Blue Jays Acquire Rajai Davis By Tim Dierkes [November 17, 2010 at 4:24pm CST]
The Blue Jays added to their outfield mix today by acquiring speedster Rajai Davis from the Athletics for minor league relievers Trystan Magnuson and Daniel Farquhar. The Jays also released righty Shawn Hill, according to a press release.
Davis, a 30-year-old speedster, became more expendable for Oakland after they acquired David DeJesus from the Royals. Davis slipped to .284/.320/.377 this year in 561 plate appearances for the A's, playing all three outfield positions but mainly center. It's not clear how the Jays would employ Davis, but capable center fielders are a rare commodity. We named him as a trade candidate back on October 25th. Davis is arbitration eligible for the second time this winter and potentially under team control through 2013.
Farquhar, 24 in February, posted a 3.52 ERA, 9.3 K/9, 4.9 BB/9, and 0.82 HR/9 in 76 2/3 Double-A innings this year. Baseball America ranked him 14th among Jays prospects heading into the season, noting that he effectively uses multiple arm angles to keep hitters off balance.
Magnuson, a 25-year-old righty, posted a 2.58 ERA, 7.7 K/9, and 1.2 BB/9 with only one home run allowed in 73 1/3 Double-A innings this year. Heading into the season BA had him 22nd among Jays prospects.
Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first tweeted the deal was close, while MLBTR added Magnuson's inclusion.
Not sure I like this trade for the Jays. My guess is that they'll move Bautista back to 3B, play Davis at CF and Wells at RF. Or AA is up to something else.
Farquhar and Magnuson are decent enough arms and should have been enough to get someone better than Davis, say Uggla.
Davis will at least give some speed to the lineup.
As an A's fan, i'm ok with this trade. Rajai was at best a 4th OF in Oakland and I'm not sad to see one of the slap hitting speedsters leave. One is enough, get some power out there now. Bullpen depth is also never something you can have enough of so i'm quite all right acquiring more RPs.
Kouz, your next... (after we sign Beltre of course)
I'm more a fan of station-to-station baseball as a strategy, but I guess it couldn't hurt to have a speedster on the team. As long as he gets on base I'll be happy. As for his fielding, he was god-awful last season, but pretty good in 2009. Maybe it was the hamstring problems that made him hesitant. I'd have no issue with him in a corner outfield spot. As for losing the prospects, I trust the scouting department to know what they're giving up, and with the stockpile we have there's not a lot of harm in getting somebody like Davis locked up pretty cheap for 3 seasons.
It seems a bit redundant since they already have Fred Lewis, who coincidentally has also played in the Giants organization. Davis isn't really anything special defensively, so it's hard to say he'd be better than Wells in center who isn't exactly a slouch.
Wells is exactly a slouch in CF, but we don't have anybody else half decent anyway. Keeping him there is a good way to appease him so he doesn't get grumpy and completely give up on expending effort. Rajai is a similar player to Lewis, but has better wheels and more upside, IMO. And will probably play better defense.
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by kimchi_chigae » Wed Nov 17, 2010 6:45 pm 
Rajai was one of my favourite A's. 
