Alex Rios Claimed off Waivers by the White Sox

[Saber]

And the Jays ditch a huge contract.

Hey, they can suddenly afford Halladay again.

[Saber]

As for analysis:

What was said about Fangraphs is true, and Dave Cameron (I believe) correctly pointed out that Rios' contract was not awful given his production, age, and comparable players. However, Rios is still owed almost 60 million dollars for the next few years. The Jays have hamstrung themselves financially. They cannot even afford to pay the market rate. Vernon Wells is radioactive. While Rios is good, he's not a star. Considering how little leverage the Jays have displayed, I think this is is all they can do. They weren't going to get any talent back in trade.

This is a bad deal. But it's all I think they can really do. This is walking away from your mortgage before they foreclose.

[Foster]

It is all they can do, yes I understand that. But why the hell are we in the situation in the first place? J.P. paid a lot of money to Wells, so much so that we are in a place were would would have to trade away one of the best in the big leagues cause we can't resign him, and now we loose Rios cause he also had a contract that was to big to afford. This is terrible, we are up the creek without a paddle, well VDub zooms by in his million dollar yacht.

[realmofotalk]

This deal has shades of the Raul Mondesi salary dump. Only this time J.P. isn't likely to be praised for it by Michael Lewis.

[Halladay_is_God]

I still miss Shawn Green

[nick]

I don't know. I'd have to find the article, but fangraphs says that while Vernon Wells' contract is awful and they should get rid of it however they can, Rios is actually a good deal based on his skill set, his projected stats for next year and beyond, and the salaries of similar players around the league.

Rios is a nice player, but Vernon Wells is still similar (I realize he's making more money than Rios and Rios has outplayed him this year) that if you can drop one of them, you do it.

Rios has more upside than Wells at this point, and is probably already a much better player, but a lot of that team's salary was locked into those two... even if they got nothing in return, this was the right move to make by the Jays.

The better thing to do would have been not signing Wells and/or Rios in the first place, but still.

From the White Sox standpoint it works, and gives the team some direction atleast (I still couldn't tell if they were rebuilding or going for it all up until the deadline when they traded for Peavy-- seems like Kenny Williams is always stuck inbetween both scenarios, but atleast this means it's not a guessing game from that front for the next few yrs and they should be competitive). They've certainly put all of the apples in their barrel for this year, and they're no lock to even make the post season. But Peavy & Rios are locked up for awhile, and with Dye, Thome and others coming off the books money shouldn't be a huge issue. This trade will help them more down the line than it will this year... I really believe the Tigers have a better team right now and should still win the division.

[Foster]

.179 .190 .304

Awesome.

[realmofotalk]

He's knocking on Brian Giles' door for the title of Mr. OPS

[testing_this]

Alex Rios actually become worse, if that's possible, upon his arrival to ChiTown. Perhaps those huge contracts given to young players to "lock them up" aren't always such a great idea. Then again, Kenny Williams didn't even give Rios that contract so....

[Halladay_is_God]

he didn't give it but he sure took it