Late Innings

The Blue Jays were soooo close to making some noise this winter:

Free-agent shortstop Orlando Cabrera has agreed to a one-year, $4 million contract with the Oakland Athletics, who also are closing in on a deal with veteran infielder Nomar Garciaparra, sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney on Monday. Cabrera, 34, will replace Bobby Crosby as Oakland’s starting shortstop. Cabrera hit .281 with eight home runs and 57 RBIs and stole 19 bases for the White Sox last year.

On the whole I like this move for the A’s, it’s a shame that they still have Bobby Crosby on the roster however. Still as Dave Cameron of FanGraphs puts it, they just spent 4MM to bump themselves up from an 82 win team to an 83 win team. For them to see true value on this signing, they’ll need to unload Crosby’s 5.5MM that’s owed to him this year, and in our current economy, that’ll be tough to do.

Speaking of the economy, that’s the main reason as to why the Blue Jays have been so dormant this offseason. I don’t know any other team who had a bad winter. They lost A.J. Burnett to the Yankees, and won’t get the Type A luxury that the Angels do, since they also signed (Elias higher) Mark Teixeira. All four other teams in the division have improved themselves by at least two Pythagorean wins in my opinion. Granted the AL East is a nasty division to play in, but you need to at least make some moves to make up for those that you lost.