The Blue Jays announced that right-hander Jose Urena has been designated for assignment. The move opens up a roster spot for southpaw Easton Lucas, who will likely cover some innings what is slated to be a bullpen day for the Jays in today’s matchup with the Athletics.
Urena signed a guaranteed contract with Toronto in early May, just a few days after he was designated for assignment by the Mets and then entered free agency (Urena was able to reject the Mets’ outright assignment in favor of free agency since he has been previously outrighted in his career). Over his six games with the Jays, Urena made two starts and tossed a total of 12 1/3 innings while pitching to a 3.65 ERA.
With only a 9.6% strikeout rate in that brief stint with the Jays, Urena’s ERA significantly outperformed his peripherals, so the club is apparently willing to risk losing Urena in order to get a fresh arm onto the pitching staff. Should Urena clear waivers, he’ll again have the option of either electing free agency or accepting an outright assignment to Triple-A. Given the Blue Jays’ lack of rotation depth, a case can be made that sticking in the organization may give Urena another shot at the big leagues in relatively short order.
The fifth spot in the Jays’ rotation has been a revolving door since Max Scherzer went on the injured list after his first start of the season. Lucas has received four starts, and Braydon Fisher (who has a spotless ERA over his first career 8 1/3 innings) will make his first Major League start today against the A’s. Recent signing Eric Lauer has started two of his six games in a Blue Jays uniform, and the recently-signed Spencer Turnbull may yet factor into the rotation picture before Scherzer is ready to return.
Wrong Jose Urena.
What other Jose Urena is there? The one linked is correct now. What other Jose Urena was it pointing to before?
Some guy with no major league time.
A Mexican League outfielder
I could see the A’s grabbing him with their pitching woos he couldn’t hurt.
The O’s might have a look too.
Next stop: Baltimore.
Someone will grab Urena because there are not enough MLB level pitchers pitching in MLB. He did okay with the Jays.
Too many teams in MLB have spread out the talent far too much.
We need contraction of teams and a centralization of the talent.
I don’t think the talent is spread out too far. There is plenty of talent but with the emphasis on maximum velocity, maximum effort, maximum spin rate, the demands on pitchers, Starters especially, are too high.
The valueing of every ability other than durability is taking us to where the Dodgers pitching is ranked right now. 23rd in MLB
You’re 100% right. More injuries and guys not pitching as far into games as they did before the max velocity days means more barely MLB level pitchers are seeing the ball every game.
That’s nowhere near the problem. The problem is pitchers continue to hurt their arms, pitch injured and go on the IL. It is not like the pitching is so bad that guys are flirting with .400 or hitting .300 now.
So either the hitting philosophy is horrendous or pitching is that good. Which is it?
If anything they need to expand, inject money into the league, and bring new philosophy (or bring back old ones) to the new franchises to turn this game around with new eyeballs from new cities.
I remember going into the 2018 season being so sure Jose would develop into a top of the rotation starter. Instead he regressed a little before degenerating over the next few seasons.
Those were the days when Brian Anderson was the future and Derek Jeter as the PoBO in all but name could work out
Filler for Astros while awaiting return of injured starters
Phillies should be trash picking soon.
100% he has always sucked. Early in his career he had a thing for plunking Acuna.
If your team signs Jose, Urena big trouble.
Rockies new ace pitcher!
Urena could try another game, Urena football