The Kansas City Royals have acquired reliever Jason Frasor from the Texas Rangers in exchange for minor league righthander Spencer Patton.
Frasor, 36, is in the midst of another strong season, posting a 3.34 ERA with a 9.1 K/9 in 32 relief appearances spanning 29.2 innings pitched. Last season, he had a 2.57 ERA in 61 appearances for the Rangers.
The veteran righthander is owed about $700,000 through the end of the season and will become a free agent this winter.
It doesn’t sound like the Rangers got much for their quality reliever. Patton, 26, has a 4.08 ERA in 34 relief appearances for Triple-A Omaha and was not considered a top 25 prospect for the Royals.
The Rangers have the worst record in baseball at 38-57 and are reportedly going to sell off as many pieces as they can before the trade deadline.
I wonder if the Mets can grab outfielder Alex Rios, who is a free agent at the end of this season but has a team option worth $13.5 million for 2015. Rios leads the majors with nine triples, and is batting .305 with a .773 OPS in 387 plate appearances.
The 33-year old has 21 doubles, four home runs, 41 runs scored and 42 RBI on the season with 16 stolen bases. Rios bats righthanded and is batting .378/.413/.659 against lefthanded pitching.
Last season, Rios hit 18 home runs, drove in 82 runs and stole 42 bases while scoring 83 runs. He’s a solid defender in right field.
It looks like the Rangers are just looking for salary relief and Rios may come cheap. His style of play would work well in Citi Field and if he doesn’t work out, the Mets are not on the hook for 2015.
An outfield of Curtis Granderson in left, Juan Lagares in center and Rios in right would make for one of the best defensive outfields in the league. In Rios the Mets would have a leadoff hitter that could free up Grandy to bat in the middle of the order which is why he got that $60 million from the Mets.
There’s also a Mets connection to Rios as it was J.P. Ricciardi who signed Rios to his current contract which was originally a seven year deal worth $70 million dollars and bought out Rios’ arbitration years. J.P. got a lot of flack for the deal at the time, but in retrospect it wasn’t really as bad as many made it out to be.
Of course if you make a move like this, you follow it up by cutting Chris Young and maybe you can also dangle Eric Young Jr. out there for any teams looking for some speed off the bench. With Rios on board, EY becomes somewhat expendable.
The best part is you have three everyday outfielders with two very solid 4th and 5th outfield options in Bobby Abreu and Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
Anyway, it’s something to think about on a slow Mets news day.
