MLB Trade Rumors has a post up that the Rays have traded Edwin Jackson to the Detroit Tigers for OF Matt Joyce. I’ve been duped by these rumors before so I’m not reporting it as being true, but if it is I really like this move. I obviously wanted a different Tigers OF but this one really makes sense for the Rays. Joyce is a young player, 24, with a lot of upside and is a decent outfielder from my understanding. I only saw him play a couple times so it’s hard to judge, but by numbers alone I would think the 12 homers he hit in 242 at bats in Detroit would translate to around 17-19 in our stadium. This fits extremely well into the Rays plan in every way as Joyce is cheap, under team control for a few years and has tremendous upside. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a Tampa native as well either. He’s left handed, which goes against what the Rays were shopping for, but he’s young and should be able to play every day. It solves the RF problem for us in theory and opens a spot in the rotation for David Price. It looks good from a management standpoint too as the Marlins were asking for a lot more from basically the same type of player in Jeremy Hermida, but better by numbers. This move would also free up the Rays to focus on the bullpen and DH for the rest of the offseason, and that’s good considering most free agents haven’t signed yet. I like this for Edwin Jackson personally too as I think he could put up better numbers in the giant stadium in Detroit than he did here. I would like to see the Rays focus on guys like Joe Beimel, Rocco Baldelli and Pat Burrell now. I really think this creates the perfect scenario for Rocco as he could be the right handed DH as much as he could play, not be counted on too much to play the outfield and, on the nights he can’t play, Willy Aybar could handle things. On the note of Willy Aybar I would love to see him drop some weight, learn some outfield and him become the super utility player Maddon covets. I’m very excited over this move if it’s true. If not we can all just pretend this never happened, OK?
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