Ken Rosenthal reports that the Blue Jays have signed Royce Clayton to a 1 year, $1.5 million deal. The deal is pending a physical (and Clayton not switching agents at the last minute).
The 37 year old journeyman SS joins his 7th team since 2002. While Clayton is not the player he used to be he does have a few things going for him:
In his youth with the Giants and Cardinals, Clayton could pick it -- he was a standout defensive shortstop and an aggressive (though not very successful) base-stealer. But as his 30s have progressed, he's lost a step or two -- his RF and FP have been declining to league-average or lower levels for years now, and Defensive Win Shares placed him well-below average among NL shortstops last year. He hits a pretty empty .260 and his speed has eroded.In short, he's a true stopgap measure -- he could be had for about $1M a season, and I doubt he'd get more than that from the Jays. If JP does indeed have about $11M left to spend, and he wants to either bring back Lilly or sign Meche, then that's going to cost him most of that, so $1M for a shortstop seems about right. I'd love to have Lugo, but at this point, it looks like a pretty simple choice: Lugo or Lilly/Meche. As much as I think that a Lugo-Hill middle-infield combo would do wonders for the entire pitching staff, I can't countenance the thought of, say, Chacin, Marcum and Towers starting 60% of Toronto's games in 2007. Lilly/Clayton or Towers/Lugo? It's not really much of a choice. At least Aaron Hill won't be playing out of position.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20061129191616468