Navarro Signs; Arencibia non-tendered

If you've been living in a shell since yesterday at about 9am, you probably don't know that the Blue Jays signed catcher Dioner Navarro--who had a career year in 2013--for a two-year term at $8M ($3M this year, $5M in 2015). This obviously had two obvious possible consequences. The first would be trading J.P. Arencibia, the second would be non-tendering J.P. Arencibia. Either way, JP probably wouldn't be a Blue Jay at the end of the day. At about noon, the official word came out.

The Blue Jays will tender Rasmus, Rogers and Cecil today. They will not tender offer to Arencibia, who will become free agent if not traded.
— steve simmons (@simmonssteve) December 2, 2013

According to Jamie Campbell, there wasn't really much of a market for JPA. Not really all that surprising, even if you had a trade partner, it would be hard to get much back for a guy who had the second worst OBP in baseball since 1899 (min. 450 PAs). There have been 13,826 players who have had at least 450 PAs since 1899. JP Arencibia had the second lowest OBP of those 13,826 players. Let that sink in. He also only hit .194. It would be hard to generate much of a return for that. The Blue Jays decided to just let him go. There was some rumblings that they'd tender an offer, and just cut him in the spring if a trade partner didn't emerge, but AA didn't want to do that.

Navarro posted a slash of .300/.365/.492/.856 with a 1.7 WAR (all the metrics in this post are from FanGraphs). The swing in WAR from JPA is +2.3, which, as Nick Ashbourne of Bluebird Banter points out, some pretty good players posted last year. Navarro also posted 13 HRs and 34 RBIs. The only downsides of Navarro are that he hasn't played more than 100 games since his days with the (Devil) Rays in 2007-2009, so this might mean Josh Thole will see more playing time in the backup role, so hopefully he can breakout a little bit, after an awful season last year. Navarro did cost his team -5.1 runs on the basepaths, however (he's a big, big, man--Adam Lind Melky Cabrera is no longer the slowest player on this team).

So after all the pain, all the times we just wanted a ground ball to the right side of the infield with a runner on third and less than two out, all the passed balls, the refusal to take a pitch, J.P. Arencibia's time as a Blue Jay has come to an end.

And, from a defensive standpoint:

Dioner Navarro and J.P. Arencibia have the same number of passed balls in their respective careers. Navarro has caught 2394.1 more innings.
— Nick Ashbourne (@Nick_Ashbourne) December 2, 2013

You will be missed.

Links:

The boys at Bluebird Banter recap AA's media availability today, and bid adieu to JP. Al Yellon from the Bleed Cubbie Blue (the Bluebird Banter of the North Side) wrote a scouting report on Dioner. (SBN)

Shi Davidi goes over the past three years. (SN)

A timeline of the career of JP Arencibia, for the visual people. (Toronto Star)

Sober Jays Fan introduces us to Dioner. (SJF)

Stoeten's piece. (DJF)

Non JPA News

-Some lady says the Blue Jays are "infatuated" (*checks dictionary*) with A's pitcher Brett Anderson. (BBB)
-Have Colby Rasmus' best two years been fluky? (FanGraphs)