According to Buster Olney, someone (we don't yet know who) has claimed Alex Rios off revocable waivers. Rios has $60 million remaining on his contract over the next six seasons. That leaves the Jays with three options:
- They can let the claiming team take on Rios, and his contract;
- They can pull Rios back off waivers and keep him; or
- They can attempt to trade him to the claiming team.
As we showed a few weeks ago with Beyond the Boxscore's nifty Trade Value Calculator, while Rios can be frustrating at times, his contract is not at all dead weight. Therefore, my hope would be that if the Jays do move him, they're looking to get value back. I suppose that theoretically they could save money by penciling Snider in to play right field next season, with Lind taking left, Overbay staying at first, and perhaps Dopirak DH-ing, but that's putting a lot of eggs in the basket of two very young hitters. Realistically, if Rios is let go he likely has to be replaced, and if that's done on the free agent market it's doubtful whoever is brought in will be a better value than Alexis, unless the Jays luck into an Abreu 2009-type deal. At the same time, I have gotten the sense this season that the Jays are getting a little frustrated with Rios and they wouldn't mind moving him.
What would y'all do now, if you're the Jays? What do you think they will do?