On Rowdy Tellez

Watching Rowdy Tellez play has been as much fun as anything we’ll seen from the Blue Jays this year. When he came up I didn’t figure we’d see him play much. He didn’t have the greatest year in Buffalo and I figured he had played his way out of any chance to be part of the future of the team.

But, 52 PA into his major league career, he is hitting .373/.385/.725. Totally sustainable I’m sure. He’s only had 1 walk, which is out of norm for him. Career he’s just under a 10% walk rate.

I wonder how hard the front office will work to open a spot for him next year.

I would like Rowdy at first, at least for a season, when he does come up. I know he’s had a couple of errors in the short time he’s been up, but I’m not going to make a quick judgement on his defense.

I’d like then to play him more against left pitchers. He hit lefties not all that much worse than right-handers in Buffalo. I mean he’s going to look bad against guys like Blake Snell, but then our whole lineup looked bad against Snell.

If we are doing a total rebuild, Justin Smoak will be 32 next year. He’ll be mid-30’s when the rebuild pays off (if the rebuild pays off). I’m not sure how much trade value he has, but Adam Lind got us a good starting pitcher. We could use a starting pitcher for next year. His batting line isn’t all that terrific, .244/.354/.462, but that’s still a OPS+of 125. He’s not being paid all that much next year, so he might draw interest if he was available in a trade. If they could get a reliable starting pitcher for him, I’d be ok with trading him.

Or they could try to trade Kendrys. I know Kendrys had an awful start to the season, but from June 1 on he’s hitting .273/.358/.486 with 17 home runs. The trouble with trading him is that he’s only a DH. That cuts his market down to 15 teams.

Then you cut it down by teams that have DHs who are set at DH and teams that like to leave the DH spot open for resting regulars. So you are down to 3-6 teams that might be willing to take him: Twins, Tigers, White Sox, maybe Royals, maybe Mariners and maybe Rangers. It might be a long shot to be able to move him, but it wouldn’t be impossible. You wouldn’t get much and you’d have to send some money with him, but it possible.

Everyone says Morales is a great teammate and seems like a good role model for the Spanish speaking players. I think there is a value to having him, maybe not an $11 million value, but a value.

It’s also possible that the team could release him. I doubt they would, but there is a 40-man crush coming. And releasing him would open the DH spot to Tellez or to be used to rest players.

Anyway I thought I’d ask what you think will happen with Rowdy Tellez.