The Blue Jays outrighted Nick Sandlin off the 40-man roster, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction tracker. Sandlin has over three years of service time and will surely elect free agency in the coming days.
It’s effectively an early non-tender of the righty reliever. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Sandlin for a $2MM salary if he were tendered an arbitration contract. That’s not a huge amount, but the Jays soured on his future enough that they didn’t want to lock him into a middle relief role going into next season.
This drops their roster count from 38 to 37. Teams need to decide which eligible prospects they want to keep out of the Rule 5 draft by Tuesday evening. The Jays have an extra spot available than they would have had if they’d waited until Friday’s non-tender deadline to make the cut.
Toronto acquired Sandlin as a secondary piece of last winter’s Andrés Giménez trade. The Southern Mississippi product had pitched to a 3.27 earned run average over parts of four seasons in Cleveland. Sandlin never had great control, but he missed a good number of bats behind a plus slider and a promising splitter. The Jays hoped he could take on a higher-leverage role after being more of a sixth/seventh inning type in a loaded Cleveland bullpen.
Injuries kept that from happening. Sandlin went down three weeks into the season with a lat strain. He returned in mid-June but was shut back down after nine appearances by elbow inflammation. The latter injury ended his year. Sandlin tossed 16 1/3 innings overall. He gave up seven runs (four earned) with 16 strikeouts and eight walks. He recorded five holds and a save but also surrendered three leads.
Sandlin’s stuff was diminished. He averaged career lows on both his slider (78.4 MPH) and four-seam fastball (91.4). While he has never been a flamethrower, his heater was in the 94-95 MPH range during his rookie season and sat between 92-93 last year. Other teams evidently share the Jays’ concerns about the diminished velocity. Sandlin cleared waivers, suggesting no club wanted to take a flier and tender him at that projected $2MM price.
That trade sure looks suspect now. They gave up Horwitz, their second best hitter of 2024 who was cheap and under team control til 2031 in exchange for a badly overpaid glove only player and a solid reliever.
Part of the value of taking on a glove only player with a bloated salary was also getting a solid reliever to help the bullpen. They’ve just straight up dumped the reliever so now they’re stuck with that glove only bloated contract and no reward for it.
I think the Jays are happy with GG defence at short going forward
Horwitz is a good player, wish him well!
he was overly redundant on the Jays 40 man
I’m sure they’d love to have gold glove defense at short.
Gimenez has 3 gold gloves, all of them at 2nd. He has 67 DRS for his career at 2nd and 6 DRS at SS for his career.
He’s respectable at short. He’s not a gold glover there.
compared to BoBa Chette he is a GG wrapped in platinum covered in sprinkles and glitter
And compared to Bo’s bat, he’s a minor leaguer getting ready to be cut.
The real question will be what to do with Bo if he re-signs. Jays can NOT put him back at short. He doesn’t really have a 3B arm and his lack of range/speed make other options compromises, too.
Honestly, his best non-ego position is DH …with minimal occasional rotation through IF positions. That said, he may be on his next contract before he agrees to anything like that.
The Jays would have lost the ALCS without Gimenez. That trade has already worked out for Toronto. The money doesn’t matter, it’s not handcuffing them.
They don’t have unlimited funds. The money does matter. It could stop them from offering as much as they otherwise could to resign Bo or whomever else they may be targeting.
They aren’t poor, but they also don’t have Dodger money.
@yick04
They’re going to be paying Giminez 78M over the next 4 years. He has good defense but a bat that is 30% below league average. Finding a glove only middle IF for half of that or less isn’t a Herculean lift. That ~20M would go a long way towards adding a top of the line starter.
As far as playing the alternative history game. The Jays would have won the world series with Horowitz on the team.
Gimenez’s glove is more valuable than Horwitz’s bat.
@C-Daddy
A 70 wRC+ is for all intents and purposes is unplayable in the Majors. At best Giminez is a bench player while his AAV is that of a starter.
Sorry to see it. I’ve always assumed he and I are related.