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Blue Jays Release Orelvis Martinez

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September 16: The Jays confirmed this evening that Martinez went unclaimed on release waivers. He’s officially a free agent.

September 15: The Blue Jays released former top infield prospect Orelvis Martinez, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Assuming he clears release waivers, he’ll be a free agent. The Jays had designated Martinez for assignment on Saturday when they needed a 40-man roster spot to activate Alek Manoah from the 60-day injured list in a procedural move.

Martinez was on optional assignment to Triple-A Buffalo and landed on the minor league injured list with an undisclosed injury last week. Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers. Players on the 40-man roster can’t be traded after the deadline. Once the Jays designated Martinez for assignment, they had no choice but to release him.

Toronto could have placed Martinez on the MLB 60-day injured list rather than designating him for assignment in the first place. That also would have opened a 40-man roster spot but would have required paying him the prorated major league minimum salary for the final two weeks of the regular season. That the Jays preferred to release him rather than pay the roughly $70K to keep him on the IL is a testament to how far his stock has fallen. There’s a good chance they intended to run him through outright waivers at the beginning of the offseason.

The 23-year-old Martinez appeared in one major league game last season. He singled in three at-bats during his MLB debut. He had occupied a 40-man roster spot for the past three years and had otherwise been on optional assignment. He also missed 80 games last season following a failed performance-enhancing drug test. The PED ban was announced all of five days after Martinez received his first major league call in June 2024. He finished that year in Triple-A and has been in Buffalo for the entirety of this season.

Martinez has endured a nightmare season in the minors. He’s batting .176/.288/.348 while striking out at a 28.4% clip through 394 plate appearances. He has taken a lot of walks and connected on 13 home runs, but both his power production and contact rates have backed up relative to last season. Martinez had turned in a far stronger .267/.346/.523 line with 17 homers in 319 trips at the Triple-A level a year ago.

The Jays could look to bring Martinez back on a minor league contract. That is fairly common in situations where a team DFAs and subsequently releases an injured minor leaguer. Martinez will have the ability to look elsewhere in free agency, though, and it’s possible a change of scenery is ideal given the way his career has gone over the past year-plus. His youth and one-time projection as a potential power-hitting second/third baseman will surely intrigue plenty of teams if he’s relegated to a minor league deal going into 2026.

Blue Jays Designate Ryan Borucki For Assignment

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4:43pm: Manager John Schneider says Borucki informed the Jays he hopes to stay in the organization for the rest of the season (relayed by Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet). There’s a good chance he clears waivers as an impending free agent, and it seems he intends to accept an outright assignment and report to Triple-A Buffalo if that proves to be the case.

3:33pm: The Blue Jays announced Monday that left-handed reliever Ryan Borucki has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to top prospect Trey Yesavage, whose previously reported promotion is now official.

Yesavage will make his major league debut tonight in Tampa Bay. He’ll start opposite hard-throwing Rays righty Joe Boyle. Yesavage, last year’s first-round pick out of East Carolina, made a quick ascent through the minors. He didn’t pitch at all in his draft year and began this season in Low-A. He pitched his way through each full season minor league level and now gets a couple weeks to make a case for inclusion on Toronto’s playoff rosters.

That decision probably ends Borucki’s second stint with the Blue Jays. Toronto signed him to a minor league contract late last month after he was released by the Pirates. The Jays selected his contract a little over a week later. Borucki managed 4 1/3 scoreless frames across four appearances, though he walked four of the 19 hitters he faced. The southpaw tossed 30 2/3 innings for the Bucs earlier in the season, working to a 5.28 earned run average. He had middling strikeout and walk numbers but got ground-balls at a 55% clip.

The Jays are familiar with Borucki, whom they drafted out of high school more than a decade ago. That came under a previous front office, but he spent his first four and a half MLB seasons with Toronto under the current regime. They evidently weren’t planning to carry him as a situational grounder specialist in the postseason. They’ll place him back on waivers within the next few days, and he could get a head start on the offseason by electing free agency if he goes unclaimed. Borucki would be a free agent this offseason either way, and he would not be playoff eligible if another team were to claim him.

Blue Jays To Promote Trey Yesavage For MLB Debut

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September 14: Yesavage will start Monday’s game against the Rays, manager John Schneider told reporters (including Nicholson-Smith) today. Schneider went on to make clear that Yesavage’s role beyond Monday’s game has not yet been decided. Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet adds that Schneider told reporters that Yesavage is not on an innings limit this year.

September 13: The Blue Jays are promoting right-hander Trey Yesavage to the majors, according to a report from Shi Davidi and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. Yesavage is expected to be active on the MLB roster for Monday’s game against the Rays in Tampa.

Yesavage, 22, was selected 20th overall in last year’s draft by Toronto. Viewed by most draft prospect evaluation services as a top-15 talent in his class at the time, he earned some top-100 prospect consideration this past offseason despite not having made his MLB debut yet thanks to a dominant 40.4% strikeout rate a 2.03 ERA in 15 starts for East Carolina last year. Yesavage began his season at the Single-A level and was promoted three separate times throughout the year. He made just four starts for High-A Vancouver before he was promoted to Double-A, and despite a 4.50 ERA in 30 innings at that level 38.0% strikeout rate was enough to convince Blue Jays brass to promote him to Triple-A last month.

Since then, he’s pitched to a 3.63 ERA in 17 1/3 innings of work while striking out 36.1% of his opponents. That’s an impressive enough figure that the Blue Jays decided to scratch Yesavage from his scheduled start with Buffalo tomorrow and call him up to the majors, though it shouldn’t be taken to mean Yesavage is completely without flaws. The youngster has walked 10.5% of his opponents this year, including 15.3% of his opponents at Triple-A. Those struggles with his command have generally been made up for by his impressive stuff, headlined by a fastball that sits 94-95 to go along with a splitter and a slider.

While the Blue Jays are still hard at work fending off the Yankees (who sit just three games back of Toronto in the AL East), they’re more or less assured of a spot in the postseason at this point. The club has a veteran rotation featuring Kevin Gausman, Max Scherzer, Shane Bieber, Chris Bassitt, and Jose Berrios as things stand. Yesavage is very unlikely to bump anyone from that group from the postseason rotation. It’s at least plausible the Jays could use Yesavage in spot starts over the season’s final weeks to help them line up their ideal postseason rotation for a potential Wild Card series, but the Jays have a real shot at a bye through the Wild Card round and would most likely benefit from seeing what Yesavage can do out of the bullpen.

Toronto’s bullpen has been flagging in recent weeks. Closer Jeff Hoffman has an ERA near 5.00, and deadline acquisition Louis Varland hasn’t taken to Canada very well despite his success in Minnesota earlier this year. With the late innings looking like a major question mark for the Jays headed into the postseason, trying Yesavage out of the bullpen and seeing if he can use his impressive stuff to dominate major league hitters in short bursts could result in the Jays having another power arm for their relief corps to lean on in October if the experiment goes well.

All that talk of October may sound confusing, given that the league’s rules state that a player may not be on a club’s postseason roster if not on the 40-man roster come September 1. There are ways around that, however, and one such loophole that would allow Yesavage to make a postseason roster this year is that clubs are allowed to replace players who are eligible to be activated off the injured list but not yet healthy enough to return, so long as the replacement was active in the organization prior to September 1. Yesavage meets those conditions, and the Jays have plenty of players who he could be considered a replacement for, such as Yimi Garcia.

Yesavage’s September call-up means that he’ll get at least a bit of major league service time this year, but we’ve long past the time where he would be in danger of losing rookie eligibility for the 2026 campaign. Toronto will need to create space on their 40-man roster in order to officially call Yesavage up to the majors on Monday by designating someone for assignment.

Blue Jays Designate Orelvis Martinez For Assignment

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The Blue Jays announced this evening that they’ve designated infielder Orelvis Martinez for assignment. The move allowed the club to activate Alek Manoah from the 60-day injured list and option him to Triple-A Buffalo. Manoah has previously been on a rehab assignment as he worked his way back from UCL surgery he underwent in June 2024.

Martinez, 24 in November, was a consensus top-100 prospect as recently as the 2024 season. He made his big league debut in June of last year but was given an 80-game suspension after testing positive for Clomiphene, a banned performance-enhancing substance, just one week later. Martinez had only appeared in one MLB game at the time of his suspension and hasn’t returned to the majors since as the Blue Jays kept him at Triple-A for the end of the 2024 season and all throughout 2025.

While Toronto’s decision not to bring Martinez back to the majors for the final weeks of the 2024 campaign could at least conceivably have been related to his suspension, it’s hard to view him not returning to the big leagues this year as anything other than performance based. Martinez struggled badly at Triple-A during is age-23 campaign, slashing just .176/.288/.348 across 394 plate appearances in 99 games. He struck out at an elevated 28.4% clip and managed just 13 homers, a massive decline in power relative to what he had shown in previous seasons, including his 28 homers in 129 Triple-A games between 2023 and ’24.

While Martinez looked utterly lost at the plate this year, his relative youth in conjunction with his former top prospect status may well be enough to get him attention from other organizations. He has experience at second base, third base, and shortstop across his minor league career, though he’s mostly moved off of shortstop in recent years. An infielder who will spend all of next year at 24 years old and has flashed the potential to be a quality hitter in the past seems likely to be an attractive candidate to join a number of rebuilding clubs, who could afford to be patient with Martinez and give him ample time to get things back on track and prove himself capable of handling major league pitching.

The Blue Jays will have one week to put Martinez through waivers, where any club will have the ability to claim him. If he goes unclaimed, Toronto can then outright him to Triple-A for the remainder of the season. If not claimed off waivers or added back to the Jays’ 40-man roster by the start of the offseason, Martinez will have the opportunity to elect minor league free agency and look for an opportunity elsewhere on the open market.

As for Manoah, the right-hander’s activation from the injured list is purely procedural. Manoah has already made five starts at the Triple-A level this year while rehabbing, and while he sports a 3.09 ERA in 23 1/3 innings of work at that level, that figure is heavily propped up by eight unearned runs allowed. Manoah has been teed off against by opposing hitters at Triple-A this year to the tune of a .239/.346/.457 slash line, has surrendered five home runs and hit three batters, and is walking opponents at a 13.0% clip. Much of that is surely rust from a lengthy layoff following UCL surgery, but it hardly seems likely that the Blue Jays would entrust starts to Manoah as they look to fend off the Yankees and Red Sox in the AL East and head towards the postseason barring a massive turnaround or a rash of injuries that tests the club’s pitching depth.

Looking ahead to 2026, Manoah is ticketed for his second trip through arbitration this winter after getting a $2.2MM contract for the 2025 season from the Jays last offseason. Given his past success in the majors and remaining team control, keeping the 27-year-old in the fold for the 2026 season and seeing if he can return to form once further removed from Tommy John surgery seems like the likeliest course of action for the Jays. With that being said, a non-tender or trade this winter isn’t completely implausible given his lack of production since his All-Star 2022 campaign and his ugly performance at Triple-A since returning from injury.

Blue Jays Place Bo Bichette On Injured List

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3:15pm: There’s no immediate timetable for Bichette’s return. Manager John Schneider tells the Jays beat that Bichette, who first felt discomfort in his shin and knee on Sunday, will rest for the remainder of the week and be reevaluated early next week (link via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet).

2:07pm: The Blue Jays announced Tuesday that shortstop Bo Bichette is headed to the 10-day injured list due to a left knee sprain. The IL placement is retroactive to Sept. 7. Bichette will be eligible to return in eight days, though the team hasn’t provided any sort of timetable just yet. Outfielder Joey Loperfido has been recalled from Triple-A Buffalo to take Bichette’s spot on the active roster.

Losing the 27-year-old Bichette for any period of time is a potential gut-punch to the first-place Jays, who hold a two-game lead over the Yankees and a three-game lead over the Red Sox in the AL East. Bichette has not only bounced back from last year’s injury-ruined season — he’s enjoyed one of the most productive seasons of his career. In 628 plate appearances, he’s slashing .311/.357/.483 with 18 home runs, 44 doubles, a triple, a 6.4% walk rate (well shy of league average but one of his best marks) and a tiny 14.6% strikeout rate.

Bichette has been particularly hot over the past two months, posting a ridiculous .380/.431/.580 batting line (182 wRC+) with six homers, 23 doubles, an 8% walk rate and an 11.6% strikeout rate in a span of 225 plate appearances.

With Bichette sidelined for at least the next eight games, Ernie Clement and/or Isiah Kiner-Falefa will likely step up and fill the void at shortstop. Clement gets the first shortstop nod tonight, and while he can’t match Bichette’s offense, he’s a superior defender at the position. That’ll free up Addison Barger to play third base more, while Loperfido joins Kiner-Falefa, Nathan Lukes, Daulton Varsho, George Springer, Davis Schneider and Myles Straw among the team’s outfield options. It’ll be Loperfido, Varsho and Lukes tonight (left field to right field, respectively). Springer is hitting leadof in the designated hitter slot.

Beyond the immediate roster and postseason ramifications, the injury is particularly ill-timed for Bichette from a personal standpoint. He’d surely say this talk takes a backseat to team needs and postseason hopes, but Bichette is a free agent at season’s end. His bounceback effort has positioned him as one of the top free agents on the upcoming market. If he’s able to return following a relatively brief stay, this isn’t likely to have any real impact on his earning power at all. But if Bichette requires a notable absence or struggles in his return while dealing with lingering effects from the injury, his health will be a far more prominent question when looking at his free agent market this winter.

Blue Jays Sign Buddy Kennedy, Rene Pinto To Minor League Deals

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The Blue Jays agreed to minor league contracts with infielder Buddy Kennedy and catcher René Pinto. Kennedy has already returned to Triple-A Buffalo and played there tonight. Pinto has yet to get into a game with the Bisons, but the MLB.com transaction tracker indicates he signed with Toronto on Monday.

Kennedy first signed a minor league deal with Toronto in July. The Jays called him in early August while Andrés Giménez was on the injured list. They kept him on the big league roster for a week and designated him for assignment when Giménez returned. The Dodgers were dealing with a few infield injuries and snagged him off waivers. Kennedy was on the L.A. roster for 10 days but lost his spot when Kiké Hernández came back from injury.

After clearing outright waivers, the former fifth-round pick elected free agency. He circles back to the Jays to serve as infield depth for the final few weeks of the regular season. Kennedy is a lifetime .178/.271/.274 hitter at the major league level. He owns a much more solid .278/.388/.429 line in parts of four Triple-A campaigns. Kennedy mostly plays third base but can factor in at both positions on the right side of the infield as well.

Pinto, 28, was granted his release from a minor league contract with Arizona last month. The Venezuelan backstop never played in the majors with the Diamondbacks. He appeared at the highest level with the Rays each season from 2022-24. Pinto hit .231/.263/.404 across 82 games. Tampa Bay gave him a brief look as their starting catcher early last year, but he struggled on both sides of the ball and spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A.

The right-handed hitting Pinto has shown some power in the minors. He has 57 career Triple-A home runs, slashing .256/.307/.493 in more than 1100 plate appearances at the level. That includes a .268/.324/.517 line with 11 homers in 54 games for Arizona’s affiliate. Toronto has Alejandro Kirk and Tyler Heineman as their only catchers on the 40-man roster. Their previous Triple-A catchers, Phil Clarke and Brandon Valenzuela, have no major league experience. If his deal was indeed signed on September 1, Pinto would not be eligible for the playoff roster but provides a more experienced depth option for the next few weeks in case Kirk or Heineman suffer an injury.

Blue Jays Select Ryan Borucki

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The Blue Jays announced that they have selected left-hander Ryan Borucki to the roster. Fellow lefty Easton Lucas has been optioned to Triple-A Buffalo in a corresponding active roster move. To open a 40-man spot, righty Robinson Piña has been recalled and placed on the 60-day injured list due to a sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.

Borucki, now 31, began his career with the Jays many years ago. He showed some promise as a potential starter but some injuries eventually got him moved to a relief role. As a reliever, he has bounced around to the Mariners and Pirates with some occasional success. From 2020 to the present, he has thrown 147 2/3 innings with a 4.39 earned run average. His 22.3% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate in that time are close to average, while his 50.1% ground ball rate is quite strong.

This year hasn’t been his best. After an injury-marred 2024 season, he had to settle for a minor league deal with the Pirates. He cracked Pittsburgh’s Opening Day rotation and stuck on the roster through mid-August, with an IL stint of over a month due to back inflammation mixed in. He had a 5.28 ERA over 30 2/3 innings when they designated him for assignment a few weeks back. He had a 21.4% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 55% ground ball rate.

After he was released, the Jays scooped him up on a minor league deal. Toronto has had Brendon Little as the primary lefty in their bullpen this year. Guys like Mason Fluharty and Justin Bruihl have also factored in but both of those guys were optioned to the minors in recent days. A pitcher optioned to the minors can’t be recalled for 15 days, unless someone else is going on the injured list.

Eric Lauer is now in the bullpen, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, but he’ll likely be deployed more as a long man. Lucas is also more of a long relief guy, so the Jays are swapping him out for Borucki.

For his career, Borucki has held lefties to a .185/.268/.265 line, whereas righties have hit .280/.347/.494 off him. That split has been even more extreme this year, as he has held opposing lefties to a .132/.217/.170 line but righties have lit him up for a .333/.400/.649 slash. The Jays will probably try to target Borucki against lefties in the other team’s lineup, though the three-batter minimum makes that a challenge. Little has pitched in the past two games and three of the past four, so it’s possible he’s not available tonight.

Pina, 26, was acquired from the Marlins in a June trade. He has largely been on optional assignment since then. His health status is unclear but he hasn’t pitched in an official game since August 1st. The Jays putting him on the 60-day IL suggests they don’t expect him to pitch again this season. If his UCL sprain requires surgery, then he’s obviously slated to be out even longer. There’s no 60-day IL between five days after the World Series and the start of spring training. The Jays will therefore have to add him back to the 40-man roster in November or remove him somehow.

Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

Poll: Who Will Win The AL East?

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We’re into the final weeks of the season now, but a handful of postseason races are still up for grabs. Perhaps the most competitive division at this point is the AL East, which is the only division where three teams still have at least a 10% chance of taking home the crown according to Fangraphs. Who will ultimately emerge victorious? Here’s a look at each of the three teams, listed in order of their winning percentage entering play today:

Toronto Blue Jays (79-59)

The Jays took the lead in the division on July 3 and haven’t relinquished it since. It’s not hard to see why they’ve been successful. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. isn’t having the sort of superlative, MVP-level campaign he posted in 2024 but remains an anchor for the lineup with 21 homers, 30 doubles, and a .383 on-base percentage. George Springer has enjoyed a resurgent season at the age of 35, slashing an outstanding .300/.391/.533 in 116 games. Bo Bichette (130 wRC+) is back to his normal self after last year’s injury-ruined season. Alejandro Kirk (118 wRC+) is making good on his extension with the club by putting up his best season since 2022. Daulton Varsho has 16 homers in 49 games despite dealing with injuries, and even less-established hitters like Nathan Lukes, Addison Barger, and Davis Schneider have put up strong numbers at the dish.

While so much has gone right for the Jays on offense, it must be noted that things haven’t gone as well when it comes to pitching. Kevin Gausman looks like the steady and playoff-caliber veteran he’s been for years now, but the rest of the rotation comes with questions. Toronto was reaping the benefits of Max Scherzer turning back the clock for a few weeks, but the future Hall of Famer just delivered back-to-back clunkers against the Twins and Brewers. Eric Lauer was pitching well but was sent to the bullpen after posting a 5.30 ERA in August. Chris Bassitt and Jose Berrios are stable veterans, but they fit better at the back of the rotation than starting Games 2 and 3 of a playoff series. The bullpen has struggled somewhat as well, with closer Jeff Hoffman scuffling to a 5.02 ERA on the season and a 5.32 ERA since the start of July. Those pitching woes have led the Jays’ lead in the division to slip from five games a week ago to 2.5 games. Will they be able to stop the bleeding and secure a division title?

New York Yankees (76-61)

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Bronx Bombers looked to be in a more dire position after losing five straight to the Marlins and Rangers before dropping three games in a row to the Red Sox. They rebounded from those losses to Boston by picking up the final game of that series, however, and that win started a seven-game streak that only just ended with a close loss to the White Sox over the weekend. While nice performances from players like Trent Grisham, Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have been helpful for the Yanks this season, their success can be overwhelmingly attributed to Aaron Judge.

The reigning AL MVP has put together another season for the ages (196 wRC+), and it’s largely thanks to him that the club has been able to hang in the postseason race despite a disappointing season from Anthony Volpe and Paul Goldschmidt’s second-half struggles. Of course, Judge has been recovering from a flexor strain that’s seemingly impacted him at the plate and kept him from playing the field. That’s pushed Giancarlo Stanton’s strong bat out of the lineup on some days and forced his subpar glove into the outfield on the rest. A leaky bullpen hasn’t helped, though the starting rotation is looking better now that Max Fried appears to be getting back on track after a rough patch. One other thing working in New York’s favor is the schedule; they’ll face the last-place Orioles and White Sox in their final 10 games of the season.

Boston Red Sox (77-62)

The Red Sox have worked their way back from the malaise they faced towards the end of the Rafael Devers era to make themselves legitimate playoff contenders. Unlike the other two AL East clubs, it’s been the pitching leading the way. Garrett Crochet is in the conversation for best pitcher in baseball this year, and both Brayan Bello and Lucas Giolito have looked the part of playoff starters. It’s arguably been a career year for veteran closer Aroldis Chapman, and Garrett Whitlock has excelled in a setup role. Top prospect Payton Tolle has been called up for the stretch.

While Boston’s pitching staff is impressive, they’re held back a bit by an offense that doesn’t quite measure up. Roman Anthony already looks like a star, but the rest of the lineup has lacked consistency. Alex Bregman is slumping since the start of August, Wilyer Abreu is on the injured list, and Ceddanne Rafaela has struggled badly since the All-Star break. Trevor Story started slow but has been great since June. Romy Gonzalez has tattooed lefties but been sub-par versus righties. Boston’s 24-17 record since the All-Star break is still encouraging though, and if Abreu comes back healthy and/or Bregman turns things around, the lineup would look more formidable.

Each of the three remaining contenders for the AL East title have one series against each other left in September. Who do MLBTR readers think will come out on top? Will the Blue Jays hold on despite their pitching woes? Can Judge lead the Yankees back to the top of the division? Or will the Red Sox offense turn things around to support their excellent pitching? Have your say in the poll below:

Who will win the AL East?
Toronto Blue Jays 45.76% (3,225 votes)
Boston Red Sox 28.28% (1,993 votes)
New York Yankees 25.95% (1,829 votes)
Total Votes: 7,047

Blue Jays Select Dillon Tate

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As active rosters expand from 26 to 28 today, the Blue Jays are selecting right-hander Dillon Tate. The other spot will be taken by infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was claimed off waivers from the Pirates yesterday. To add Tate to the 40-man, the Blue Jays transferred righty Nick Sandlin to the 60-day injured list. Mitch Bannon of The Athletic was among those to relay the moves.

Tate, 31, signed a split deal with the Jays earlier this year. That pact pays him at a $1.4MM rate in the big leagues and a $500K pace while in the minors. He spent the early parts of the year getting shuffled between the majors and Triple-A Buffalo. In May, he was outrighted off the 40-man. Since he has at least three years of service time, he could have elected free agency. But since he was shy of five years of service, he would have had to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in exercising that right.

He understandably accepted and has been put back on the roster today. He has thrown 35 Triple-A innings with a 2.06 earned run average this year. His 12.7% walk rate is on the high side but his 22.7% strikeout rate is decent and his 47.9% ground ball rate is strong. He has seemingly benefitted from an 85.8% strand rate, which is why his 3.74 FIP is far higher than his ERA, but that’s still a decent number.

The Jays also have Braydon Fisher, Mason Fluharty, Paxton Schultz and Justin Bruihl on the 40-man but weren’t able to recall any of them since they were all optioned recently. An optional assignment for a pitcher comes with a 15-day minimum, unless someone is going on the injured list. Fisher was the one optioned longest ago, back on August 21st, so he’ll be eligible to be recalled later this week.

Tate is still optionable but is 11 days away from the five-year service marker, at which point he could not be optioned without his consent. Fisher pitched pretty well for the Jays earlier this year but was squeezed down to the minors when Shane Bieber was activated from the injured list. Perhaps Fisher will be recalled once eligible and Tate sent back to serve as a depth role in Buffalo. For now, he’ll give Toronto a fresh arm for a bullpen which saw heavy usage over the weekend.

As for Sandlin, he landed on the 15-day IL due to right elbow inflammation on July 8th. This transfer is retroactive to that date, so he’ll be eligible for reinstatement in the next few days, though he won’t be healthy by then. Per Hazel Mae of Sportsnet, he just had another injection in his elbow as he tries to get back on the mound. Whenever he’s healthy, he’ll presumably need a few weeks to ramp back up to full strength.

Photo courtesy of Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

Blue Jays Claim Isiah Kiner-Falefa

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The Blue Jays have claimed utility man Isiah Kiner-Falefa off waivers from the Pirates, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Toronto subsequently announced the move and transferred right-hander Yimi Garcia to the 60-day injured list in order to create a 40-man roster spot for Kiner-Falefa.

It’s a homecoming for Kiner-Falefa, who signed with Toronto prior to the 2024 season but was traded to Pittsburgh at last year’s trade deadline. Just over a year later, he’s headed back to the Blue Jays to join the team’s bench for the playoff push. Unlike last year, Toronto is firmly in playoff position with a two-game lead in the AL East. While Kiner-Falefa was a regular fixture on the club’s infield during his first stint with the organization, that’s unlikely to be the case this season given that Andres Gimenez has taken over the everyday second base job while Ernie Clement and Addison Barger have split time at the hot corner.

Of course, Kiner-Falefa isn’t having quite as strong of a season this year as he was when Toronto traded him last year. In 83 games with the Blue Jays in 2024, the utility man slashed an excellent .292/.338/.400 (113 wRC+) while playing superlative defense on the infield for the club. He showed uncharacteristic power in those games, swatting seven homers in just 281 plate appearances, and kept his strikeouts to just a 13.2% clip. That hot stretch caught the attention of the Pirates as they looked to make modest upgrades to their offense last year, but Kiner-Falefa regressed badly and hit just .256/.288/.328 (70 wRC+) across his 169 games in a Pirates uniform.

That production is more befitting of a bench role, but on a weak Pirates offense that had already moved Oneil Cruz to center field last year and traded away Ke’Bryan Hayes at this summer’s deadline, it was enough to earn Kiner-Falefa everyday reps. Perhaps now that the 30-year-old is back in an organization he had considerable success with and will be able to step back into a smaller role, he’ll be able to rediscover the form that made him such an attractive trade piece last summer. Kiner-Falefa could certainly push himself into additional playing time if his performance warrants it; while Barger is unlikely to lose at-bats to the utility man given his strong season this year, he could simply spend more time in right field going forward if the Jays want to get Kiner-Falefa into the lineup more often.

From the Pirates perspective, the move opens up playing time for newly promoted infielder Cam Devanney. Perhaps more importantly in the eyes of Pittsburgh brass, the Blue Jays will take on the remainder of Kiner-Falefa’s $7.5MM salary for the 2025 season. Perhaps that money, as well as other funds saved by trading players like Hayes this summer, will be put towards upgrading the offense this winter.

As for Garcia, the news that he’s been placed on the 60-day injured list is hardly a surprise given that he underwent season-ending elbow surgery on Friday. Garcia finishes the 2025 campaign with a 3.86 ERA and 3.83 FIP in 21 innings of work, and the Jays will have to rely on other veterans in the bullpen like Jeff Hoffman and Seranthony Dominguez to make up for Garcia’s absence.

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