Before this evening’s game against the Rangers, the Blue Jays designated reliever Joel Payamps for assignment. The move cleared roster space for the reinstatement of fellow bullpen arm Ryan Borucki from the 60-day injured list.
Payamps’ designation comes as a bit of a surprise, as the righty has worked to a 2.70 ERA across 30 innings this season. That’s the second-best mark of the seven Jays’ relievers who have tossed 20+ frames this year. Payamps’ fielding independent metrics don’t quite support that level of run prevention. His 18.5% strikeout rate is well below the 24.5% league average for relievers, while his 9.9% walk percentage is fine but unspectacular.
That said, Payamps has generated swinging strikes at a fine 11.6% clip, so it’s fair to assume he could strike out a few more batters moving forward. He’s also been one of the game’s best pitchers at avoiding hard contact, and he can be optioned for the remainder of the season. Between his performance and roster flexibility, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Payamps drew interest from other clubs via trade or waiver claim. Toronto will have a week to trade him or expose him to the wire.
Borucki has been out since early May with a flexor strain in his forearm. Before going down with injury, the southpaw pitched to a 4.05 ERA/3.25 SIERA over 13 2/3 innings.
Red Sox will claim him again I guarantee it
They won’t have the chance.
If the Red Sox claim him it would be the third time this year.
Odd move. Numbers were maybe a bit better than he deserved but he’s been their second best reliever this year after Romano.
Very surprised he was let go.
Me too, one of the few relievers who was relatively consistent all year. But this is baseball these days, only thing that matters is analytics, it doesnt seem to matter if you just get people out if the analytics say your below average.
I get his stat line might be a bit of smoke and mirrors but for like the 12th time this year this is a wacky roster move involving Payamps. He is the only guy other than Romano who has been both healthy and able to get outs for the entire season. It’s really not a big deal assuming they make another upgrade or two but I’d rather they just cut bait on Chatwood or Dolis.
Very odd for sure, not sure what to make of this.
Like you said it’s not a huge deal if you make some upgrades but it does open the door to criticize their ability to assess talent and performance
I think they expect to trade him. I don’t think this opens up the door to criticize their ability to assess performance and talent at all. Lol. A blind monkey could see he’s been one of their more reliable relievers— I say reliable with a 2021 grain of salt— and I don’t think we should expect them to be worse at assessing performance than a blind monkey. Feels like he’s gonna be in a package to me.
This is not the first time he has been moved. Maybe its his performance as a teammate?
If that were true they wouldn’t need to designate him. I think you’re jumping too far ahead but I guess we’ll see.
Wow. Sometimes I just don’t get Jays mgmt at all when they do stuff like this. Chatwood or Dolis has to go before Payamps. Payamps is a journeyman type guy but he has done okay. He is going to pitch in the big leagues likely somewhere else and Chatwood or Dolis will not likely make it to the end of the year in the big leagues. Head scratching move by the Jays.
Unless it is for a trade after a claim. Bewildering.
What did you say when the jays claimed him originally?
Jimmers take when Joel was first claimed
Backwards, the Jays do this and get very little out of it. Atkins has nothing better to do than dumpster dive for players, especially pitching. It is well known in MLB circles that the Jays cannot scout at the professional level very well, so they claim these guys over the years and hoping they stick.
All the while they haven’t addressed the most important need, elite starting pitching. This team is going NOWHERE without adding elite starting pitching.
BY mid season we’ll see the rotation in tatters because they can’t pitch more than 1 turn of the batting order. At the same time, the bullpen should be well burnt out by then,.
Oh but they claim a guy like Payamps who wouldn’t be found on a championship team. When Gillick claimed guys, he knew what they could do. Shapiro and Atkins do not know.
I like some of the additions that have been made in Semien and Springer. Matz is an injury waiting to happen. Matz was a stupid, stupid trade. Chatwood will be okay if he sticks to the pen. Yates will be good too. Liriano is a joke signing. Cole and Urena and very good minor league signings.
IVerbure, I am flattered you love and follow me that much. Hugs.
Jimmertee is “bewildered”. Seems like he was calling this back in February #Scoutseyes
“BlueJays wasting time and money and jerking around players families….”
CaCa you love me, you really do.
Of course Payamps being cut was called back in February. Payamps is a journeyman dumpster dive claim. Even though he is not very good, he has proven himself better than others in the Jays bullpen at the moment. Of course I am bewildered. Anyone intelligent would be bewildered as to why the Jays are cutting him vs choosing a worse bullpen pitcher,
Again I say, Payamps won’t help the Jays win a championship and that is the goal. Win a championship this year.
Jimmertee just goes with the hottest take, what will get likes and laughs. His opinion changes daily he doesnt actually have a opinion of his own.
Here’s a tip, be genuine, who cares if people like what you write, but nobody wants to read your latest take of the week. Have a true opinion
Are you going to attack or insult me like many do here in these pages?
I said that he was a journeyman type who wouldn’t help the Jays win a championship – which is true. And he did his journeyman job.
May I point out that Chatwood and Dolis are much worse [lately]
And for the record, I do like the recent Jays bullpen pickups. Both are better than Paymaps, One is very good. Now they need a shut=down closer and two starters, one elite. Then they have a shot at winning, not just “competing” .
All I did was copy and paste your own post from February.
It’s easy: Either you were right then and the management is justified in this decision or you were wrong then, agree that management was right in signing him but wrong in releasing him. You can’t have it both ways. So. When we’re you right and when we’re you wrong?
Maggie, both sayings are correct. Signing Payamps is not going to help them win a championship., I stand by what I said.
Having said that, there are actually worse relief pitchers currently in the bullpen at the moment. Does it make sense to you that the Jays should keep an terrible pitcher over just a mediocre one? That is what we are discussing here. That is why I am bewildered. They cut the mediocre pitcher instead of a bad one.
Neither Payamps or Chatwood or Dolis, or Edwards or Barnes, or Tice, or Bergen or Beasely or Kay or Roark any of these borderline big leaguers are getting them to the championship anyways.
Richards is good Cimber is okay, and of course we know that Romano is a stud. Sauceudo looks like a keeper. Borucki is very good at max effort out of the pen until he goes down again. They need at least a shut down closer now as well as to upgrade two starters.
The goal is to win now especially with the Jays current lineup.
I’m a bit surprised by it too.
Not surprised the kept Chatwood and Dolis over him. They both have struggled badly this year but do have a history of being successful.
Zeuch is the guy I’m looking at. Not sure why he’s still in the 40 man. It’s pretty clear that his upside is a mop up guy.
Zeuch’s only bonus (I’m guessing) is being a starter. An ineffective starter but a starter.
I mean…. I guess. And more control maybe. And he was drafted and developed here I guess.
I’d rather have an effective player over an ineffective one regardless of position.
If Zeuch could get control over his sinker he could be a good starter.
That is a big if. Most of the time he doesn’t know where it is going or it is in the center of the plate.
There is going to come a time if he is going to stick in the big leagues he has to be able to hit the corners with that pitch, otherwise he is a AAAA player.
The only success Dolis has had was 24 innings last year. That’s it.
As a reliever, Chatwoof had 16 good innings this past April and May. He’s been awful since the foreign substance ban. DFA time, they are both bad.
Well just because they DRA Payamps doesn’t mean they can’t do the same to Chatwood or Dolis. They haven’t used up their one DFA for the year. :
DFA*
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You sure it’s DFA?
Huh, strange decision by the Blue Jays top brass.
His statcast numbers are mostly excellent. One of the best at limiting hard contact this year and I’m not exaggerating either.
Link: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/joel-payamps-606303?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
I heard the reason he was DFA, wasn’t pitching related, it was actually a clubhouse issue. Something about him picking a fight with George Springer over the trash can banging.
That’s a good point. Not THAT specifically, since I have no idea if it’s true, but I think sometimes we forget that when a guy is released/optioned/DFAed for no apparent baseball-related reason, something else could’ve happened behind the scenes that led to it.
That would make a lot of sense because this move is a bit of a head scratcher. Over the last month of baseball payamps is one of the few guys I dont say “here we go again” when montoyo calls em out. If he gets hit its light contact, so a behind the scenes reason makes a lot of sense. We as fans dont always get that side of the story, and judge teams or GM’s harshly when we know so little about the facts.
“over the last month of baseball payamps is one of the few guys I dont say “here we go again” when montoyo calls em out.”
He pitched in two whole games for the Jays in the last month…
It’s hilarious seeing all the bellyaching about this move from people who don’t even seem to have noticed he hasn’t been on the team in weeks.
Payamps’ numbers look good, but miss a key part of the story – they were attained mostly in low leverage. Whenever he was asked to pitch without a lead, he’s done fine; but whenever he was asked to protect a lead, he’s been shaky. Which means low leverage is his ceiling, and which also means that you can’t really trust him in must-win games down the stretch or (hopefully) in the post season.
By contrast, Chatwood (this year) and Dolis (last year) have shown that when they have things figured out and working, they can successfully pitch in higher leverage, protecting a lead. Yes, both of them have been playing poorly lately (and worse than Payamps), but if they fix themselves, the upside is there which wasn’t the case with Payamps. And if they don’t fix themselves quickly, there’s still enough time to dump them. I’d expect the team to bring in more pitching by the trade deadline, and they may run out of runway then.
Chatwood proved he couldn’t pitch in high or low leverage situations. His issues are psychological. Since he’s on the IL it’s meaningless to say he should have been dropped.
Dolis too, high or low situations cannot find the plate. Payamps was used the way he was used due to team mistrust. This is the same Blue Jays team that tried everything not to make Romano the closer. Dolis, Cole, Bass (last year), Merryweather, Dolis, Chatwood (this year). They had no choice to make Romano the 9th inning man despite attempts to avoid that.
Could’ve dropped Castro or Dolis. Payamps really wasn’t the weakest link and should have remained on the main roster. Barnes has a nice arm but is he really better than Payamps? Not really. Considering the troubles in the bullpen one would think an organization would be fine with Payamps’ performance. Payamps isn’t a savior, however he deserved better based on performance.
On what planet are Tyler Chatwood, Rafael Dolis, Anthony Castro and Jacob Barnes all better than Joel Payamps in 2021? C’mon Ross, this is just continued bad MLB talent and roster management all because you made a mistake signing Yates and Chatwood last offseason, and then thought Dolis, Carl Edwards Jr., and Jeremy Beasley could replace Yates, Phelps, Borucki and Merryweather in May and June. Terrible. Payamps was actually a real diamond in the rough that you found in your dumpster dives. Now you give up on him but keep Chatwood?
Seems a strange move at first glance. You’d think you might keep the optionable guy so that you can have him in your back pocket when needed. But on the other hand, there are several players that will at some point need to be reinstated from the 60 day as well as trade additions so he may have been running out of runway anyway. May as well do this now before the trade deadline as he is a guy more likely to gain enough interest to turn into a trade than the other pieces they might have moved on from.
Agreed. Kirk, Hatch and Merryweather all still need to be reinstated from the 60-day IL so players will need to be outright traded or DFA’d to make room for them again on the 40-man. But Payamps had options. I’d be DFAing Chatwood, Dolis and Barnes…
Ummm, why ?.. someone talk to me please. Don’t we still have chatwood on this roster ?
Ross signed Chatwoof for $3 million last offseason. He also signed Yates for $5.5 million and Phelps for $1 million, so with two of those signings already done for the season, not to mention DFAing Tanner Roark ($12 million payroll hit) and Shun Yamaguchi ($3.175 million), and buying out Chase Anderson ($500K), Ross doesn’t want any more egg on his face for DFAing Chatwoof. Even though his spin rates have fallen off a cliff since the foreign substance ban in early June. This is all about Atkins’ tender ego, where in his mind Chatwoof > Payamps because one he signed for $3 million and the other he claimed off waivers. It’s pure ego, not good MLB talent or roster management.
Good take Charles.
Yet they declined AJ Cole’s under 1-mil contract and felt Bass wasn’t good enough for 2 years $5-mil. Brad Hand was a gimme pickup.
My guess is that they have stuff brewing that requires more 40 man room than they have available.
They should be able to get cash or bonus money from someone for him. Anything would be a win since they got him off of the scrap heap.
This team is owned by a massive publicly traded Telecom monster worth billions.
I couldn’t care less if they eat hundreds of millions in dead salary to make this team better.