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Small Pickups Coming up Big for Blue Jays

Dumpster diving has proven useful for the Blue Jays, who have received much bigger contributions from a trio of small pickups than the team could have ever expected.
Photo by Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

"Dumpster diving." It's the pejorative of choice, whenever the Blue Jays make a waiver claim or sign a fringy big leaguer few have ever heard of to a minor league free agent deal, for the sorts of jaded Blue Jays fans who act like simply repeating "20 years with no playoffs" over and over is justification enough to fire the front office, the manager and coaching staff, trade all the players, and burn the Rogers Centre to the ground.

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"That is their answer!" they bemoan, apparently aghast at the idea that the team would actually conduct the mundane business of player acquisition instead of saving its energy for some splashy mega-deal. "That is what's supposed to propel them from perennial also-rans into one of the elite clubs of MLB?"

READ MORE: Four Years Later, Anthopoulos Can Learn Something from Blue Jays-Cardinals Trade

Of course, such deals are never meant to be that, and the criticism of these low-cost, low-risk, high-reward transactions is more than a little bit absurd. Teams are built by "dumpster diving," and not just the acquisitions that work out spectacularly well. In fact, despite the criticism from some fans, the 2015 version of the Blue Jays are an excellent example of just that.

Though it will be of little consolation to those who wish he had a better track record with some of his bigger deals, Alex Anthopoulos has to feel very good about the production he's been getting from a number of these small-time acquisitions so far this season.

Chris Colabello is the obvious example, even if he's cooled somewhat after a scorching hot start to the season, which saw him earn the Triple-A International League's Player Of The Month award for April, before joining the Jays in early May and picking up where he left off. While his June has been "merely" above average, with a .319/.347/.417 line, coupling that with his ridiculous May has given him a 149 weighted runs created plus (a metric that measures a player's offensive contributions, neutralized for both league and park). That places him in the top 25 of all MLB hitters with at least 150 plate appearances. Not bad for a December waiver claim who was designated for assignment in February and cleared waivers, allowing the Jays to send him to Triple-A Buffalo.

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Ezequiel Carrera has somewhat quietly been a significant contributor for the Blue Jays, as well. The outfielder has benefited from some favourable matchups, as he is the club's only true outfielder who hits from the left side, and—like Colabello—has an unsustainably high batting average on balls in play. But you can't take away what he's done for the club, hitting .295/.346/.379 through over 100 plate appearances, getting high marks from the advanced metrics for his work on the base paths, and playing something bordering on average defence.

Then there's Liam Hendriks. A starter last year—and an International League All-Star—Hendriks was moved to the Kansas City Royals the week before the trade deadline, along with catcher Erik Kratz, in exchange for Danny Valencia. He returned to the Jays organization in a trade following the season, with former prospect catcher Santiago Nessy going the other way. Nessy, it was reported at the time, was going to be left unprotected by the club in last winter's Rule 5 draft, meaning it was likely he was going to be in a different organization, anyway. Adding Hendriks back and giving him a chance to make the team was essentially found money for the Jays.

The team has sure spun it into something useful, as Hendriks has emerged as a very nice relief option, with his average fastball velocity jumping three miles per hour to 94.2, now that he's working in short bursts and doesn't have to conserve his energy. The results have been very impressive so far: 35 strikeouts in 32 2/3 innings, a better-than-ever ground ball rate, an ERA of 2.76, FIP of 2.40, and xFIP of 2.68. He also sports a K-BB percentage (the difference between his strikeout and walk rates) of 22 percent that places him among the top 30 of MLB relievers, in the same part of the leaderboard as costly potential Jays targets last season, like Wade Davis, Pat Neshek, Luke Gregerson, and Jason Grilli.

That's not to suggest Hendriks will continue to perform like those guys—or that he currently is, save for that one metric—any more than the previous paragraphs were to suggest that Colabello and Carrera aren't due some regression. But, between the three, they've been worth 1.8 wins above replacement already, according to FanGraphs, and the Jays have already taken that to the bank.

The trio has helped the club into the decent-enough position it finds itself in as the trade deadline approaches, plugging holes in what could have otherwise been a leaky roster—giving the Blue Jays more than nothing at key spots in the outfield that were supposed to be occupied by Michael Saunders and Dalton Pompey, and in the bullpen, where somebody needed to step up. They've done their part to afford Alex Anthopoulos a clear mandate to focus solely on getting rotation help, or at the very least to add to his bullpen.

Not bad for three dumpster dives.