2:00pm: The Blue Jays announced that they’ve outrighted infielder Jonathan Diaz to clear a spot for Torreyes on the 40-man roster. The 30-year-old Diaz is hitless in seven plate appearances with the Blue Jays this season and has batted just .183/.284/.225 in 84 Triple-A plate appearances.
1:37pm: The Astros announced today that infielder Ronald Torreyes has been traded to the Blue Jays in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations (Twitter link). Torreyes was designated for assignment last week.
The 22-year-old Torreyes was originally signed by the Reds out of Venezuela back in 2009. The versatile 5’10”, 150-pound infielder was eventually traded to the Cubs alongsideTravis Wood and Dave Sappelt in the trade that sent Sean Marshall to Cincinnati. The Cubs eventually flipped Torreyes to the Astros in exchange for a pair of international bonus slots, and Houston added him to the 40-man roster in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft this winter.
Torreyes has struggled at the plate in Triple-A this season after enjoying solid results at that same level in 2014. Scouting reports from Baseball America and MLB.com peg him as a potential utility infielder if everything clicks. With both Jose Reyes and Maicer Izturis on the disabled list, the Blue Jays have Ryan Goins and Steven Tolleson on their Major League roster, thinning out the team’s depth at the Triple-A level. Torreyes should be able to help in that regard and, if he can return to his 2014 form (.298/.345/.376 in 519 Triple-A plate appearances), he could conceivably play his way into consideration for his first big league call-up. Torreyes has significant experience at second base, shortstop and third base, and he’s dabbled in left field and center field as well.
Part Torre part Reyes.
They’ve spliced and cloned a perfect shortstop!
Good news.
Ronald has some serious plate discipline, 131K in 1953ABs in his minor league career! Look out Mark Reynolds.
It’s not even discipline so much as just a knack for making contact. He walks even less than he strikes out, but puts the ball in play a lot. Getting hit by tons of pitches helps his OBP out, though probably not in the most ideal way, haha.
Promising prospect.
Good prospect, probably will play in the majors. But, Astros have Correa, Fontana and Sclafani at AAA, Villar in the majors, and a very good prospect in Chan Moon at AA – all viewed by the organization as having higher ceilings than Torreyes. That’s why they cut him loose.
They’re just making room Correa/Fontana/Sclafani at Fresno. He got passed by all of them.
We protected this guy but not DeSheilds and cut him loose for pretty much nothing.
So what. Not like DeShields is burning up the AL.