Jays Acquiring Andres Gimenez

[BTS]

Uh oh...

 

 

This is not a good deal

[John_Havok]

Yup straight salary dump for Cleveland. And they picked up a decent bat with cheap control for their troubles. No idea where he plays with Naylor there but they hate spending money so this makes sense.

 

Probably about to trade Naylor

[Jays24]

Uh oh...

 

 

We also gave up another player so youre underselling the trade lol

[John_Havok]

Puzzling move overall really.

[thatoneguy]

For the love of god fire Atkins.

[Angrioter]

The infield version of Varsho

[hanton]

Gimenez vs Ernie Clement

 

[ValiantJaysFan]

It's hard to believe 2015 was almost 10 years ago, and how far this franchise has fallen since then. f*** Ross Atkins.

[glory]

Gimenez makes $10m in 2025 but has a $15m CBT hit, so not sure how much money the Jays actually have left to spend but it can't be enough to get Burnes + 2 hitters. I have no idea what the plan is here, other than having a Bo replacement in 2026.

[burlingtonbandit]

The funny thing is Otto Lopez last year wasn't that different from Giminez and the Jays let him go for nothing.

[saskjayfan]

Gimenez makes $10m in 2025 but has a $15m CBT hit, so not sure how much money the Jays actually have left to spend but it can't be enough to get Burnes + 2 hitters. I have no idea what the plan is here, other than having a Bo replacement in 2026.

 

He's owed 94 mil over the next 5 years. We couldn't spend 94 over 5 years on a better player. 19 mil year.

[Olerud363]

Gimenez vs Ernie Clement

 

 

According to the fangraphs website Gimenez having his worst season was more valuable then Clement and is 4 years younger, but more expensive. Gimenez is an above average bat lifetime.

 

Trade comes down to 2 things.

 

1. Are Gimenez lifetime offensive stats real and can he hit OK age 26 to 29 ? Like he is above average hitter lifetime if you average out the highs (not real) and lows (maybe not real either)... or maybe the lows are real.

 

2. Is Howritz better than his projections? Like Horwitz hit .330 .450 .490 in Buffalo, but because of weirdness in minor league strikezone and his advanced (for a prospect) age he is like a projected .260 .340 .400 mlb hitter and maybe 2.5 WAR guy (if defense is sort of not bad).... that is replaceable. I guess the risk is their is something to the .330 .450 .500 Buffalo line (Like that line doesn't grow on trees, before comparing to Rowdy Tellez check Rowdy's 2 years in Buffalo).

[Olerud363]

He's owed 94 mil over the next 5 years. We couldn't spend 94 over 5 years on a better player. 19 mil year.

 

.... not if you believe his fangraphs page (including projections).

[MikeM3]

Gimenez makes $10m in 2025 but has a $15m CBT hit, so not sure how much money the Jays actually have left to spend but it can't be enough to get Burnes + 2 hitters. I have no idea what the plan is here, other than having a Bo replacement in 2026.

 

Make no mistake we will pay the exact market rate for 1 war, nothing less or more. Operating like we are a 95 win team that needs a couple more wins

[Terminator]

[Terminator]

This is a weird ass trade.

 

I'm having a hard time gauging what everyone is worth.

 

-Horwitz could be a slap hitting DH who is essentially worthless or he could be a 125 wRC+ 1B/DH/occasional 2B who makes peanuts.

-Gimenez could be a star player on a reasonable deal or he could be an overpaid defense only type that is probably worth a spot in the lineup, but is a poor fit for a team needing more offense.

-Sandlin could be a good middle reliever or he might not even be worth 25-man spot. At least he has options.

-Nick Mitchell doesn't appear to be much but a 4th round pick is probably worth something!

[MikeM3]

 

Or you could sign Edman for 5/70

[Abomination]

I think I'm okay with the trade. There is definite upside potential, but we desperately need multiple power bats to complement this.

[The_DH]

I wondered how they would re-sign KK from last year and this is it. Gimenez' bat is basically KK returned to the roster. I don't mind the guy on his own but holy f***: ROSTER CONSTRUCTION, NOT DESTRUCTION.

[tazsub3]

Everyone knows I hate the management and when I saw gimenez I said wtf but I have to be fair when I saw what we gave up , with a bit upside to his game this trade can become highway robbery

[burlingtonbandit]

I actually like Sandlin and think he's an underrated part of this. Lots of swing and miss and is cheap plus has options.

 

Gave up a ton of homers the last 2 years but hardly any the 2 years before that. I think I read something about Cleveland being super home run friendly in RF because of the wind or something weird last year so maybe the HR/FB rate returns to normal.

 

Jays needed pen arms and its nice getting a lottery ticket with upside without having to pay for it in FA.

[Carlos Danger]

I think I'll just cancel my Rogers subscription.

 

I will reiterate again - can we just fast forward to the trade deadline? Nothing we do is going to matter. We're a 4th or 5th place team about to lose both Vlad and Bo. What a miserable franchise and fan base to cheer for.

 

Is this part of your shtick again?

[Omar]

I didn't think Atkins could have a worse off season than the last one. He is on his way to out do himself. What a joke.

[Jays24]

Is this part of your shtick again?

 

Ya he's been posting a bunch where I'm not even sure what he's doing. Think he's turning into the guy from Split lol

[Masterbather]

The infield version of Varsho

 

Bingo!

 

I don't feel any real way about this but general numbness.

[L54]

I think this trade is absolute ass cheeks

 

I was fully on board trading Horwitz but I didn’t anticipate taking on 100M of salary for Ryan Goins

 

A decade of Ross Atkins has been nothing short of misery

[saskjayfan]

I actually like Sandlin and think he's an underrated part of this. Lots of swing and miss and is cheap plus has options.

 

Gave up a ton of homers the last 2 years but hardly any the 2 years before that. I think I read something about Cleveland being super home run friendly in RF because of the wind or something weird last year so maybe the HR/FB rate returns to normal.

 

Jays needed pen arms and its nice getting a lottery ticket with upside without having to pay for it in FA.

 

Sandlin is Trevor Richards. That's who he is. Giminez is KK but KK never made 19 mil a year. Looking at career offensive numbers when a young player has one outlier year. The league has figured him out and adjusted. He's a below avg offensive, defense first player. That's not what this team needed, especially at 19 mil a year. We're f***ed until Ross Atkins is fired. We'll be an exciting team at the deadline when we trade Bo, Vlad and Gausman.

[The_DH]

So is Orelvis moving to LF now?

[Terminator]

Keith Law's take on the deal: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5985478/2024/12/10/blue-jays-guardians-andres-gimenez-spencer-horwitz/

 

Blue Jays trade for defensive whiz Andrés Giménez, but the bat is a question: Law

By Keith Law

 

Save Article

Trade details: Toronto acquires 2B Andrés Giménez and RHP Nick Sandlin from Cleveland for 1B/2B Spencer Horwitz and OF Nick Mitchell

 

For all of the rumors of the Blue Jays trading Bo Bichette, their first big move of the winter was an acquisition: trading for Cleveland’s defensive wizard Andrés Giménez, perhaps the best-fielding second baseman in baseball, and the long-term contract the Guardians gave him off a career year in 2022.

 

Giménez became a star in his second year in Cleveland after the Guardians made two major changes: They shifted him from shortstop to second base, where he’s an elite defender, and they eliminated his leg kick, which resulted in him hitting the ball much harder than he ever had and boosted his average launch angle too. He hit .297/.371/.466 and was worth 7.4 bWAR/6.1 fWAR in 2022, finishing sixth in MVP voting.

 

The bad news is that it didn’t take — Giménez slugged just .340 last year, and his average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and Barrel rate all ranked in the bottom 10 percent of MLB hitters. He’s given all of his 2022 gains back, and that season’s 37.8 percent hard-hit rate and 87.8 mph average exit velocity look like flukes in the context of his overall career. He’s still an outstanding defender, coming in at 14 runs above average in 2023 and 2024, but the bat is well below average. He’s under contract through 2029, and that’s a long time to lock up a singles hitter.

 

The Blue Jays are one of the only teams that could make an argument for paying retail for Giménez, as second base was a giant vortex of awful for them last year, to the point that they were playing first baseman Spencer Horwitz out of position there in September. (It didn’t go well.) Toronto also picked up right-handed reliever Nick Sandlin, a very effective guy against hitters on both sides of the plate despite a lower arm slot thanks to a plus splitter. He had a down year in 2024, giving up more power to right-handers than usual, and seems like a solid buy-low acquisition.

 

Even if Giménez does nothing more than repeat 2024, the trade probably makes the Jays four wins better, maybe more if you consider the incumbent options for second base in Toronto, none of which was likely to be more than replacement level. And maybe they’re setting up a Bichette trade where they’d move Giménez to the vacated shortstop spot.

 

Cleveland gets to move a contract that hasn’t worked out as planned for them, and frees up second base for their top prospect, Travis Bazzana, whom the Guardians selected No. 1 this past July. It’s not unreasonable to think Bazzana, who only hit .238/.369/.396 in High A after signing but was one of the best hitters in Division 1 last spring, could see the majors before the end of 2025, so moving Giménez now while 2022 still looks like it might represent some untapped potential makes sense.

 

That said, this is a lot to give up just to dump a contract. Sandlin had a bad 2024, but he has some value, even as a one-inning reliever who walks a few too many guys. Horwitz is a first baseman with a good approach who hit everywhere he played in the minors, but was always old for his levels and was a 26-year-old rookie last year. He’s probably a platoon guy at best, hitting right-handers and playing adequate defense at first, but the market for platoon first basemen is quite limited.

 

Adding Horwitz to a roster with Josh Naylor, Jhonkensy Noel and Kyle Manzardo makes little sense, even if the plan is to trade one of them, as they’re probably all better than he is and only Naylor is older (by all of five months). Maybe they deal Naylor, but then Manzardo plays first and Noel DH, or vice versa, leaving Horwitz as a nice left-handed bat off the bench, or a platoon partner for Noel, who had a .282 OBP in a small sample against righties in the majors.

 

Nick Mitchell was the Jays’ fourth-round pick in 2024, a corner outfielder who doesn’t chase much and hits fastballs well, but so far hasn’t shown enough power to profile as a regular in a corner. He does make hard enough contact to hit for average, but might not get to more than 10-12 homers a year, which would limit him to the ceiling of a very solid fourth outfielder.

 

It is about as clear a salary dump as you’ll see — the Guardians had to send Sandlin and accept a minimal return to get Giménez’s remaining $99 million off the books. I hope owner Paul Dolan plans to let the front office spend that money to improve the team, perhaps to add someone with strong on-base skills, rather than put it in his pocket.

 

(Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)

[BTS]

Steamer600

 

Horwitz - 2.2 fWAR

Gimenez - 3.0 fWAR

 

I know Gimenez has that one monster season, and Toronto is probably projecting Gimenez to be a bit better than that, but a) I don't trust Toronto's evaluation of hitters, and We're talking about a $93M commitment for Gimenez while Horwitz will make the minimum for two more years.

 

I really don't like this deal.

 

We could have had:

 

Horwitz

Josh Rojas (~4M)

Kirby Yates/David Robertson/some other good FA reliever (12M)

$77M

 

but instead we have Andres Gimenez