he was the story.
In announcing Friday that they had signed free-agent starter J.A. Happ to a three-year, $36 million contract, the Toronto Blue Jays made a tacit statement about Price.
He’s not coming back.

The Blue Jays are valuing Happ at about 1.6 WAR per year (assuming one WAR on the free agent market is worth about $7.5 million). That’s after coming off the best year of his career at seasonal age 32.

This could turn out to be a great deal for the Blue Jays. In 2014, the last time Happ pitched for Toronto, he started reducing his walk rate. That continued in 2015 with Seattle, and then plummeted with the trade to Pittsburgh. The Pirates coaching staff is now rivaling the Dave Duncan led Athletics and Cardinals when it comes to getting the most out of older pitchers. If Happ can hold on to the lessons he learned in Pittsburgh, he’ll be a bargain.

The Jays rotation now looks like Marcus Stroman, Macro Estrada, Happ, and Jesse Chavez. In terms of WAR, that should be 5,2,2,and 2 from that top four, with plenty of upside for Stroman and some upside for Happ. That’s a very cost effective rotation, and given the level of offense produced by the team, more that enough to win in 2016.

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