We haven't had much news in the off-season so far but the Jays made a move today trading for utility man Marc Scutaro for 2 of our prospects.
I am not surprised at who this trade partner is as it's again the Oakland A's which is Riccardi's old boss.
Scutaro is a light hitting SS that many compared to John McDonald. Scutaro does have some power, hitting 7 home runs last season but bats a career average of .259. Scutaro is arbitration eligible and will make somewhere around $2 million. He has a good chance of starting as he is a slight upgrade with the bat at SS. He can give whoever days off as well. They also make a very good platoon option with McDonald hitting well against lefties in 49 games with an .818 OPS and a .329 BA. Over his career (.257/.306.645) he is considerably better against southpaws.
The prospects we gave up, never featured in my top 20 prospects. Kristian Bell and Graham Godfrey are two 23-year pitchers in A ball.
Kristian Bell is the type of arm that seems expendable. Bell has really struggled with his control and seems a bit too hittable with a career WHIP of 1.43 in A ball.
Godfrey had a 3.98 ERA for Lansing and didn't light anything on fire in his professional debut. Solid numbers but had a high hit rate and K rate that wasn't anything special.
Overall another decent move by Riccardi I would say. Scutaro is a very cheap option (was hoping for a Crosby trade) and is at least slightly better then McDonald with the stick. The players we gave up were expendable as all had considerable questions about them and were all the way down in A-ball. The likelihood they make to the show is slim. For Oakland this is clearly a salary dump and utility players aren't hard to come by when it comes to minor leaguers anyway.