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Diamondbacks Sign J.P. Feyereisen To A Minor League Deal

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The Diamondbacks have signed right-hander J.P. Feyereisen to a minor league deal, according to an announcement from the club’s Triple-A affiliate Reno Aces.

Feyereisen, 32, was a 16th-round pick by Cleveland all the way back in 2014 but didn’t make his big league debut in the shortened 2020 season, when he made six relief appearances with the Brewers. That brief cup of coffee aside, Feyereisen’s real first crack at a significant role with Milwaukee came in 2021. The right-hander posted a solid 3.26 ERA in 19 1/3 innings with the club early in the year but was eventually shipped out to the Rays alongside Drew Rasmussen as part of the trade that brought Willy Adames to Milwaukee in May of that year.

The right-hander found another gear in Tampa and performed excellently the rest of the way, with a 2.45 ERA in 36 2/3 innings of work for an overall season ERA of 2.73 in 55 innings. Feyereisen’s peripherals left something to be desired, with a 4.21 FIP thanks primarily to a massive 14.1% walk rate. Those peripheral concerns vanished in 2022, however, as Feyereisen posted an otherworldly start to the season for Tampa. In 24 1/3 scoreless frames for the Rays to open the year, Feyereisen cut his walk rate to just 5.8% while striking out 29.1% of opponents with a 1.67 FIP and a 2.93 SIERA. It was on pace to be one of the better relief seasons in recent memory, but unfortunately Feyereisen’s campaign was cut short by a shoulder injury.

The shoulder woes eventually wiped out the right-hander’s entire 2023 campaign after he underwent surgery on his rotator cuff. While Feyereisen returned to the mound (now as a member of the Dodgers) in 2024, his results left much to be desired. Feyereisen was shelled to the tune of an 8.18 ERA in 11 innings with L.A. in the majors last year, and even in the minors he struggled to a 5.48 ERA with a strikeout rate of just 17.9%. That led the Dodgers to outright Feyereisen off their 40-man roster last July, allowing him to elect free agency back in November. He’s been on the open market since then, but will now land in Arizona and attempt to work his way back into a big league role.

The Diamondbacks have spent the offseason in search of bullpen help, but have not yet secured the lock-down closer they were hoping to find. While Feyereisen is hardly a sure thing, there’s few relievers in the game who have showed the sort of upside he flashed during his stint with the Rays. If Arizona can unlock even some of that ceiling, it’s not hard to imagine Feyereisen pitching high leverage innings for the Diamondbacks at some point this season. For now, however, the right-hander appears ticketed for Triple-A Reno where he’ll look to get his career back on track.

Jose Trevino Avoids Fracture On Right Thumb

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4:55pm: Wittenmyer reports that today’s CT scan showed no fracture, and that Trevino will likely avoid the injured list. He’s currently considered day-to-day by the club.

4:23pm: Reds catcher Jose Trevino was pulled from yesterday’s game after being struck on his throwing hand by a foul tip. As noted by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Trevino was sent for “precautionary” x-rays that came back inconclusive yesterday. MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon noted today that Trevino was being sent for a CT scan on his thumb, though results of that latest round of testing have not yet been reported.

Losing Trevino would be a devastating blow to Cincinnati, as they’ll already be without primary catcher Tyler Stephenson to start the season due to an oblique strain. That left Trevino as the club’s starting catcher to open the season, with Austin Wynns likely to slot in as the club’s backup. Acquired from the Yankees for veteran reliever Fernando Cruz over the offseason, Trevino hit a lackluster .230/.279/.361 in three seasons with the Yankees but offered a strong glove behind the plate.

If Trevino also misses time, Wynns may need to be supplemented with an external addition given the club’s lack of depth options behind the plate. Will Banfield and Michael Trautwein are both in camp as non-roster invitees, but neither has played in the majors before and each has less than 100 games of experience at even the Triple-A level. Adding a new catcher into the fold isn’t something the Reds seem keen on doing, as Wittenmyer notes that manager Terry Francona expressed a strong preference to keep the catching corps in-house.

“We don’t want to do that. I think we value guys that know our pitchers,” Francona said, as relayed by Wittenmyer. “And again, I don’t think it’s going to be a terribly long time (without Stephenson). But having somebody try to come in right now, hoo-boy, that’s a pretty big ask, trying to put down the right fingers and why you’re doing it.

An injury to Trevino could complicate that desire to avoid an external addition, particularly if Trevino requires a lengthy absence. Fortunately, the early signs seem to be positive about Trevino’s ability to play come Opening Day. Trevino himself seems confident he won’t need a trip to the injured list, as he told reporters (including Wittenmyer) that he “could play today.”

Of course, Trevino’s confidence that he can play doesn’t necessarily guarantee that he’ll avoid an injured list stint. That will surely depend to at least some extent on the results of today’s testing. If the Reds do end up needing to pursue an external option behind the plate, Yasmani Grandal is the best catcher still available in a fairly shallow market for catching talent. It’s also possible some non-roster veterans like Tucker Barnhart and Omar Narvaez could be made available in the coming weeks if they don’t break camp with their current clubs.

Marlins Claim Seth Martinez

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The Marlins have claimed right-hander Seth Martinez off the Seattle waiver wire, as announced by the Mariners.  It wasn’t known that Martinez had been designated for assignment, and Martinez only joined the Mariners on another waiver claim from Miami less than two weeks ago. The Marlins went on to announce that left-hander Andrew Nardi was placed on the 60-day injured list with low back inflammation to make room for Martinez’s return to the 40-man roster.

Martinez, 30, was drafted by the Athletics in the 17th round of the 2016 draft but has spent his entire MLB career in an Astros uniform. The right-hander made his big league debut in 2021 for an ill-fated cup of coffee where he surrendered five runs across three innings of work, but provided solid middle relief work for the Astros since then. Martinez’s 2022 season was particularly impressive, as he dominated to the tune of a 2.09 ERA across 38 2/3 innings of work with a 24.5% strikeout rate against a 9.0% walk rate. That production wasn’t entirely supported by more advanced metrics, but his 3.32 FIP and 3.56 SIERA still suggested even his underlying performance was that of a quality relief arm.

Unfortunately, Martinez has not been able to maintain that level of success in the years since. The right-hander’s 2023 campaign was something of a disaster, as he struggled to a 5.23 ERA with a 4.42 FIP in 43 innings of work. While his ERA was inflated by a below-average strand rate and a more than 100-point jump in BABIP, his walk and home run rates both crept upwards as well to make the struggles more than simple bad luck. While the luck-based factors in Martinez’s 2023 season reversed in 2024, allowing him to post a solid 3.59 ERA in 52 2/3 frames for Houston last year, his skills took a major step backward as his strikeout rate plummeted to just 16.2% while he surrendered the most home runs of his career.

Those struggles led the Astros to designate Martinez for assignment back in November, and he’s been riding the waiver wire ever since. The right-hander was first claimed by the Diamondbacks and spent most of the offseason with Arizona, but was DFA’d once again to make room for veteran hurler Kendall Graveman on the Snakes’ 40-man. He was picked up by Miami shortly thereafter and since then has been shipped to Seattle, and now will land back in Miami as a potential bullpen arm for a Marlins club with plenty of interesting rotation arms but very little certainty in their relief corps.

Things are even more unsettled in the Miami bullpen due to Nardi’s placement on the shelf. The southpaw entered camp behind schedule but the club provided little information about his situation, instead only noting that he had “some stuff flare up in the offseason.” Evidently, Nardi’s back issues are serious enough that the club does not anticipate him being ready to pitch before the end of May, an unfortunate development regarding one of the club’s better relief arms. The lefty posted an ugly 5.07 ERA in 2024, but underlying metrics suggested his performance was much stronger than that. He struck out a whopping 33.3% of opponents faced, walked just 8.6%, and kept hard contact to a minimum en route to a 2.76 xERA, a 2.77 SIERA, and a 3.33 FIP.

All of those figures were much more in line with the production Nardi posted in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.67 ERA in 57 1/3 innings of work. Given his excellent peripherals last year and previous success, Nardi seemed to be a likely candidate for a late-inning role with the Marlins this year. This injury will put that on hold for at least the season’s first couple of months, and perhaps longer depending on Nardi’s timetable for a return to action.

Jesus Sanchez To Miss At Least Four Weeks Due To Oblique Strain

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Marlins outfielder Jesus Sanchez suffered a left oblique strain during Thursday’s Grapefruit League game against the Astros, as Miami manager Clayton McCullough told reporters (including MLB.com’s Chuck King).  The injury will put Sanchez on the injured list to begin the season, and he’ll miss at least the next four weeks recovering.

That timeline is a little fluid, as McCullough said tests revealed Sanchez has somewhere between a Grade 1 and Grade 2 strain.  “That’s one of those areas and things that are kind of tricky to nail down.  Category one, you’re looking at [a return], probably optimistically…like a month from now,” McCullough said.

Given the perpetual overhaul that is the Marlins roster, Sanchez is the team’s longest-tenured position player, having played 446 games with the Fish since making his big league debut in 2020.  A top-100 prospect during his time in the minors, Sanchez has shown some flashes of that potential in the Show, but is still looking to find consistency.  His career 99 wRC+ (from a .240/.308/.428 slash line and 59 home runs) reflects how Sanchez has ultimately been pretty average, and his career slash just about matched his numbers during a 100 wRC+ season in 2024.

Sanchez had settled into a regular role as Miami’s right fielder over the last two years, and was projected to again get the bulk of the work in right in 2025, though the Fish were considering giving him more looks in center field.  These plans will now be put on hold until Sanchez is healthy, and his absence creates a hole in the Marlins’ outfield.

Recent reports indicated that Derek Hill was pulling ahead of Dane Myers for the regular center field job, though Myers might now be utilized in right field with Sanchez out.  Griffin Conine and utilitymen Javier Sanoja and Eric Wagaman provide further depth on the grass, and Albert Almora Jr. is more of a veteran outfield option in camp on a minors contract.

Since the Marlins are in clear rebuild mode, it is worth noting that this injury might also impact Sanchez’s trade value, even if there isn’t any indication that he wouldn’t be back in plenty of time before the July 31 trade deadline.  Sanchez is in his first year of arbitration eligibility and is earning a $4.5MM salary for the 2025 season, making him the second-priciest player on the Miami roster apart from Sandy Alcantara.

Tigers Working Out Spencer Torkelson As An Outfielder

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Parker Meadows and Matt Vierling will both be starting the season on the Tigers’ injured list, while Wenceel Perez is also a bit of a question mark after he received a cortisone shot to deal with a lingering back problem.  With so many absences already in the Detroit outfield, the team is getting creative in looking for answers, as manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including the Detroit Free Press’ Jeff Seidel) that Spencer Torkelson has been getting in some outfield work, and will play right field in the Tigers’ game with the Pirates on Monday.

Hinch made it clear that Torkelson will get “just a sprinkle” of time in right field and “you’re not going to see him out there routinely….but we’d like it to be part of the availability in game work.”  Even if the Tigers still view Torkelson as a first base/DH candidate, adding some versatility obviously can’t hurt his overall resume, plus it presents another avenue to get his bat into the lineup.

Torkelson played some outfield during his summer league days and at college at Arizona State, but since being selected first overall in the 2020 draft, Torkelson has played only third and first base as a professional.  Nevertheless, Torkelson is “excited for an opportunity” in a new role, and is happy to help the team as much as possible: “We had really key players kind of go down this spring, and…in the time being, we got to find ways to compete and win, and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Despite his top-prospect status, Torkelson has yet to really get going at the MLB level, as he followed up a promising 2023 campaign with a borderline disastrous 2024.  Torkelson hit only .219/.295/.374 over 381 plate appearances, though his offense did pick up after he returned to the Tigers following a Triple-A stint of over two and a half months.  After Detroit signed Gleyber Torres this winter and subsequently moved Colt Keith from second to first base, there was speculation that Torkelson might even be a trade chip, as the Tigers seemed to be squeezing him into a part-time DH role at best.

However, Torkelson has been on a tear at the plate this spring, perhaps helping his chances at a more regular turn in a DH role.  Torkelson’s case for playing time has been helped by the fact that he is one of relatively few right-handed hitters within a Tigers lineup that tilts heavily to the left, plus the outfield injuries could mean that Kerry Carpenter gets more work in right field than at DH.  Torkelson himself now could be considered for the occasional cameo in right field as situations warrant.

It now seems possible we could get the unlikely combination of Torkelson in right field and Javier Baez in center field at some point during a game, which speaks to the depth issues that have been caused by this sudden spate of outfield injuries.  Chances are that Detroit will simply lean more on utilitymen Andy Ibanez or Zach McKinstry to fill holes while Meadows and Vierling are out, but finding more versatility on the bench (even from unexpected sources) is now a must

Jon Gray Suffers Wrist Fracture

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TODAY: A clear recovery timetable hasn’t yet been determined for Gray, but president of baseball operations Chris Young told Kennedi Landry and other media that Gray will indeed be out for an “extended time.”  It will be at least six weeks before Gray is even cleared to start throwing, so it seems like Texas will be placing him on the 60-day IL at some point before Opening Day.

MARCH 14: Rangers starter Jon Gray sustained a broken right wrist during this evening’s Spring Training appearance, manager Bruce Bochy tells Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News and other reporters. Gray was struck by a Michael Toglia line drive that had a 106.4 MPH exit velocity (video provided by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com).

Bochy didn’t provide specifics on a return timeline. Gray is obviously going to begin the season on the injured list and will probably be down for a while. It’s the worst of a handful of pitching injuries for Texas this spring. They announced just yesterday that presumptive fifth starter Cody Bradford was going to begin the season on the injured list after experiencing elbow soreness. An MRI came back clean, but the team is going to be cautious with any level of elbow pain.

Tyler Mahle was scratched from his start earlier this week with forearm soreness. Imaging didn’t reveal any problems and he’ll begin throwing in the coming days. Still, that may require a season-opening IL stint — especially since Mahle just returned from Tommy John surgery midway through 2024.

That placed a lot of emphasis on Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Gray to stay healthy. The season-opening rotation now likely comprises deGrom, Eovaldi, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Mahle would round out the group if he can avoid the IL. They otherwise could push expected long reliever Dane Dunning back into the rotation or turn to veteran ground-ball specialist Adrian Houser, who is in camp on a minor league deal. Houser has tossed eight innings of two-run ball with three strikeouts and walks apiece this spring. He allowed a near-6.00 ERA over 69 1/3 innings for the Mets last season.

The rotation’s durability is arguably the biggest question for Texas. deGrom and Eovaldi are 36 and 35, respectively. deGrom has made 35 starts over the last four years. Eovaldi has mostly been durable recently, but he has twice undergone Tommy John surgery in his career. Rocker underwent the same procedure in May 2023. He pitched fewer than 50 innings between the minors and his three-start MLB debut late last season.

Texas will probably look to add minor league rotation depth as veterans opt out of contracts with other teams in the coming weeks. It’s less likely that they’ll make an MLB signing. The Rangers were clear all offseason that they wanted to keep their luxury tax payroll below the $241MM base threshold. RosterResource projects them around $236MM at the moment. Salary acquired in-season via waivers or trade would add to that on a prorated basis. It’d be a surprise if ownership approves going beyond the tax line to sign a free agent starter like Spencer Turnbull or old friends Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn. With less than two weeks until Opening Day, none of those pitchers are likely to be game ready for the start of the regular season.

Cody Bradford To Start Season On Injured List

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TODAY: Bradford won’t throw for at least four weeks, Young told Kennedi Landry and other reporters today.  This new timeline likely sidelines Bradford until well into May, as he’ll need plenty of time to rebuild his arm strength once he is cleared to throw.

MARCH 13: Rangers left-hander Cody Bradford is going to start the season on the 15-day injured list. Manager Bruce Bochy passed the news along to reporters, including Kennedi Landry of MLB.com. The southpaw has had some soreness in his throwing elbow lately. Thankfully, a recent MRI came back clean, but the club will shut him down for ten days to see how he reacts.

The timeline is fairly uncertain apart from that, as it will depend how Bradford feels after his shutdown period. If he is cleared to throw again in ten days, he will presumably need a few rehab outings to get back into game shape. IL stints can be backdated three days, so it’s theoretically possible Bradford could rejoin the club 12 days into the season if he’s healthy by then, though no one really knows how possible that is.

“I can’t tell you if this is something that’s going to linger and last longer than a day or two to get the soreness knocked out,” president of baseball operations Chris Young said. “We did take the necessary steps in terms of evaluating. He’s been in touch with Dr. [Keith] Meister [team physician] back in Texas. We are going to shut him down for a few days and see how this goes. Hopefully the time off will allow it to calm down. But anytime the pitcher has pain in the elbow, it’s concerning.”

Over the past two years, Bradford logged 132 1/3 innings for the Rangers, allowing 4.28 earned runs per nine. Last year, a low back strain cost him most of the first half but he finished the year having made 13 starts and one relief appearance, posting a 3.54 ERA. His 22.7% strikeout rate was around league average while his 4.2% walk rate was excellent. That would have lined him up for a rotation spot this year if he were healthy, but he’ll have to focus on his health for the time being.

The Rangers have another starter with a nebulous timeline. Tyler Mahle was scratched from a start earlier this week due to forearm soreness. Like Bradford, his MRI came back clean. He is expected to throw again in a few days, so perhaps his situation is a bit less serious than that of Bradford, though more updates will likely be forthcoming in the next week or so.

For the Opening Day rotation, the Rangers have three spots taken by Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray and Jacob deGrom. Mahle will have a fourth spot if he can get in game shape in the next couple of weeks. That leaves one or perhaps two spots for Jack Leiter and/or Kumar Rocker.

Between the two prospects and former Vanderbilt rotation mates, Rocker finished 2024 with more steam. He came back from Tommy John surgery and tossed 36 2/3 innings in the minors with a 1.96 ERA, 39.6% strikeout rate, 3.6% walk rate and 52.6% ground ball rate. He then posted a 3.86 ERA in his first three big league starts. Leiter, meanwhile, had an 8.83 ERA in his first 35 2/3 MLB innings.

But Leiter has had the stronger showing in camp, with a 2.53 ERA over his four appearances. His 14.6% walk rate is certainly high but he’s also punched out 31.7% of batters faced in that small sample. Rocker allowed eight earned runs in two official spring innings, though as detailed by Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News, he then pitched in an unofficial backfield game which went much better. If Mahle is healthy, the Rangers might have to make a tricky decision between the two, though both might nab rotation spots if Mahle will also need to miss some time.

Brewers Considering Brice Turang At Shortstop, Joey Ortiz At Second Base

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Once Willy Adames officially ended his Brewers tenure by signing with the Giants, the conventional wisdom was that Joey Ortiz would move from third base take over the shortstop position, as Ortiz had been a standout defensive shortstop during his time in the Orioles’ farm system.  Indeed, Ortiz got the bulk of looks at shortstop for most of Spring Training, but in recent days, the Brewers have been going with a new alignment of Ortiz at second base, and Brice Turang moving from the keystone over to shortstop.

Manager Pat Murphy stressed that the situation was still very much in flux, telling MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy and other reports that “We haven’t made a final decision.  I haven’t made a final decision.  I really believe in looking at all of it, taking in all the information and listening to others.  I was dead set on, ’Turang is going to be our second baseman, and Ortiz can handle short.’ I still believe that.  But, then we toyed with this new setup and I was like, ’This might be better for everybody.’ ”

There is nothing stopping the experimentation from continuing into the regular season, though McCalvy writes that the team wants “Turang and Ortiz set at their positions as much as possible, rather than moving around.”  Milwaukee used 108 different defensive lineups during the 2024 season, yet the cornerstones of that shifting lineup were Adames at shortstop, Turang at second base, William Contreras at catcher, and Ortiz with 124 of the starts at third base.  Ortiz did make six appearances at second base last year, as well as one appearance as a shortstop.

Turang was a Gold Glove and Platinum Glove winner last season as a second baseman, with public defensive metrics (+22 Defensive Runs Saved, +6 Outs Above Average, +2.1 UZR/150) all wowed by his work at the position.  Ortiz was also excellent at third base, posting +8 DRS, +11 OAA, and a +5.0 UZR/150 in 1098 1/3 innings at the hot corner.  Against this backdrop of success, the Brewers naturally face some risk in rocking the boat too much on what is already a strong defensive alignment, even if there seems to be little doubt that Turang or Ortiz would adapt well to new positions.

In explaining why Ortiz might be an ideal fit at second base, Murphy noted that “We ask our second basemen to do a lot.  What I mean by that is when you play the middle of the diamond the way we play our second basemen for most all right-handed hitters, and the ground we ask them to cover, it’s not too awfully different than short.  The number of times you end up throwing a ball from the outfield to a base, the number of times you end up directing a ball in a first-and-third steal situation, the number of times you wind up touching the ball because you’re turning two.”

As for third base, Oliver Dunn has been making a strong bid for the job with a big Cactus League performance.  Dunn made his MLB debut last season and hit .221/.282/.316 over 104 plate appearances, playing primarily as a third baseman before a back injury cut short his season in mid-June.

Dunn is a left-handed hitter, so Caleb Durbin (acquired from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade) was thought to be the top candidate for at least a platoon role at the hot corner.  However, Durbin hasn’t hit much this spring, while an unheralded option in Vinny Capra has been tearing the cover off the ball.  Capra has a .439 OPS over all of 37 career PA at the big league level, and his .271/.366/.384 career slash line in 984 Triple-A plate appearances is uninspiring but respectable.  Because Capra is out of minor league options, the Brewers would have to sneak him through waivers in order to send him down to Triple-A, which might help his chances of breaking camp with the team if the decision is made to give Durbin more seasoning in the minors.

Brandon Nimmo Limited By Right Knee Soreness

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Brandon Nimmo played in his second Spring Training game on Thursday, serving the Mets’ designated hitter against the Red Sox.  It was Nimmo’s first on-field action in over a week, as right knee soreness and a gel injection to battle inflammation kept the outfielder on the sidelines.  The Mets were already taking Nimmo’s ramp-up slowly in a nod to the plantar fasciitis issue that bothered him for much of 2024, yet Nimmo told the New York Post’s Dan Martin and other reporters that his left foot is no longer much of a concern, or at least less of a concern than his knee.

In terms of what created the knee issue, Nimmo feels a swing adjustment he made this spring added some extra stress on his joint.  He also cited some longstanding MCL and cartilage damage based on a torn ACL Nimmo suffered 15 years ago when he was a high school football player.  While Nimmo has had plenty of injury problems during his baseball career, his right knee has been pretty stable until now.

At the moment, Nimmo said he is only able to run at about 80 percent of his normal level.  “For sure, there’s definitely still some soreness [and] still some pain when I get above those levels,” Nimmo said.  “We try to keep things at a controlled level of pain.  Up to a certain threshold is OK, but if you go much past that, then you do more damage than you’re trying to gain.”

The plan is for Nimmo to get into the “90-95 percent” range before he starts to focus on more high-impact outfield activity, beyond tracking balls and other light drills.  Anything less, and Nimmo feels he could be putting both his knee and the Mets’ outfield defense at risk.  In terms of overall readiness, both Nimmo and manager Carlos Mendoza were cautiously optimistic that Nimmo should be ready for Opening Day in at least a DH capacity.

The Mets have already been hit hard by injuries this spring, as Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Francisco Alvarez, and Jeff McNeil will all start the season on the injured list, and Nick Madrigal’s season has probably already been ended by shoulder surgery.  A DH-only version of Nimmo wouldn’t help with this lack of depth, though Jesse Winker or Tyrone Taylor could step into left field in the interim.  If Nimmo is limited just to DH, however, it could crowd Starling Marte out of more at-bats.

Latest On Erik Swanson

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Blue Jays reliever Erik Swanson is dealing with a median nerve entrapment in his throwing arm, as the Jays announced to MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson and other reporters yesterday.  Swanson received a cortisone shot to deal with the issue, and won’t throw for a few days while the shot takes effect.

It still seems likely that this setback is enough to put Swanson on the injured list at the beginning of the season, as was related last week when Swanson reported discomfort in his throwing elbow.  An MRI came back clean without any sign of structural damage, so Swanson has at least avoided any kind of longer-term elbow problem.

A median nerve entrapment (which is related to carpal tunnel syndrome) isn’t exactly a small matter since nerve issues have no set recovery timeline.  On the plus side, there hasn’t been any indication that Swanson might miss any great amount of time, even if a more concrete plan might not be known until the right-hander starts throwing again.

Acquired from the Mariners in the 2022-2023 offseason, Swanson was outstanding in his first year in Toronto, but injuries contributed to a rough start to his 2024 campaign.  Swanson dealt with some forearm tightness during last year’s Spring Training and a subsequent IL stint delayed his start to the season, and he then struggled so badly over his first 18 appearances that he was sent to Triple-A.  Swanson returned to the big leagues after the All-Star break and then seemed like his old self, making for some rather glaring splits — a 9.20 ERA in 14 2/3 innings in the first half and a 2.55 ERA over 24 2/3 frames in the second half.

Given the dismal state of Toronto’s bullpen last season, the Blue Jays badly need Swanson to stay healthy and fully bounce back to his past form as a key setup man.  New signing Jeff Hoffman looks to be in line for the closer’s job, with Chad Green, Yimi Garcia, Nick Sandlin, and Swanson all lined up for high-leverage work.

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