There's some rumblings out there that the mystery team going after former White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd is none other than the Toronto Blue Jays. Nothing of any truth has been reported, but Alex Anthopoulos does seem to like to do his deals quietly. Just so we can eliminate one team from the possible destinations:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Baltimore&src=hash">#Baltimore</a> area product Gavin Floyd close to 1-yr deal, but it is not with the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Orioles&src=hash">#Orioles</a>, per source. Floyd had Tommy John surgery in May.</p>— Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) <a href="https://twitter.com/EddieInTheYard/statuses/411690206635380736">December 14, 2013</a></blockquote>
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As the tweet notes, Floyd didn't make it out of April this season, but has been a fairly consistent pitcher throughout the rest of his career. He's exceeded 180 innings in four of the last six years, although the last two seasons were the ones where he didn't. When he pitches a full season he has historically hung around 3-4 WAR with his ERA and FIP usually ending up in the high three or low four range.
As I noted in Floyd's "Who Are Ya" post back in April, the 30-year-old right hander is pretty boring and goes about his business pretty quietly. He throws a fastball, sinker, slider, and curveball along with the occasional changeup. He threw this nasty pitch to Robinson Cano in 2012, which they called a cutter (not so sure it is):
via www.baseballprospectus.com
Floyd was paid $9.5 million last year after Chicago exercised his club option, but is likely in for a pay cut after his Tommy John surgery. There's some reports that Floyd's contract will be filled with incentives, which makes sense for a player that may not be ready for Opening Day. The Maryland native profiles as a back of the rotation piece, which the Blue Jays are overflowing with. If Floyd were to sign with Toronto, then J.A. Happ, Marcus Stroman, Kyle Drabek, Esmil Rogers, Dustin McGowan, Drew Hutchison, and the aforementioned Floyd would be fighting for two spots in the rotation. Maybe if you throw enough average pitchers at the wall one of them sticks and gives the Blue Jays good value (and the rest get hurt).
I'm not even going to attempt to guess on the contract Floyd would get in Toronto, but you fine folks can try in the comments.