Bench Life Sports

Background
Born: 1/27/1983 (33 years old) Annapolis, Maryland, US
Drafted: 1st round (4th overall) in 2001 by Philadelphia Phillies
Teams: Philadelphia Phillies (2004-06), Chicago White Sox (2007-13), Atlanta Braves (2014), Cleveland Indians (2015)
Positions: Pitcher
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 245 lbs
Bat: Right
Throw: Right
Full Baseball Reference Bio

Fangraphs Profile

The Signing
February 5th the Jays sign Gavin Floyd to a 1 year, $1 million deal.

What he brings to the team
Sorry for the late post on this guy, but up until three days ago I assumed he was on a minor league deal… The Blue Jays are the third stop on Floyd’s reclamation tour. Last season’s 13.1 innings pitch were his first since he suffered a gruesome elbow injury in 2014 when he pitched for the Braves.

He looks to start the season out of the bullpen, but can start in a pinch. This continues the offseason’s “pitching depth” theme. In his short stint with Cleveland he showed that he still has a little juice in his arm. His fastball averaged 91.7 MPH and maxed out at 95.3 MPH. He also throws a cutter, two seam fastball, changeup and curveball. His latest PitchFx data was collected over his 13.1 innings in 2015, so we will have to see what he looks like in person. Clearly Atkins and Shapiro liked what they saw from the 33 year old.  Enough to give him a guaranteed deal…

Why he’s on the bench

I’ve defended Shapiro and Atkins for most of the offseason, but come on! Was there other teams willing to give Floyd a big league deal? And if there was, why try and outbid them? I would have rather the Jays signed Cliff Lee, because as far as I can tell he is just as injury prone as Floyd with a much higher ceiling. I sure hope Floyd proves me wrong and becomes this year’s Liam Hendriks, or better yet Scott Kazmir. I just can’t rap my head around giving guaranteed money to an injury prone, 33 year old pitcher who hasn’t been remotely effective since posting a 1.9 WAR in 2012. Especially since Rogers seems to be pretty strict about sticking to the budget.

That being said, Atkins is far smarter and more in tune with the free agent landscape than I am. I can speculate all I want but there is a reason that Atkins and Shapiro  paid the big bucks and my opinions are limited to this blog.

On a brighter note, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in 2 days and I will not let Gavin Floyd ruin my mood!