Which players could be moved before the trade deadline and what will the Blue Jays being doing behind the dish with J.P. Arencebia suffering a broken hand?

PLAYERS ON THE TRADE BLOCK

Jonathan Broxton: The Royals are out of the playoff hunt this year, but they have a lot of young talent in place and that could potentially lead to a run next season. Therefore, the club is uncertain if they want to parlay Broxton into something at the deadline this year or if they want to sign him and go into next season with him as their closer. On the surface Broxton has done a fine job with 23 saves in 27 chances while posting a 2.27 ERA. However, he’s a shell of his former self. A career 11.11 K/9 arm, Broxton has offered a nearly 50 percent reduction in that mark at 6.31 this season. The result is a 1.79 K/BB ratio that is more than a batter below his career rate. He’s turned into an extreme ground ball pitcher with a 57 percent GB-rate, but this isn’t a skill set that is screaming out for the 9th inning right now.

Wade Davis: The Rays’ pitcher wants to start, but the Rays don’t have a spot for him in the rotation (Davis’ first 64 appearances in the big leagues were out of the rotation). This season Davis has worked out of the pen, an over 46.2 innings the results have been impressive as Davis has posted a 2.74 ERA and 1.18 WHIP, and he’s literally doubled his K/9 rate from last season (5.14) this year (10.03). Some team could certainly make the move to add Davis and stick him in the rotation because he’s proven this season that he deserve that chance.

Zack Greinke: Missing starts and allowing 14 earned runs in 14 innings isn’t a great way to head into the trade deadline. Luckily for the Brewers Greinke allowed just one run in his start Wednesday night. GM Doug Melvin said Thursday that the team is committed to seeing if they can work out a deal to trade Greinke since they realize they don’t have a shot at keeping him when he becomes a free agent at years end. Even with his uneven work of late Greinke still sports a 9-3 record, 3.44 ERA and 1.25 WHIP, not to mention 122 Ks in 123 innings pitched. A master of control, Greinke is also walking just 2.05 batters per nine innings, two tenths below his career rate, he’s also generating more ground balls than at any point in his career as his ground ball rate has gone from 40.0 percent to 46 to 47.3 the last three years before taking the leap to 53.7 percent this year.

Chase Headley: He does nothing that jumps off the stat sheet, but Headley is hitting .267 with a pace that would lead to 19 homers, 80 RBI, 75 runs and 15 steals. He’s done all of that hitting in a poor Padres’ lineup while playing half his games in an awful hitters park in San Diego. The only way a move to another team hurts Headley is if the team that acquires him would be looking to stick him into a platoon situation. Given that he has a .767 OPS against lefties an a .795 OPS against righties this season there wouldn’t appear to be much need for that. Don’t overlook that his career OPS on the road is .815 while he has hit .299 away from San Diego.

Francisco Liriano: The old Liriano showed up in his last start as he was bombed for seven runs while recording eight outings against the White Sox. On the year he’s 3-10 with a 5.31 ERA and 1.44 WHIP, atrocious numbers, but for the most part he’s been pretty solid the past two months. In 10 starts since June 1st Liriano has a 4.05 ERA, 1.15 ERA and an impressive 70 Ks in just 60 innings pitched. The power arm has been on full display, but hiccups persist. He’ll never be known as a consistent hurler, he’s just not that guy, but if you’re interested in an arm that knows how to get a grounder or a strikeout, this is one you should be interested in… though make sure you have the Mylanta on hand.

James Shields: In his last 10 starts Shields has allowed at least four earned runs seven times. That’s pushed his ERA up to 4.39 on the year while his WHIP is an unacceptable 1.44 through 20 starts. However, a silver lining might still exist with Shields. (1) His 8.50 K/9 mark is a career best. (2) His 3.18 K/BB ratio is still solid and not that far from his career mark of 3.59. (3) His 1.16 HR/9 mark is right on his career 1.17 mark. (4) His 2.00 GB/FB ratio is light years better than he has even done before (his previous career best mark is 1.31). It’s simply pretty darn difficult to have a K/9 over eight an a GB/FB of 2.00 and not have success. There’s enough positive here to think that Shields could return to being a pitcher of significance over the final two months of the season.

BLUE JAYS CATCHING SITUATION

J.P. Arencebia fractured his right hand after being hit by a foul tip (what do I always say about avoiding overspending on catchers each year? I always warn about how hazardous the position is to play, and this is a perfect example of that). JPA will likely miss six weeks with the injury which comes at an awful time as he was having an impressive month at the plate (.321-6-13 with a 1.081 OPS). JPA won’t be surpassing his totals from last season because of this injury, but he has provided yet another impressive run of offense, if you can deal with the poor batting average (.242 this year after a .219 mark last season). Here are some numbers to know.

2011: 19.3 AB/HR, 5.68 AB/RBI
2012: 17.6 AB/HR, 5.62 AB/RBI

So what do the Blue Jays do?

Travis D’Arnaud was obliterating minor league pitchers hitting .333 with 16 homers and 52 RBIs in 67 games at Triple-A further cementing his status as one of the top catching prospects in the game. Alas, he tore the PCL in his left knee about a month ago and he’s likely done for the season. That means the Jays will have to turn to a combination of Jeff Mathis and Yan Gomes. The current plan would seem to be Gomes playing 2-3 times a week with Mathis handling the majority of starts. While that might be a boost for the Jays hurlers since Mathis is excellent defensively an at calling games, it ain’t a good offensively. Mathis is one of the most ineffective hitters of the last 25 years as he owns a career .198 average, .260 OBP and .574 OPS. He is a BRUTAL offensive performer. Gomes obviously brings more to the table with the bat, so he’d be the better AL-only option.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive on Sirius 210 and XM 87 from 5-8 PM EDT, Monday through Friday. Ray’s baseball analysis can be found at BaseballGuys.com and his minute to minute musings can be located at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2012 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.