The Toronto Blue Jays have have agreed to a one-year deal with right-handed reliever Joe Smith, according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports who reported the news via Twitter late on Saturday night.
Free agent relievers have been literally flying off the board in the last 48 hours at an incredible pace leaving the likes of Joe Blanton and Travis Wood as the current remaining top options. Not a knock on them, but just to illustrate how different the landscape has changed in two days.
The New York Mets had shown interest in the side-arming Smith according to an earlier report by Rosenthal, but they took care of business early in the day by signing Tom Gorzelanny to a minor league deal Saturday morning and then following that up with a 1-2 punch, locking down veteran relievers Fernando Salas and Jerry Blevins to complete their bullpen shopping list with just eight days to spare before pitchers and catchers report to camp.
Smith, 32, has been one of the most reliable relievers in the game since 2009, appearing in 503 games (7th among Major League relievers), with a 2.80 ERA, 146 holds (5th), 1.151 WHIP, and 203 runners stranded (6th). However, he is coming off a down 2016 season plagued by oblique and hamstring injuries.
The former Met started the season with the Angels before being traded to the Cubs in August in exchange for Minor Leaguer Jesus Castillo.
For his career, Smith has fared much better against right-handed hitters, holding them to a .215/.286/.305 slash line, compared to lefties who have slashed .244/.337/.369.
Smith is at his best when he induces ground balls, currently at a 56.2% rate for his career. When batters hit ground balls off of Smith, the results are rarely in their favor, as he has held them to a .210/.210/.220 slash line in 920 at-bats.
I always loved Joe Smith from the moment he first made his debut with the Mets, and I was sad to see him get dealt in that awful J.J. Putz deal that completely blew up in our faces. You may remember Putz was damaged goods and we never had him take a physical.
And the worst part was that we had just signed K-Rod so we didn’t really need to make the deal, it was unnecessary and Joe Smith had shown enough the previous season to give him a shot at that 7th or 8th inning role.
Unfortunately for us, Smith would go on to be everything we hoped Putz would be and he had himself a pretty impressive major league career, with at least three seasons that were arguably All Star caliber in my opinion. Ergh….
Site Note:
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