In a surprise move, the Blue Jays have optioned one of the American League’s best starters, right-hander Aaron Sanchez, to Single-A Dunedin, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet (Twitter link). To take Sanchez’s roster spot, the club recalled left-handed reliever Aaron Loup from Triple-A Buffalo.
[RELATED: Updated Blue Jays Depth Chart]
Manager John Gibbons said Friday that the Jays were considering skipping a Sanchez start to limit his workload, notes Davidi (Twitter link), so the fact that he’s headed to the minors isn’t a total shock. As long as he’s down for fewer than 20 days, Sanchez will still accrue a full year of service time, tweets Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. That will indeed be the case, as Sanchez expects to rejoin the Jays for an Aug. 31 start against the Orioles, per Davidi (Twitter link).
The hard-throwing Sanchez was previously scheduled to make his 25th start of the year next Saturday against the Twins. In his 24th outing, Sanchez yielded five runs (four earned) on four hits and a walk in four innings of a 6-5 win over the Indians on Saturday. Despite that less-than-stellar showing, Sanchez has fared brilliantly this season. In his first full year as a starter, Sanchez has emerged as a high-end option while logging a 2.99 ERA, 7.60 K/9, 2.65 BB/9 and 57.1 percent ground-ball rate in 156 1/3 frames. There has been much discussion along the way about an innings limit for Sanchez, who tossed just over 100 last season in the majors and minors. His previous high since joining the Blue Jays organization as a first-round pick in the 2010 draft came in 2014, when he amassed a combined 133 1/3 innings at three levels. When the Jays switched to a six-man rotation earlier this month to help preserve Sanchez, president of baseball operations Mark Shapiro told the media “no scenario” exists in which the 24-year-old will throw 220-plus innings this season.
At 70-53 and in first place in the American League East, the Blue Jays look as though they’ll play into October, which further complicates the Sanchez situation. If Toronto does clinch a playoff berth, the expectation is that Sanchez will factor heavily into the team’s plans as it attempts to win a World Series. For now, though, Sanchez will go down a few levels to help ensure his place in a potential playoff run. His departure will leave the Jays with a capable rotation featuring AL Cy Young hopeful JA Happ, Marco Estrada, Marcus Stroman, RA Dickey and Francisco Liriano.
Dang, he will hate it but it makes sense I guess.
He prob won’t even show up in Dunedin
Serious question, can you “demote” someone to the minors and just leave them to hang around with the big league team?
Yes, you can. There’s occasionally a notation of “Not To Report”.
Doubtful. With a blatantly procedural move like this, they probably discussed the matter with him. Basically, they’re giving him some rest without costing themselves a roster spot.
It’s a “Paper” move prob til Sept 1st. Doesn’t leave the big league city
You can break a player by doing that baseball is is player between the ears who he’s not broken but with his work load . Might be good move convince him he is important here.
What?
Is this really a surprising move? He looked gassed yesterday and needs rest. May as well take advantage of his options and not waste a roster spot.
I agree, Single A would be a nice slow of pace for him
Are the jays this dumb? I mean seriously, One of the best starters in the AL if not all of baseball, at LEAST bullpen, I don’t understand
he needs some rest and they can use his roster spot on someone else
It’s only for 10 days, this is better than having him on the roster for that time. How do people not see this lol?
I’ve become accustomed to seeing these types of comments and am slowly working towards not letting them affect me.
This is really almost a non-story, besides for the fact loup was recalled
Another side of this could be a tactical decision. If he was pitching his next start, it would’ve been against the Twins. Now he’s facing the Orioles, in a much bigger series
Good point
Better now than later could call !!!
Teams baby players arms way to much. Dice-K would throw like 300 pitches a week and then he came to MLB and a few years in needed tommy john cause the baby arms way too much.
TJ isn’t an immediate thing, are you 10 years old? Its the result of being over-pitched before turning 25, from ages 10-25.
Not always true. Look at Hunter Harvey. His dad didn’t let him throw anything but fastball change up and was on a strict pitches limit by his dad during hs. And got to the minors and is not having tommy John. And the Orioles limited his pitches too. The reason tommy John is so prevalent now is because the human body wasn’t meant to throw 100 mph over hand. It’s not a natural motion. It’s gunna continue to happen until team place less value in throwers and more value in pitchers
The bigger problem is pitching 12 months out of the year. Pitchers used to pitch during the season and that was it. After the season, they went to their regular jobs and their arms were able to fully heal for 5-6 months. But now they continue pitching in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela or even just at a team complex. I am convinced the extra work, along with strength training, overtaxes the arm and has caused the outbreak of elbow injuries.
That’s a pretty odd way too look at it. It’s probably safe to say those 300 pitches a week are what broke Matsuzaka.
Would it make sense for MLB to have a “healthy scratch” system so teams could scratch people like Sanchez for a few extra days without service time concerns or burning up options.
That makes no sense at all. There simply are not enough cases like Sanchez’s to let that happen. His case is rare, being very young on a contender with a pre-agreed pitch limit before September. He has options so this makes perfect sense. They also could just skip his start like a normal move.
I don’t know why Connor at MLBTR called this a “surprise move” though, seems tacky and click-bait-y, as all the commentators in this thread have established it’s not a surprise at all.
I’ve always thought about extending active rosters to 30 players with a 5 player inactive list.
I hope you like pitching changes then. Your idea would have teams carrying 4 extra relievers and just putting every starting pitcher not pitching that day as inactive. Terrible idea.
It would make sense for them to carry the 40 man roster for the entire year, actually.
Seriously? Do you know how many pitching changes you’d have in a game? Teams would be having 12 man bullpens
Then make it 30 or something, and only allow one more pitcher. I’d just like to see more strategy late in games with defensive switches, pinch hitters and runners, etc. It makes the game more interesting.
Nah, that’s 15 guys who would just be sitting, some of them being top prospects who need reps
he’s still making his next start on the 31st dont worry people its just a short term thing
I can understand sending down Sanchez. Rest him. Gibboon though panics after his bullpen doesn’t blow a one run lead, sends down Sanchez, and recalls Loup because he wants Loup in there, so he ( the manger) can continue on his happy destiny as being the best one-run losing manager in Jays’ history.!
That is the only explanation i have, especially with Bauts, Pillar on the dl, Donaldson c/ a busted thumb, Tulo unable to play in the field because of a strained calf…. almost one half of the starting players ailing, yet he calls up his boy, Loup, albeit, a lhp, to fill in the roster spot.
Dominquez, may have been an adequate infielder/3bman, withover a ton of so’s in 3a, , doesn’t know how to bunt, nor steal a frecken base, but has 17 hr’s, and would never smash his bat on Gibboon’s Railin’, (which holds up the manager, during each game) — a perfect match for my Gibboon Jays
I’m not a Gibby sympathizer or anything but the Jays really needed BP help today, that’s why Loup was recalled. Osuna, Grilli and Benoit have all pitched 3 straight days or 3 out of 4 days. That’s your 3 best relievers needing a day off all at once. You could lay blame on Gibby for overusing them but they’re the only reliable relievers the Jays have outside of Biagini. And considering how close this Cleveland series has been, Gibby’s needed all hands on deck.
Just out of curiosity, does anybody know when was the last time an All Star was sent to the minors in the second half of the season?
I think Everth Cabrera possibly, although it’s obviously happened a bunch for injury rehab reasons, which is basically what this is. Even more interesting is a guy like Bryan LaHair, who made the All-Star team one season and never played in the majors after that season.
Many pitchers get the phantom injury send get placed on the 15 day dl. Pedro did it every summer for years. Sanchez wasn’t dl’ed becsuse he still has options. Sanchez and team agree to this. Only issue, which won’t happen, is if the jays keep him there for service time issues. He needs to be on active roster by August 31st to qualify for playoff roster spot, so it’s just a 2 week breather
Actually a player needs to be in an organization before September 1st to qualify for a playoff roster spot. Sometimes very rarely a team will make a waiver trade in September just to try to make it to the playoffs, knowing darn well that the player would not be able to play in playoffs. I wanna say the Yankees did this a few years ago
This makes some sense. Let him rest for a bit and see how he does. He’s too good of a prospect to blow his arm out for good.