I don't think this is true. Brandon McCarthy returned nothing, and he's a fair bit better than Happ. Most teams avoid paying real money for guys like Happ.
Probably a lot of hoop-jumping for what would amount to a pretty paltry return. The salary is fair, but teams are going to be able to find a lot of fair salaries for 5/6 starters. If you decide the money is best spent elsewhere, the 200K buyout is likely more attractive than waiting until a GM with $7 million burning a hole in his pocket has struck out on free agency.
J.A. Happ has continued to do J.A. Happ stuff this year. He's a perfectly fine 5th/6th starter. The question that will come up this offseason (and which was debated endlessly last offseason) is whether or not he's worth his contract TO THIS TEAM. He has a $6.7 team option, and everything we know says he's probably worth that cash in a context-neutral environment, but given the team's roster/payroll situation, he's probably not a luxury the team can afford.
There was a thread on HF like 10 games into his Leafs tenure in which Leaf fans were pretty much unanimously in agreement that they had found their 2nd line C going forward.
So does anyone know if this guy is actually a smart statsy guy, or was he just given the title of stats guru AA-style by the media because he's young and said analytics are cool?
Oh look, Boxy being standoffish again. He slid into third, hurt his hand, and walked off with the trainer, who spent the next few minutes with him. Rockies TV crew were wondering out loud whether he re-aggravated his hand injury. I commented on it.