Toronto Blue Jays: Is This the End for R.A. Dickey?
This season R.A. Dickey has made twenty nine starts for the Toronto Blue Jays. However, Shi Davidi of SN writes that fans might have seen the last of Dickey in a Blue Jays uniform.
It’s unlikely that a start will be available for him between now and the end of the season, and Dickey isn’t expected to make Toronto’s post-season rotation. The forty-one-year-old pitcher will be a free agent following this season.
The Blue Jays acquired Dickey following the 2012 season. Toronto sent John Buck, Travis d’Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, and Wuilmer Becerra to the Mets in exchange for Dickey, Josh Thole, and Mike Nickeas. When the trade was made Dickey was coming off of the best season of his career.
From 2001-2009 Dickey spent time in the majors with the Rangers, Mariners, and Twins. Eventually he was able to hone his craft as a knuckle ball pitcher, and his first season with the New York Mets (2010) was the turning point in his career. Prior to that season Dickey had accumulated a 22-28 record with a 5.43 ERA over 442.2 IP. Yet in 2010 he finished the year 11-9 with a 2.84 ERA. It was clear that something was different, and he was about to go on a three year run as one of baseball’s best starters.
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That development culminated with Dickey’s final season on the Mets. In 2012 he went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA, and he improbably won the NL Cy Young award. That season also featured the lone All-Star appearance of Dickey’s career. New York took the opportunity to sell high on the right hander, and over the past four seasons Dickey has started at least 29 games per year for Toronto.
His tenure with the Blue Jays has been productive, but it’s been far from the success he achieved in New York. From 2013-2016 he’s started 130 games for Toronto and accumulated a 4.05 ERA with a 101 ERA+. Teams are always looking for starters who can eat innings at the level of an average major league starter, but you have to imagine the Blue Jays were hoping for more. It hasn’t helped Dickey’s time in Toronto that New York received several key pieces of their current roster from that trade.
What will the future hold for Dickey after this season? It’s hard to tell at this point. He’s discussed the possibility of retirement, but this is shaping up to be an incredibly shallow free agent pool for starting pitching. It’s likely that at least one team would be willing to roll the dice on him if he wanted to return. For now we’ll just have to wait and see what one of baseball’s most surprising Cy Young winners wants to do.