Could Peavy Become a Blue Jay?Â
I have heard and reported here on the Jays trading Wells for pitching, now that it seems that won’t happen and the Jays are rumoured to have Alex Rios on the block. They Jays have faith in Adam Lind as a rightfielder (Yikes!) and think they can do away with a star on the upside of his career in Rios. Rios may be included in a lucrative package to go to the Friars for an oft-rumoured trade bait Jake Peavy.
Yes, this may be far fetched. Rios, I think would be a great fit with the Padres, great speed (but not a base stealer), great defense, great extra base hitter. Rios is also cheap. The Jays would have to throw in mucho pitching prospects +++ such as Romero and maybe even Brandon League to even out this deal.  Jays do not really have much depth in prospects, most hitting prospects are catchers, which they probably wouldn’t want to part with or 1B/DH type that would be useless in NL.Â
I have heard Peavy rumours on Toronto’s Fan 590, Buffalo’s WGR and even some ESPN radio shows. All these rumours have him coming to either the Jays, Yanks, BoSox or Orioles. The Sox would part with Ramirez as I have stated in another column.  Boston is probably out of the running with Matsuzaka inked. The Yanks would be giving a package deal of prospects including Melky Cabrera. The O’s would be parting with Tejada whose contract they would like to dump but the Friar’s probably would like to steer clear of.
If Peavy is garnering this kind of attention from AL East suitors the market for pitching in this competitive divison is at a premium. I hope you see my other column on the lowdown and downlow on Peavy. He has alot of upside and has an awesome K/BB ratio despite some injury problems in the pase. The AL East teams may be after him instead of Barry Zito because Barry Zito has had trouble with power hitting teams. The Yanks, BoSox and Jays have traditionally crushed Barry Zito.
Anyways, I am just throwing that rumour to the wolves.Â
Looks like Melky could be moving in the Pirates/Braves/Yankees deal.
Peavy is a better pitcher than Zito, so I can see why teams would be interested.
Zito would be a bad fit for Toronto. He gives up 25+ HR a year, and that’s with pitching in Oakland. If you put him in Toronto, with the high HR factor, he’d give up close to 35 a year.
Rios, even at 26 next season, has not established himself enough to trade a Peavy for. Let’s be honest, Rios has had a few good months in the majors. If Rios is going to get dealt, it will probably be for a Freddy Garcia type or a mid-level pitching prospect (examples: Shawn Hill, James Shields, Ian Shell, etc).
The jays will demand a lot for Rios, and Rios+ for Peavy might not be a bad idea. Now, that being said, Rios will have to pick up where he left off at the start of last year to be considered. However, if he does then I could see Rios and two of Toronto’s mid level starting prospects. They are definitely not deep in pitching in terms of prospects, but I cannot see them dealing Brandon League. That is something they will not do