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Blue Jays Acquire Joaquin Benoit for Drew Storen

Less than 24 hours after the Blue Jays completed a trade that brought Melvin Upton Jr. to Toronto, the Blue Jays have acquired right-handed reliever Joaquin Benoit from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Drew Storen (who was designated for assignment earlier this week) and an undisclosed amount of cash. The news broke shortly after the Blue Jays thrilling 7-6 extra innings win over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night. Coincidentally, today also happens to be Benoit’s birthday.

Benoit and Storen have experienced an eerily similar trajectory since the end of the 2015 campaign. Both pitchers were traded last offseason (Benoit from San Diego and Storen from Washington), and came into the 2016 season as accomplished late inning relievers on whome their respective teams (the Mariners and Blue Jays) were hoping to rely. Unfortunately, both have struggled so far this season with Benoit pitching to an ERA of 5.18 compared to Drew Storen’s 6.21. Both pitchers will also become free agents at the end of the 2016 season.

While the swap is a essentially a challenge trade – one struggling reliever for another – there are reasons to believe that Benoit may indeed be an upgrade over Storen, despite being 10 years his elder.

As @BVHJays pointed out on twitter, Benoit has not experienced the same drop in velocity that has plagued Drew Storen this season, with a fastball that still sits around 94 miles per hour. Where Benoit has struggled this season is in his ability to limit base on balls. His walk rate has spiked drastically, currently sitting at 5.5 BB/9, compared to 3.2 in 2015 and 2.3 in 2014. Benoit’s career BB/9 is 3.7.

If he is able to limit the walks there is still reason to believe that Benoit can be better than he was in the first half and contribute to the Blue Jays’ bullpen. In both 2014 and 2015 Benoit posted ERAs under 2.50 and WHIPs under 1.00 (although his DRA was slightly higher last season at 3.40). Given that Drew Storen was DFA and going to be released in the coming days, the price to acquire Benoit is small enough that it minimizes the risk the Blue Jays’ take on in this trade.

All things considered, Storen for Benoit is a low-risk, potentially valuable move for a Jays’ team that needs to upgrade its bullpen without dealing from their already depleted farm system.

Update

As expected, the cash considerations are just to equalize the salaries for the two players. This is just the Blue Jays shifting money they were previously getting from Washington to cover the difference in salary between Revere and Storen.

Lead Photo: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

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1 comment on “Blue Jays Acquire Joaquin Benoit for Drew Storen”

Steven Banks

The amount of monies being transferred is approx. $800,000 pro rata, not the 2.1 MM. Make sure your readers know the monies are infinitesimal

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