With all of their moves to send the vaunted rookies (Daniel Norris, Miguel Castro, Dalton Pompey) down to the minors, the Blue Jays had a couple of 40-man roster moves go pretty much unnoticed. While adding a couple of non-40-man roster players, they had to designate first baseman Andy Wilkins and pitcher Matt West for assignment.
In my opinion, I was never really fussed about the move to DFA Wilkins, who was claimed on waivers at the beginning of the year after he was DFA’ed by the Chicago White Sox (to make room for Kyle Drabek). The Blue Jays have a plethora of experienced first baseman in Triple-A with Chris Colabello (now with the big league club), Matt Hague and Daric Barton and Jake Fox is playing in Double-A New Hampshire. Just a couple of days ago, the Blue Jays announced that they had traded Wilkins to the Los Angeles Dodgers for cash and, again, this is not a big loss for the organization, particularly since Wilkins, the home run leader in the International League last year, was off to a weak start.
It was the second move that I think the Blue Jays may come to regret. Matt West was a power arm in the New Hampshire bullpen who could have easily been pitching in Buffalo, just a step away from the majors. West is still only 26 and has only been pitching since 2011 but, even then, has missed a lot of time due to Tommy John surgery and other injuries. He only has 116 1/3 innings on his minor league resume including a phenomenal 12 1/3 innings this season with New Hampshire in which he’s allowed just one unearned run on nine hits and four walks with 17 strikeouts. West has a full complement of pitches and I’ve seen him hit 95 mph on the radar gun.
It was reported on Sunday that West was also going out west to the Dodgers for more cash considerations by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. So why is a team, desperately looking for bullpen help, selling off one of the best arms in the organization? That’s a question you’ll have to answer for me!
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Because their baseball analytics people like to think outside the box, and their models predict that Jeff Francis is a much more deserving candidate for the major league bullpen.
Somebody should remind them that it’s nice to think inside the box from time to time.
Yes, pretty disappointed in that move.