Today: The Blue Jays officially announced Ureña’s one-year major league contract on Monday and optioned Josh Walker to Triple-A to open a space on the active roster. To make room for Ureña and fellow free agent signing Spencer Turnbull on the 40-man, the Blue Jays transferred Max Scherzer and Erik Swanson to the 60-day injured list. This pushes back Scherzer’s and Swanson’s return timelines to late May at the earliest.
May 3: The Blue Jays have agreed to a major league contract with right-hander José Ureña, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. This signing comes on the heels of the news that Toronto has also agreed to terms with right-hander Spencer Turnbull.
Ureña, 33, signed a minor league contract with the Mets in February. While he failed to make the Opening Day roster out of camp, he made three starts at Triple-A Syracuse and earned a promotion when the Mets needed an extra arm in late April. However, he struggled badly in his one appearance, giving up five earned runs in three innings, and the Mets DFA’d him two days later. The Blue Jays, desperately in need of pitching depth, pounced quickly, signing the righty less than two days after he elected free agency. Unlike Turnbull, who has not pitched in a game since a lone minor league rehab appearance last September, Ureña should be ready to contribute to the major league team right away.
Now in his 11th big league season, Ureña has been one of the league’s more prolific swingmen throughout his career. Since his debut in 2015, he is one of just two pitchers with at least 150 starts and 75 relief appearances. With a career 4.80 ERA and 4.92 SIERA, he has never been much more than an innings eater, but an innings eater is certainly something the Blue Jays could use right now.
Toronto entered the 2025 season with a rotation of Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt, Max Scherzer, and Bowden Francis. Yariel Rodríguez, who started 21 games in his rookie season, moved to the bullpen. As a result, when Scherzer hit the IL with an injured thumb after his first start of the season, the Blue Jays were left with very little rotation depth. Easton Lucas crumbled after two strong starts. Similarly, long-man Paxton Schultz hit a wall in his second big league appearance after turning heads with a dominant debut. Eric Lauer was solid in his first appearance for the Jays, but he’s hardly a reliable long-term answer. Top prospect Jake Bloss, who struggled in three big league starts with Houston last season, has also struggled at Triple-A. Thus, general manager Ross Atkins made it clear on Friday that he was looking to add rotation depth in free agency. He quickly made good on his word this morning, signing both Ureña and Turnbull to major league deals. Turnbull has the much higher ceiling of the two, but Ureña is a more immediate solution. There is a good chance he will make at least a couple of starts, but he can also offer relief to a bullpen that has been cycling through arms all season.
Why? They just signed Turnbull (which makes sense). The only thing I can think of is long man from the pen but that’s kind of what Rodriguez was supposed to be.
He’ll pitch a few garbage time innings like Casey Lawrence then get cut
Isn’t that what the minor league deals are for?
To be clear, not pressed about this at all it’s whatever. Just curious.
Let me explain. If a player doesn’t sign in spring training or at the end of st, they will get optioned to get used to throwing or hitting again since they dint get spring training
This is a Major League deal.
Shapiro teams have always been: “Fluid”.
Urena probably slides into rotation now while Turnbull goes to AAA for a few starts to ramp up
It’ll be a smart move(considering he hasn’t pitched in almost 7 months)
Urena’s no longer an MLB starter. 2 inning guy. Turnbull would be a starter. That is why. If the Jays think about stretching Urena as a starter they are crazy.
Supposed to be doesn’t mean he’s effective!! He never comes in without giving up a run…
Even “Little” is doing poorly , walking the bases full causing us to lose games… He almost always walks two batters every outing!!
For done ungodly reason , Schneider drools over him, but he’s lost us four games with his pitching. He’s always pitching “not to lose” instead of pitching to win
Mets legend.
Career 15.00 ERA with the Mets. He will be the answer to trivia questions for years to come.
Stretching out my arm in case the Blue Jays call. They clearly are collecting arms this morning.
If Gausman has to navigate any more stairs in the dugout they may need to collect another….
I have a long and lengthy question regarding this transaction:
Why?
In Nancy Kerrigan voice!
More bandaids from the Lousy GM shapiro and his lackie….
He is not the GM.
He should have signed Roger Clemons right…..in May…..
All your former Tigers are belong to us
That’s definitely some Donald Dump English. Nice work!
It’s a reference to the Japanese video game “Zero Wing”, actually.
That’s not true. Robbie ray and Justin Verlander you don’t own
TBF they did own Ray and Verlander has said he almost signed in Toronto multiple times.
Loading up on multiple (add Lauer to mix earlier) guys with some upside that collectively will fill a spot in rotation thru the rest of the year. Not a bad plan so long as the money is cheap. One of the 3 might hit a hot streak even.
Urena has no upside
bucsfan0004, Clearly you’re wrong because he just got signed…
So the Jays are on a “Let’s sign some former decent ML pitchers that have regressed to a point that they’re hanging on by their fingernails after being cut by multiple ML teams in recent years for poor performance…..and we’re going to rehab them”.
That’s nice. Shapiro teams are marketing-oriented. All teams do the above every year…although it usually starts in Spring Training.
Reworking failed pitchers is hardly a new strategy. Almost all teams give some a shot – which is what recent previous employers did for these 2 guys. I read here from Jays fans that head pitching coach – Peter Walker – is one of the best. OK……
The Jays currently rank 19th in ML team ERA, and ranked 22nd in 2024. They’ve had problems with their bullpen for years….and MLB is now a bullpen game. The bullpen is the most volatile component of a ML baseball team. It’s also the easiest to fix. Pitchers that have so-so stuff are skinnied down to 1-3 pitches – usually 2 – and work to perfect them. They may hold for a bit, then lose it. Some come back a year or two later then lose it again. The good ones can be successful for years.
The reality of MLB being a bullpen game today: Teams usually use at least 3 bullpen pitchers a game. The danger is that one having a bad day can come in and lose the game….and the rule change states that a relief pitcher in MLB must face a minimum of three batters or pitch to the end of a half-inning before being replaced, with exceptions for injuries and illnesses.
SOS
It would be easier building a bullpen if they scouted, drafted and developed better. They haven’t. Even roster assembly has been a problem, whether it was 2021 trying to use anyone but their best bullpen arms to close or trying to rid themselves of guys like Romano and Baker because they weren’t “our guys”. Jays were lucky Texas didn’t keep Romano after the rule 5 pick.
Bat short, bullpen arm short. Resulted in a bad loss today.
I guess at this point, they’re just plugging holes. Their starters SIERA is 3.98, which is still slightly below the league average of 4.03, so it’s not terrible either. Even their BABIP sits around .278, which might regress to the league average of .287, but not significant enough of a difference to be of concern.
The BlueJays brass are desperate and throwing dice. It kinda of a joke for me to watch them try to build a starting pitching staff over the years. Alphonse and Gaston. Good signing at least for now of Hoffman and Garcia in the relief corps.
I do like the lineup thing they did with Santander. The Springer resurgence has drastically helped. Gimenez needs minor league swing rebuilding. And Straw is Straw – great defence but a light hitter. Hopefully Varsho will keep it going. On the hitting side they will be fine.
Wrt Giminez, that’s sure not to happen. On his glove alone he’s a 2-3 win 2Bman, and at the plate his underlying numbers are nearly all at his career rates or better:
K rate’s a little high for him but still better than the MLB average, his BB rate is a career high, HH rate and EV are also career highs, albeit not by a ton.
Everything about his hitting profile looks like what they traded for or a little better than that, with only his BABIP that’s off, .200 in 2025 vs a career figure of .298, pointing directly to bad luck
Normalize his BABIP to his career rate of .304 fr 2020-2024 and instead of hitting .177 in 2025 his BA would be .253, or almost exactly where it was in 2023 and 2024 with very similar HR and XBH rates.
The good news at the plate is he should be fine. The bad news for the Jays is that he doesn’t have a wicked fastball-slider-change arsenal.
20+ comments for a guy who’s an upgrade to the pitching machine? C’mon people.
Blue Jays have a pitching machine in development that is designed to miss torpedo bats. It is at the AAA level now and should be called up at the trade deadline!