Toronto Blue Jays sign southpaw pitcher B.J. Ryan

[Halladay_is_God]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/bre...p-313970c.html

The Toronto Blue Jays, with a payroll surplus of $25-30 million for next year, have made a bold statement that they intend to be big players in the AL East by signing lefty free agent reliever B.J. Ryan to a five-year $47 million contract, the Daily News has learned.

With the signing of the hard-throwing Ryan, the Blue Jays appear poised to now deal their previous closer, Miguel Batista. They have reportedly had discussions with the Texas Rangers about an exchange of Batista for outfielder Kevin Mench. The Blue Jays were also pursuing righty free agent starter A.J. Burnett and were said to have also offered him a five-year deal. It was unclear if the Ryan signing would now preclude them from continuing their efforts to land Burnett.

finally some real bullpen help and a lefty at that but too much money though and I think in the end it will come to hurt the Jays

[HollywoodLeo]

9.4 per year to BJ Ryan.

This doesn't bode well for the Trevor negotiations

[Providence A's]

5 years, $47 million

[redsrbetter]

Huge contract, but the Blue Jays still got a very nice arm. This really shows that the FA market will, once again, be crazy expensive.

[Fishercat]

I mean, Ryan's

A) Good
B) Young
C) Lefty

And the best on the market with all three of those qualities (although A is redundant), but still, 9.4 million for 70-80 innings a year of possible (but not guaranteed) 2-3 ERA ball? Hell, Keith Foulke (who had a longer track record of success) got, if his 4 year deal played out completely with all incentives met, a 4 year/26.5 million dollar deal. Prior to his signing year, he had 5 straight years of sub-3 ERA in Chicago and Oakland with about 80 innings a year and almost 130 saves in and out of the closer role.

Ryan's certainly been great for the past two years, but 9.4 million for any closer is steep, especially when the closer isn't Mariano Rivera or Eric Gagne.

[Kingdom]

At least he won't be caked in the spotlight being in Canada, and he's used to the focus of competition the blue jays will have. Still, that's a lot for a mostly unproven reliever.

[General]

Good signing for the Jays. Watch out for them.

[Kingdom]

sportscenter said that the toronto GM is denying this report

[Halladay_is_God]

http://tsn.ca/mlb/news_story.asp?id=144507

NEW YORK (AP) - B.J. Ryan and the Toronto Blue Jays have reached a preliminary agreement on a $47 million, five-year contract, a high-ranking baseball official said Friday.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article....25_194301_4524
says the same

its at least very close to done

[McKain]

What a ridiculous price to pay. Similar closers have gotten half of that, and similar closers will no longer enjoy getting half that.

If it becomes finalized, this is going to be the first in a long series of deals that will inevitably massacre free agency this year.

9.4 mil per for BJ Ryan will jack up the price on, say, Billy Wagner, who was previously getting reported offers of 10 mil per for 3 years... well, he sure isn't going to find himself on roughly the same level as BJ Ryan. His wants will probably shoot up to at least 12-13 mil per, and when closers are getting that much money this early on, the rest of the market is just going to topple under the weight of player demands. AJ Burnett's then going to look and say "Hey, I've got much more value than two closers! I want 15 mil per!"

etcetcetc

maybe not as drastic a jump as my hypotheticals would seem to show, but there's definitely going to be some bad-for-the-MLB pricespiking this offseason.

I like the signing of BJ Ryan to a 5 year deal; I just don't like him being second highest paid reliever ever when he's only been a "proven closer" for one year.

[DirtyKash]

Wait a second. Didn't Miguel Batista do a good job last year? I thought that the last thing the Jays needed was bullpen help (Batista, Speier, Frasor, Schoeneweis, etc) were solid last year. Their defense was also solid. What they need is a big bat and some starting pitching. Why get BJ Ryan? Unless Miguel Batista moves to the rotation?

[McKain]

No, Miguel Batista did not do a good job last year. He was very mediocre, and mediocre closer isn't worth 4.75 million.

He was second in the majors with 8 blown saves, and was of ridiculously low positive value to the Jays.

I don't really think a "good and potentially great" closer is worth 9.4 million, but only paying 4.65 mil more a year to get a tremendous upgrade is apparently worth it for the Jays.

[DirtyKash]

Batista did a very good job despite those 8 blown saves. No sense in getting Ryan.

[McKain]

No, he did not do a very good job.

In April and May, sure, he did a super job.

Then in June, he was above average.

Then in July, oh, look, he's mediocre.

Oh god, it's August, Miguel Batista is ****ing horrible, what the hell happened.

OH MY GOD, IT'S SEPTEMBER AND HE ACTUALLY GOT WORSE

Check out his gamelog; http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/player...?playerId=2657

Consistency says a lot for a pitcher, Batista had virtually none of it. From July on he just started randomly giving up tons of hits here and there, and was horrible.

[love_that_reefer]

Too much money for this guy and too many years. I do hope it works out for the Jays because I would like to see the East get competitive for a change. Last year was close but things fell apart in the second half.