The Blue Jays announced that they have claimed catcher Brian Serven off waivers from the Cubs. The latter club designated him for assignment last week. Toronto’s 40-man roster is now full.
Serven, 29 in May, had spent his entire career with the Rockies until earlier this month. He was claimed off waivers by the Cubs a couple of weeks ago and now changes organizations once again. He had been serving as a depth catcher for Colorado, getting into 73 big league games over the past two seasons. He’s hit just .195/.248/.314 in his first 228 major league plate appearances, though that’s a small sample and he’s fared better at Triple-A. Over the past three years, he has slashed .238/.305/.450 at the top level of the minors.
On the gloveside, Serven has generally been given strong grades. He has five Defensive Runs Saved in his small sample of big league action while each of FanGraphs, Statcast and Baseball Prospectus have looked fondly upon his framing, with BP also liking his receiving in the minors.
The Jays have Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk set to be their catching duo in the big leagues, but they lost depth catcher Tyler Heineman off waivers earlier in the winter. This claim of Serven gives the club a third catcher who still has a pair of option years remaining. He should be able to take regular at-bats in Triple-A until an injury creates a need for him to join the big league club, assuming he hangs onto his 40-man roster spot through the rest of the offseason.
No idea why the Cubs picked him up in the first place. Won’t be the last time he hits the wire either IMO.
Depth piece with a good glove. Amaya has had injuries, and Gomes is getting up there. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more waiver moves like; claim a catcher who is considered a good defender for essentially free, and try to pass him through waivers and he sits at Iowa until an injury.
Ther Cubs had picked up 2 guys like that BEFORE Serven. Jorge Alfaro and Joe Hudson. That’s why it made no sense.
Clearly a AAA depth move for the Blue Jays, a role Brian Serven would have had with the Cubs had they not DFA’d him to open a spot on their 40-man roster for the recent additions of Shota Imanaga, Michael Busch & Yency Almonte.
Dumpster dive….. Carry on at His Best …. “” Ross can do better”” mark shapiro…bar builder
Its only a depth move. Jays don’t have much after Kirk and Jansen with Heineman gone
Let me guess Atkins said he was toolsy lol
Derek Fisher was toolsy. Kinda.
Gomes will get 60% of the reps but watch for the emergence of Moguel Amaya. Amaya is a very solid defender and I expect his bat to improve.
I like Amaya as a talent, but his injury history is a red flag. Hopefully he proves me wrong, and can stay healthy.
What a waste of a roster spot. You dont need a 3rd catcher. In the extremely rare case someone gets injured midgame you can play IKF…your wasted roster spot already.
Regardless of him making the 26 or not, I have zero confidence that Jansen will be available to stay on the field the entire season, and Kirk cannot handle the workload of a primary C. They need the depth.
Yes but if someone else’s name is Joel P, that’s definitely a reason to freak out.
Strangely enough, the Rockies, the team that dropped him in the first place only carry two.
Doubt all you want, but Diaz and Stallings are it. Hunter Goodman also has a catching background but so far has only played 1B and RF in the bigs and is listed as 1B on the MLB.com roster.
The Rockies have done that quite a bit the past few years. Last year it was just Diaz and Serven until Austin Wynns was picked up on waivers a couple of months into the season.
No reason to panic over one roster spot. Dodgers have 4 catchers on their 40 man rn and no one here could argue that the jays are a better run organization than the Dodgers.
I thought the third catcher was playing in left field…
Are you kidding me! At the rate Jansen gets hurt, we absolutely need a third catcher.
Dig they have two things here. One, carrying another catcher. Two, a fall guy. Every 40-man needs a fall guy. If the Jays can somehow make moves to contend, this guy is a candidate to be removed from the 40-man roster.
They’ll try to slide him through waivers at some point to get him to the minors as depth.
Most free agents are overpriced for what you would actually be getting. Montgomery isn’t an ACE and if he has an extremely good year, he may be a #2 starter. Probably more of a 3 or 4.
Boras, THE CLOWN, is shopping him like Montgomery is the second coming of Bob Gibson. I’ll even go out on a limb here and say, I don’t think he’ll be signed by the start of spring training.
Might be because that’s his job.
It’s a thin market this offseason. Prices are going to be high, nobody wants to pay unless they absolutely have to and Boras’ job is to see that they have to. That’s what players pay agents for.
Can I have Boras the clown to represent me in my next salary raise negotiations?
Possibly, but boras likely takes a large percentage of the contract, thus pushing the value higher. And you have to be in Union. You may price yourself out of range to be replaced by an intern.
Boras is only a clown if Monty does not get a multi-year contract by March 31st.
Boras is very good at his job. He helps his clients. Boras is bad for baseball in that he makes public comments that turn the public off. Unfortunately, Boras’ job is to help his clients not baseball. It would be great if he could do his negotiations behind closed doors rather than in public, but that is his clients’ choice to make.
I’ll go on the record that I would bet a dollar that Monty will be signed within 60 days. And he will get nine figures (100+ million). Most people would say that both of my predictions are rather mild in their boldness.
Boras’ tactics wouldn’t be as effective if he didn’t go public. It’s a fundamental part of his m.o.
Hey Blue Jays, stop with the dumpster diving! My Pirates aren’t finished yet! Lol
Lol
Pirates literally had a chance to grab him before Blue Jays and said “nah”.
Calling Mario Mendoza.
Welcome to consequences of trading the wrong catcher for Dalton Varsho. Called at the time. Let the dumpster diving begin. Hopefully Jano can stay healthy. He is quality. It would be nice if Kirk could show up in the shape he was in as a rookie, otherwise it is more of the same – one of the buffet boys.
Surely he (Serven) can run 90 feet in under a minute….
Neither Jansen or Kirk were wanted by other teams. We would’ve landed less than Varsho for either of them. In fact, Moreno alone wasn’t enough to net Varsho.
The goal was not to trade for Varsho in the first place after signing Kiermaier last year. Jays miscalculated Jansen’s value as they didn’t want to settle on a bullpen arm from St Louis.
LOL no, there’s no way the FO expected KK to play an entire season in the OF. His track record suggested otherwise.
The goal was to acquire a CF with years of control. KK was insurance. They didn’t miscalculate Jansen’s value. They’d been working on trading a catcher for an OF prior to the trade deadline of 22.
They needed a RH bat platoon who could play CF, not Varsho. You type this comment as though the Jays had no choice.
If KK is injury prone don’t sign him in the first place?
Gave you better options than losing a trade for an overrated player.
Overrated? One of the best OF’s in the game, but yeah, overrated…..
Varsho is the best outfielders in the game? That’s insanity.
Varsho is not an all-star nor is he close to being all-star calibre. His WAR is high, his overall productivity is low. He can thank his inflated WAR on opponents willing to test his arm because even they don’t believe he’s great.
Daulton Varsho and best OF in the game do not go together. He has to hit better to justify that comment. Much better.
Jays would be in a better position had they settled on St Louis’ offer for Jansen.
Until KK got hurt & missed time. Then what?
They needed a RH platoon bat. A Michael Taylor type guy to play CF when a left handed pitcher started.
Again, Gurriel-KK-Springer with a backup RH CF plus Merrifield and Biggio. That was the play.
That was never the play. Their intentions were to acquire a CF with years of control which they did. How about giving the trade more than one season to see how it plays out?
“That was never the play”.
And that’s irresponsible to have not 1 but now 2 LH hitters who really aren’t good hitters vs LHP.
Say it one more time for the people in the back: They needed a RH OF bench bat. Oh look, they still do. More than one season and still not addressed.
I thought it said Blue Jays claim seven off waivers from the Cubs.
Poor guy didn’t even get an invite to Cubs Convention or if he did it was taken by the Dodgers dude Busch who was switching planes at O’Hare last week.
What’s in the Box????
Jays winning the offseason with all these dumpster dives.
Serven Bombs!
Jays FO appear to be grabbing onto everything but what they actually need. I don’t think there is anything strategic about it either as I don’t think Atkins or Shapiro are smart enough for that. Spring training is just around the corner but I guess anything can happen. Until Bellinger, Hoskins, Votto and Martinez actually sign somewhere the Jays still have a chance?!? This has been a long slow offseason for me personally so can’t wait for baseball to get underway.
A third string catcher that can be optioned to the minors is an actual need and this was a no cost move to boot. They might try to sneak him off the 40 man roster at some point and risk losing him to waivers but if that happens, they’ll need a replacement. I could also see them simply keeping him on the 40 man roster because the defensive grades are good and you can’t ask for much more than that from a third catcher.
KingKat, let us not forget this is not the only catcher they have added since Hieneman was claimed. If i am not mistaken Jays have signed 4 catchers to minor league contracts and have invited one to Spring Training
I suppose they could find a third stringer from that pool and maybe it’s worth it from a roster management perspective to not fully commit a 40 man roster spot until they absolutely have to but in a vacuum, I actually really like Serven for the role and I hope he sticks.
Well, they’re not dumb enough to overpay for Bellinger. The strategy is to wait until Cle/Texas/ SD get their tv deals sorted out. That’s the main holdup this year for a lot of teams.
Thrifty. Maybe the Cubs will penny pinch their way out of Another playoff spot with another epic September collapse. Like when the foundation collapses because you nickel and dimed the contractors
So when you’re not good enough for the Cubs, do you still get to receive serven pay?