The Blue Jays announced that left-hander Tim Mayza has been designated for assignment. Righty Jose Cuas (just claimed off waivers from the Cubs last week) has been called up from Triple-A Buffalo to take Mayza’s spot on the active roster.
Today’s news likely ends Mayza’s tenure with the Jays, which began when he was a 12th-round pick for the club in the 2013 draft. (Danny Jansen was a 16th-round pick in that same draft and is now officially Toronto’s longest-tenured player.) Designating Mayza would’ve seemed inconceivable just a few months ago, as Mayza was quietly one of baseball’s better relievers in 2023, posting a 1.52 ERA over 53 1/3 frames. A 3.11 SIERA was a little less flattering, but Mayza still had solidly above-average walk and strikeout rates, as well as elite grounder (58.2%) and barrel (4.1%) rates. Mayza allowed only two homers over his 53 1/3 innings, as while he allowed a fair amount of hard contract overall, his ability to keep the ball in the park greatly limited the damage.
However, the dropoff has been as sharp as it was unexpected. Mayza has already allowed three home runs in 24 2/3 innings this season, contributing to a garish 8.03 ERA. The Statcast numbers reveal a slew of below-average metrics, including a 13.2% strikeout rate that is among the worst in the league, and a 39.1% grounder rate that is far below the 54.4% career average that Mayza carried into 2024. A .367 BABIP has partially contributed to Mayza’s problems, though while his 5.03 SIERA is three runs lower than his ERA, it is clear that Mayza’s struggles are due to far more than just bad batted-ball luck.
Things reached a low point in Mayza’s last two outings, as he faced eight batters and allowed seven earned runs without recording even a single out. These two disastrous performances (against the Red Sox last Monday and against the Yankees last night) raised his ERA from 5.47 to 8.03, and essentially might have forced the Blue Jays’ hand in making a tough call on a veteran reliever.
Starting the season with four years and 156 days of MLB service time, Mayza needed just 16 more days on the big league roster to hit the five-year threshold, so he is now far beyond that mark. Five years of service time gives Mayza the right to refuse a minor league assignment, and though he has two minor league options remaining, it could be that Mayza exercised his right to pass on a trip to Triple-A Buffalo.
In deciding to DFA Mayza, Toronto has now left open the possibility that he could leave the organization altogether via waiver claim. A claiming club would have to cover the roughly $1.7MM remaining of Mayza’s remaining salary, and since the Jays would be eating that money in the event of a release, it is possible teams might choose to see if Mayza indeed hits the open market in order to save some cash. That said, Mayza’s salary isn’t particularly onerous, so any number of teams with bullpen needs might very well be looking to put in a claim or to work out a trade with the Blue Jays during the DFA period. As rough as Mayza’s performance has been in 2024, he could be an interesting change-of-scenery candidate, given his stronger career track record.
After a Tommy John surgery cost him the entire 2020 season, Mayza returned to post a 2.67 ERA over 155 relief innings from 2021-23, along with a 24.9% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate, and 58.3% groundball rate. He has naturally been a lot better against left-handed batters than right-handed batters over his career, and even amidst his struggles this year, Mayza has held lefty swingers to a .280/.362/.360 slash line in 58 PA. The batting average and OBP leave something to be desired, but at least this version of Mayza can still limit the power of left-handed hitters.
Since Mayza is also a Super Two player, he has another year of arbitration eligibility before hitting free agency following the 2025 season. If Mayza joins another team and gets back to his old form, he suddenly becomes an inexpensive piece for a club’s roster next season as well.
Blue Jays relievers have a collective 4.78 ERA this season, ranking 28th of the 30 Major League bullpens. Injuries to Jordan Romano and Yimi Garcia haven’t helped matters, but Romano was struggling even when not on the injured list, and both Mayza and Erik Swanson (who has been optioned to Triple-A) saw their production crater after impressive 2023 seasons.
Between the leaky bullpen, the inconsistent offense, and a starting rotation that pretty average across the board, not much as gone right for the Blue Jays as they have stumbled to a 37-44 record. The Jays already parted ways with another struggling homegrown player in Cavan Biggio earlier this month when Biggio was traded to the Dodgers, and if Mayza is also traded or claimed away on waivers, the moves essentially act as harbingers that Toronto will be selling at the deadline. GM Ross Atkins said two days ago that the Jays are still “focused on building the best possible team we can this year,” but “if we get to a point where we need to adjust, we’ll be prepared to do so.“
Surprising but not surprising.
Needed to happen but sad that it has come to this. He is out of options and cant be sent down as well. He had a terrific year last year and is really bad this year.
He isn’t out of options–he has 2 remaining, as stated in the article; however, he has 5+ years of service meaning he can refuse a demotion. That’s likely the occurrence here.
He’s a week away from 5 years
No, he isn’t. This was addressed in the article and in multiple comments. The websites don’t update their service time daily. He reached 5+ years of service time already.
Tidy piece of business here
Username checks out.
@TennVol
He has 2 options left.
but he’s past 5 years service time so could reject being optioned, same as Biggio did.
He could also accept the assignment. The point is that he does have options left.
@HenryMPatton
Just checked, he has 4.156 years of service time. So he couldn’t refuse the assignment.
NoSaint, not sure your numbers are correct, he has been in the Majors on the active roster since 2017 and was on the IL for all of 2020 which i believe counts towards service time so that including this season is 8 seasons in the Majors, I could be wrong but i do not think i am.
@jaysfansince1977
The first service time number came from fangraphs. I checked bRref and they’ve come up with the same thing
Fangraphs doesn’t update their service time numbers until the season is over. They’re always a little bit behind, he’s over 5 years now
If they went the route of DFAing him, I’m pretty sure that means he told them he was not going to accept an assignment.
This article says he’s now surpassed 5 years
@Wizcards
I guess BRef doesn’t update their service time numbers either. Same with the baseball cube.com.
@clrrogers
Or it open up a roster spot for the guy to replace him.
Indeed it does. Suppose reading comprehension can be hard!
Would be really difficult and time consuming to update the service time of every player daily.
Jays fans, what’s been the issue this year compared to last?
@just_thinkin
Atkins swung the roster to more defense at the expense of offensive. Injuries have claimed their 7th, 8th, and 9th inning guys plus a starter. Offense has regressed as has the SP.. in a nutshell.
In a nutshell…not playing good baseball.
I meant specifically with Mayza haha. But yeah, makes sense.
Mayza has had spotty control and his velocity has been uneven all year.
Last year’s pitching was very healthy and effective. This year not as much. Defense has underwhelmed. Hitting, which wasn’t fully addressed for the second year in a row, has been abysmal.
Aside from a popgun offence, led by hitters who way more was expected of, the bullpen had a tornado go through it. Closer Romano hurt most of the year, Setup man Swanson hurt then utterly ineffective. Other set-up Garcia was brilliant now has elbow problems and top lefty Mayza — well, you know. That’s four key guys gone.
Big time velo drop. Sitting 89-90. No bueno.
If Mayza is not suffering from some sort of injury that has been undiagnosed, then with hard work he can come back. He has the tools. A stint in the minors sorting out his mechanics is necessary.
They will regret bringing up cuas.. hope they like walks and hard contact. He was awful this year for the cubs..but last year he was so so..so maybe he will be just kinda awful.
But he was still less awful then Mayza. Technically.
After a few batters I can say you are correct Pauly. He has no business being in the big leagues.
The 2023 NY Mets would like to remind you of their existence and their failure to expectation ratio
Mayza fell off pretty hard. That’s the life of a reliever sometimes. He was pretty darn effective returning from a horrific injury a few years ago.
Dipoto about to pick him up and turn him back into a quality reliever.
Tim Mayza ,Thank You for being a good reliever for us for a few years. Too bad it came to this…
With that said…Lucky You to be able to get away from this arrogant losing management of shapiro and his carryon baggage atkins!!
Good Luck Mr, Mayza it WILL be better where You land !!
Thank Gawd. He’s literally batting practice. His velocity is down.
Why is Tim Mayza always so filthy on MLB the Show?
Sell high on relievers, new ones alwaya pop up. Not a Zach Pop joke.
Ross Atkins in spring training……our starting pitching was amazing last year, so it will be a strength this year! Our relievers were great last year and of course will excel again this year!! Our defense was the best last year and will be again this year!! Our offense was terrible last season, but we believe in them and know they will be much better this year!!
Ross Atkins now…..dripping blood after banging his head against the wall continuously for weeks now
I am not sure Ross Atkins knows what he is doing. He seems overmatched compared to other baseball executives. He is a friend of Shapiros. Maybe that explains it.
By Defensive runs saved, the Jays have the best defense in baseball again this year.
They were 10th in the league by outs above average last year
They are currently 5th this year.
He was correct about the defense, but wrong about most everything else. (Kiner-Falefa might have been the only other thing he was right about)
Please DFA Pop and Cabrera next.
Pop is a AAA player. Cabrera is a serviceable pen lefty in the big leagues.
At least they still have Genesis Cabrera….