5:00pm: Toronto announced that Godley has indeed been designated for assignment. His roster spot goes to right-hander T.J. Zeuch, whose contract has been formally selected from Triple-A Buffalo (whose likely promotion had been previously reported). Zeuch is in line to make his MLB debut tonight, following opener Wilmer Font.
Zeuch is generally considered to be among the Jays’ top 20 or so prospects. The 2016 first-rounder has had a solid season spent mostly at the Triple-A level, where he’s logged a 3.69 ERA in 78 innings of work. However, Zeuch also managed just 4.5 K/9 against 3.7 BB/9 in that time. His hefty 57.1 percent grounder rate can help offset the lack of missed bats to an extent, but he’ll need to up his strikeout totals in order to find sustained success in the big leagues.
Toronto also recalled infielder Richard Urena along with outfielders Anthony Alford and Jonathan Davis.
2:59pm: The Blue Jays have designated righty Zack Godley for assignment, per MLBTR’s Steve Adams (Twitter link). Corresponding roster moves aren’t yet known, but the club has a need for space for forthcoming promotions.
Godley, 29, struggled quite a bit with the Diamondbacks before they cut him loose. He’ll have enough service time to qualify for arbitration after the season, though that won’t matter unless he’s claimed by a team with designs on tendering him a contract.
Clearly, the Jays decided against that course of action after watching Godley up close. He was able to provide 16 innings of 3.94 ERA ball in Toronto, but produced only 6.8 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9 with a 43.0% groundball rate. Those numbers are well shy of the quality peripherals Godley produced in each of the past two campaigns.
Why now?
I’m assuming Kay and Zuech need 40 man spots.
Ours is not to question why… every time Atkins makes a good move he is sure to reverse his way and restore our faith in him to not be able to do his job.
AAA season is over and rosters have expanded
He will for sure get picked up.
Blue Jays should pick him up… oh, wait…
the Jays are calling up young arms to see what they can do.
he might get picked up but it’ll will be a by a bad team that dosent even have young pitching to try our yet.
No way he is pitching meaningful innings on a good team unless there injuries are insane
The business of baseball continues.
#scouteyes
Standard operating procedure. September call-ups. Jays could have kept Sanchez, let him start and then move him to the bullpen if he wasn’t succeeding. That would have nullified the Godley pickup. All this for the great Derek Fisher. Nothing like stockpiling arms and outfielders nobody else wants.
MY laugh of the day. So true.
It helps me to remember that this is an intentional tank and not being done by incompetence. Sarcasm heavy.
At this point the tanking isn’t even on-point. They’d draft 5th overall. A good tanking should place you in the Top 2.