The Blue Jays announced that they have outrighted catcher George Kottaras off the 40-man roster and officially announced the outrights of Munenori Kawasaki and Dan Johnson, both of which were made known earlier in the week.
Kottaras, 31, batted a strong .233/.351/.533 with three homers in 38 plate appearances between the Indians, Cardinals and Blue Jays this season. Two of those homers came as a member of the Indians in his first game of the season.
The journeyman catcher has always shown plus plate discipline and plus power but low batting averages, as evidenced by his .215/.326/.411 career batting line. Kottaras has struck out in 23.7 percent of his career plate appearances, but that number has jumped to 35.3 percent over the past two seasons (164 PA). Defensively speaking, he’s thrown out just 18 percent of opposing base-stealers in his career, and pitch-framing metrics haven’t been kind to him.
Kottaras and Johnson have both elected free agency, per the Blue Jays, while Kawasaki has yet to do so. Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star tweets that Kawasaki will likely do the same thing that he did last offseason: seek a Major League deal elsewhere but return to the Blue Jays as a minor league free agent if he is unable to find one.
The AL version of Eli Whiteside
I briefly thought “Back to the Red Sox?” until I saw his “success” rate throwing out would-be base stealers. Pass.
I know it was a one game fluke, but one of the oddest things this year was when he hit 2 homers and the Indians released him.
Actually, he really can hit. He’s not going to have any kind of batting average, but as a hitter, he’s 90 percent of Adam Dunn. If there’s a job for Dunn, you’d think there would be one for a hitter almost as good who can catch.
Kottaras should just say “to hell with it,” and tell his agent to get him a contract to play in Japan. He’d probably hit 40 home runs over there. He can’t seem to find anyone in MLB to just give him a job and live with the below-average defense.