The Blue Jays have re-signed catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He’ll head to Triple-A Buffalo.
Saltalamacchia, 32, opened as the Jays’ reserve backstop but had a brutal start to the season. Over his 26 plate appearances, the switch-hitter went down on strikes 16 times while reaching base just twice. He was also struggling to keep opposing baserunners at first base.
[Related: Updated Toronto Blue Jays depth chart]
While the on-base and fielding skills have always lagged for Saltalamacchia, he’ll obviously need to show more to find his way back to the majors. Still, there’s plenty of reason to believe he’ll rebound from that dreadful opening, though he’ll also now have to climb over both Luke Maile and Mike Ohlman on the depth chart.
“Salty” has been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride in recent years. But he has been an effective hitter as recently as 2015, when he gave the Diamondbacks 194 plate appearances of .251/.332/.474 hitting. Even last year, when his OBP dipped below .300 in a 92-game run with the Tigers, Saltalamacchia blasted a dozen home runs and a .175 isolated slugging percentage — right at his career average and well over the .150 average among catchers around the game.
Wonders if he should stop switch hitting and focus on one side of the plate
I mean I remember when chipper jones stopped batting switch for a season or two
Chipper never stopped switch hitting
Yea where’d he get that?
He did
He stopped batting right for a little bit
Might have been an injury
But he did
Then he picked it back up
It was around the time he was playing left field full time
Strange – on his Baseball-Reference yearly splits, it shows he’s always hit switch. The total w/ the platoon advantage v total PA’s are equal every year.
Its not strange since he never stopped switch hitting. Maybe he came back from an injury and stopped for a few weeks? But he never stopped for even one full season
Then I’d think BR would have captured those few weeks – but his numbers say every AB has been switch. Unless he stopped switch hitting while in the Minors on rehab or something.
During that time frame he suffered an oblique injury and kept playing
But yes he batted left that season
Chipper was always a switch hitter. What are you talking about?
Why are they being compared in the same breath?
Lol
They went to Jarrod.
Saltalamacchia is terrible. Watching him try to throw out base runners is uncomfortable.
Agreed, he has been extraordinarily bad on both sides of the ball. But it makes me wonder why they are signing him. Is Russ Martin’s injury going to have him out longer than first thought? Why can’t they trade for a catcher? It doesn’t make sense signing this guy, even for depth at AAA.
Cheap depth to have a MLB experienced catcher hang out in the minors. It only cost money, not prospects.