The Braves announced that right-hander Jay Jackson has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett. To make room on the 40-man roster fellow righty Touki Toussaint has been designated for assignment.
Toussaint, 26, was the 16th overall selection of the 2014 draft, taken by the Diamondbacks. He was traded to Atlanta in 2015 along with Bronson Arroyo for Phil Gosselin. In the years following that deal, Toussaint was viewed as one of the better prospects in Atlanta’s system and across the game as a whole. Baseball America had him on their list of Top 100 prospects in all of baseball in 2015, 2016 and 2019.
However, he has struggled with injuries and underperformance since then. He saw scattered major league action over the four seasons from 2018 to 2021, logging 145 total innings over those campaigns with a 5.46 ERA. His 23.6% strikeout rate is a bit above average, though it’s also come with an unfortunate 12.9% walk rate.
This season, his final option year, he’s gotten all his action with Triple-A Gwinnett thus far. (He was briefly recalled to the big league club in April but was optioned again before getting into a game.) He’s made eight starts for the Stripers and five relief appearances, throwing 41 2/3 frames in total. Despite a robust 27.5% strikeout rate, control has again been an issue, with his 13% walk rate helping his ERA balloon up to 6.26 on the year. It seems that the club has finally run out of patience with hoping he can right the ship and make good on his potential.
Despite those unfortunate results so far this year, Toussaint is still just 26 years old and only a few years removed from being considered one of the best young pitchers in the sport. He’s sure to garner interest for teams in need of pitching depth, especially considering he can be stashed in Triple-A for the remainder of the year. He will be out of options next year, however, meaning he will need to stick on a team’s active roster all season or else be sent into DFA limbo yet again. He currently has between two and three years of MLB service time and isn’t likely to reach the three-year plateau this season. Atlanta will have one week to work out a trade or put him through waivers.
Always been high on touki, really upsetting tbh
I imagine Touki will figure it out eventually. Braves are losing him for a nearly 35 year old journeyman relief pitcher. Same thing with Nuke but at least Jesse Chavez has helped. I guess this is what happens when you stockpile young pitching and the window to win is open and now.
Reliever arms is more valuable to Atlanta at this point that a starter who is inconsistent at best. That’s the negative deal about playing for a team that is winning and trying win a division they don’t have time to work through issues.
This kids bear chance at being a mlb starter would be to go to a rebuilding team that could left him have 15 starts or so and figure himself out. Tom Glavine; John Smotlz we’re lucky that the Braves weren’t good when they first came into the league so they were able to work things out.
I mean, he was drafted in 2014 and acquired by the Braves in 2015. From 2018-2021 their were definitely opportunities for him to crack the rotation. Come 2022, he hasn’t progressed at Triple-A and has been passed up on the depth chart by Strider, Elder, Muller, and Davidson (who could be a year from a similar fate).
He’s 26. Maybe another team can help him become consistent, but it’s more likely his best shot at sticking in the majors is as a bullpen arm.
Farhan, pounce
Don’t worry Touki’s def on Zaidi’s radar.
Reds(?) will claim him.
I agree. Reds have horrible pitching. It would be a joke if he got past them
2015: ATL traded Phil Gosselin (and $9.5M salary relief) for former 1st-rd pick: Touki + Bronson Arroyo (salary dump).
2022: Gosselin is getting 2B spot starts in ATL and a bench piece while Touki is DFA’d. (Arroyo is part-time rocker opening for Hootie’s Darius Rucker).
Ur joking about arroyo right cuz that sounds like it could be true
I know he had a band at one point.
m.facebook.com/events/elder-high-school/kyle-rudol…
Wow
True story.
You report that Arroyo is out of baseball AND spends his time with Hootie Blowfish. That’s piling on!
Dang I loved Touki. He gave me an auto at a Braves game and has always been good to fans. Hope he does well wherever he goes.
I vould see the Rangers claiming him
Pirates need to claim him.
I mean, the bullpen really can’t get any worse can it?
Could probably be in the rotation too
I’d rather see him start over Bryse Wilson, but he isn’t going to take starts away from Roansy, Brubaker, Quintana, or Keller right now.
Either way he’d be a nice addition to the staff to see if they can catch a little of that potential he showed.
Would like to see Texas grab him as our 4,5 starters have been pretty bad and he is young enough to be useful now and in the future.
Touki joins Aaron Blair, Sean Newcomb, Tyrell Jenkins and Matt Wisler as braves rebuild pieces that quite didnt work out but Dansby, Austin Riley, and Max Fried have worked out.
They really liked stock piling arms. Lotta them didn’t pan out. I guess that’s par for the course.
It helped that the Braves fleeced the DBacks (Swanson) and Padres (Fried) in trades. Those kinds of gifts are a rarity.
The diamondbacks were stupid in their trade for Shelby miller
At the time of the trade Justin upton was worth way more than a prospect in fried who had undergone tommy john surgery. So that was just the Braves taking a huge risk.
That has to be one of the worst trades in MLB of the last 25 years.
Ben,
I appreciate your desire to be a contrarian. (Do you have French heritage?) Padres were fleeced in this trade, it’s not that complicated.
J-Up was a 3-WAR player with ATL and had 1 year remaining before FA, while making $14.5M for a rebuilding team, and they either didn’t want to extend him or think he would sign (I don’t recall ever hearing ATL made an extension offer). That being said, the package of an injured 1st rd pick (Fried), Dustin Peterson, Jace Peterson and Mallex Smith was quite a package, even though Fried has been the only staple for the franchise (Jace has developed into a nice UT player elsewhere).
And the Padres allowed Upton to walk after that one season. Horrendous trade.
Wisler is doing just fine
Wisler is having back surgery I thought there Jackalopal, out for the season. Maybe some other word besides fine. It’s funny how great he thought he was after the Braves got rid of him. He is just an injury prone player who thinks he has elite stuff. Maybe he has pictures on his wall of elite stuff. When he went, it was because of how poor his stuff was.
Major bag alert
I always got him mixed up with Huascar Ynoa for some reason.
any interest david stearns?
Prospects are like lottery tickets and the Braves did best by fully committing to the rebuild. Teams like the Royals, Pirates and orioles just dont seem to fully commit to it by not selling high on guys like Whit Merrifield, Mullins and Bryan Reynolds.
Butt Head- Just because the Pirates have not traded their best player with three years of control remaining does not mean that they are not full in on a rebuild.
When does the rebuild stop?
Pirates just don’t see to be in a desire to win last two decades. Other low market teams have won just seems like Pirates are fine with how they are.
Which is sad for baseball
Simply not accurate. 4 winnning records in the last 10 years, 2013-2022. Very bad for sure most of the other years. No need to make stuff up.
Ben- They had the second best record in baseball during the three year period 2013-2015.
Small market teams have won one WS in the last thirty years.
Do you think that all of the rest do not seem to want to win either?
MLB only cares about the money and not really about the competition.It is the only major sport like that.
Doubt he will pass far enough down for the Dodgers to take a flyer; I like his movement
He will if they trade for him
That curveball is filthy, if someone can get him to develop another secondary pitch and/or better FB location. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns into Lucas Sims 2.0 – another former 1st rd pick that ATL development can’t get through to and puts it altogether somewhere else.
Hope my As pick him up
Always seemed like a good guy who (like Newcomb) either never trusted his stuff or couldn’t throw it for strikes when he had to. Maybe some other coaching staff can straighten him out.
Tigers need pitching
We can add him to the list of guys who are finally gone (Teheran, Newcomb, Faulty)
Has Padres written all over him
Take him Reds
Eventually you have to look at a guy and figure he’s had a ton of chances. I don’t see it as anything other than a move that was needed.
Mariners get on that Touki train
I’ve Always liked Touki. Hope my Cubs pick him up and put him in the BP.
I think Touki Toussaint is the poster child for prospect overhype and overvalue. After 7 years of consistent underperformance and mediocre pitching, it’s amazing that commenters here are still frozen in the ancient misconception that Touki is a 19 year old Top 100 Prospect! He’s washed up at 26. It’s time to admit that most everybody was wrong about him. Except for the Dbacks who had the wisdom in 2016 and fleeced the Braves by pawning off this never-was-a-legitimate-prospect and forced the Braves to eat Arroyo’s big, bad contract. The same almost everybodys still think the Braves fleeced the Dbacks and that the then front office of the Dbacks were incompetent fools. History has proven that is a patently wrong assessment, and should teach all of us to temper the value we place on prospects who haven’t proven a single thing about their worth!
CUBS!!!
Dodgers
TIGER.
I’m calling it now. Traded to angels for the infamous “cash considerations”