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Anthony Kay

Cubs Outright Anthony Kay, Manuel Rodriguez

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The Cubs informed reporters that pitchers Anthony Kay and Manuel Rodríguez have each gone unclaimed on waivers (via Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune). Both players have been sent outright to Triple-A Iowa. It’s the first outright assignment for both, meaning they’ll each stay in the organization but won’t occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.

Kay’s stay on the Chicago 40-man lasted only a few weeks. The Cubs nabbed the southpaw off waivers from the Blue Jays just before Christmas but designated him for assignment last Friday after signing Trey Mancini. The moves allow them to roll the dice on a former first-round pick without dedicating a roster spot. Kay has pitched briefly at the MLB level with Toronto in each of the last four seasons. He’s only managed a 5.48 ERA through 70 2/3 career innings, plagued both by an 11.4% walk percentage and a hefty .340 batting average on balls in play against him.

The 27-year-old has shown some swing-and-miss upside amidst his early struggles. He owns a solid 23.5% strikeout percentage during his MLB time, generating whiffs on a reasonable 10.4% of his offerings. Kay has an almost identical 23.6% strikeout rate over parts of four minor league campaigns.

Rodríguez, 26, has spent his entire career with the Cubs but was designated for assignment a week ago after Chicago claimed Julian Merryweather. He nabbed a spot on the 40-man roster over the 2019-20 offseason and reached the MLB level a little over a year thereafter. The righty has pitched out of David Ross’ bullpen in each of the last two seasons. He’s worked 31 1/3 innings across 34 total appearances, posting a 4.88 ERA. That has come with concerning strikeout and walk rates (17.5% and 15%, respectively), but the sinkerballer has generated grounders at a quality 53.2% clip.

Owner of a fastball that sits in the 96-97 MPH range, Rodríguez offers an intriguing power arm the Cubs will retain at the upper levels. The native of Mexico has a 4.51 ERA through 145 2/3 minor league innings. He’s struggled to throw strikes at the lower levels as well, though he’s been far more effective in the minors at missing bats (career 31.4% strikeout percentage).

Given their respective MLB experience, Kay and Rodríguez both look likely to secure non-roster invitations to Spring Training in a few weeks. If they don’t crack the roster out of camp, they’ll each open the year as depth options in Iowa. Both players would qualify for minor league free agency at the end of next season if they’re not added back to the 40-man roster before the end of the year.

Cubs Designate Anthony Kay For Assignment

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The Cubs announced Friday that left-hander Anthony Kay has been designated for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for first baseman/outfielder Trey Mancini, whose previously reported two-year, $14MM deal is now official. The 27-year-old Kay’s stay in the organization could prove quite brief, as he was only claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays back on Dec. 23.

Kay, whom the Mets originally drafted with the No. 31 overall pick back in 2016, made his way from New York to Toronto by way of the Marcus Stroman trade and has spent parts of four seasons in the Majors with the Jays. He’s struggled in each, compiling a 5.48 ERA with a solid 23.6% strikeout rate but a bloated 11.6% walk rate in that time. Home runs have been a bit of an issue, as he’s yielded 1.27 long balls per nine frames, but he’s also been plagued by a bloated .340 average on balls in play that points to at least some degree of poor fortune. That appears especially true, given that Kay has yielded just an 87.5 mph average exit velocity and a 34.8% hard-hit rate in his career — both comfortably better than the league-average marks over the past few years.

Interestingly, it’s been fellow lefties who’ve tormented Kay to this point in his big league career. Same-handed opponents have crushed Kay to the tune of a .319/.398/638 batting line in 108 career plate appearances, while righties have hit him at a .251/.352/.390 clip. That line from right-handers is still concerning, particularly the OBP aspect, but if Kay were able to shut down lefties like so many other southpaws, he could yet develop into a serviceable bullpen option.

Kay has averaged better than 94 mph on his fastball over the past two seasons and has consistently generated above-average spin on the pitch — but opponents have still batted .301/.409/.526 against it in his career. He’s gotten far better results with his curveball (.186/.239/.326), which was perhaps part of his appeal to the Cubs in the first place.

Kay has one minor league option year remaining and was once a fairly well-regarded pitching prospect, so it’s possible another team will look to bring him into the fold via the waiver wire. The Cubs will have a week to trade him or pass him through outright waivers. If he goes unclaimed, he’ll remain with the organization and likely head to spring training as a non-roster invitee.

Cubs Claim Anthony Kay, Designate Alfonso Rivas

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The Cubs announced they’ve claimed left-hander Anthony Kay off waivers from the Blue Jays. To clear a 40-man roster spot, first baseman Alfonso Rivas was designated for assignment.

Kay lost his spot on the Toronto roster last week once the team officially signed Chris Bassitt. The 27-year-old had spent three-plus years in the organization. A former first-round draftee of the Mets, Kay was acquired alongside Simeon Woods Richardson in the 2019 trade that landed now-teammate Marcus Stroman in Queens. He’d been in Triple-A at the time and debuted at the big league level with Toronto later in the season.

The UCONN product has appeared in the bigs in four straight years, though he’s yet to top 33 2/3 innings in a season. He made only one MLB appearance in 2022, bringing him to 28 for his career. Working mostly as a multi-inning reliever, Kay has a 5.48 ERA through 70 2/3 innings. He’s fanned a solid 23.5% of opponents but walked batters at an 11.6% clip.

Kay has pitched parts of three years at Triple-A. He’s struggled to a 6.02 ERA over that stretch, thanks in large part to an 11.5% walk rate. The 2022 campaign was a particular challenge. Limited to 14 Triple-A innings by injury, he allowed 14 runs in as many innings with 15 strikeouts and 11 free passes.

While he hasn’t found much high level success to date, Kay represents an intriguing bullpen flier for the Chicago staff. He averaged 94.5 MPH with above-average spin on his fastball during his MLB outing this past season. He’s shown the ability to miss a decent number of bats and has a notable prospect pedigree, and the Cubs will work to try to iron out his control woes. He has one minor league option year remaining, so the Cubs can bounce him between Chicago and Triple-A Iowa next season if he holds his 40-man spot.

Rivas was a fourth-round pick of the Athletics in 2018. He was dealt to Chicago for Tony Kemp a year and a half later. Rivas didn’t play in 2020 because of the minor league cancelation and has spent the past two seasons in the upper levels. He’s moved between Chicago and Iowa as a depth option. He has hit well in Triple-A, posting a .300/.398/.433 line across 377 plate appearances. Rivas flashed that offensive potential at the MLB level in 2021 but stumbled to a .235/.322/.307 mark over 287 trips to the dish this year.

The left-handed hitter has shown a patient plate approach, working plenty of walks but also striking out quite a bit. That’s largely a product of the deep counts with which he’s comfortable. Rivas doesn’t have prototypical power for a player who’s limited to first base or the corner outfield, hitting four homers and six doubles in 119 big league games.

Chicago will have a week to deal Rivas or try to run him through waivers. If another team were to put in a claim or swing a small trade, they could option him to the minors for another two seasons.

Blue Jays Designate Anthony Kay For Assignment

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The Blue Jays have officially announced their signing of right-hander Chris Bassitt. To make room on the 40-man roster, left-hander Anthony Kay has been designated for assignment.

A first-round selection of the Mets in 2016, Kay was seen as a potential quick-to-the-majors starter based on the strength of his control. He underwent Tommy John surgery just a few months into his professional career, however, costing him the entire 2017 campaign. Kay returned with a new curveball to pair with his fastball-changeup combination, working his way to Triple-A by 2019.

Midway through that season, New York dealt him to the Blue Jays alongside Simeon Woods Richardson to land Marcus Stroman. Kay got to the big leagues briefly at the end of the year, making three appearances with Toronto. He’s appeared at the MLB level in each of the three subsequent seasons, though he’s yet to establish himself as a consistent presence on a big league staff.

Kay has made 28 MLB appearances, seven of which were starts. Over 70 2/3 innings, he owns a 5.48 ERA. Kay has averaged 94 MPH on his fastball and punched out a solid 23.5% of batters faced, but the plus control that was once his calling card has dipped. He’s walked nearly 12% of big league opponents, and the Jays have bounced him on and off the MLB roster the past few seasons.

Through parts of three Triple-A campaigns, the UCONN product owns a 6.02 ERA in 107 2/3 frames. He was limited to eight outings and 14 innings at that level this year, losing much of the season on the minor league injured list. Kay looked rusty in that stretch, surrendering 14 runs with 15 strikeouts and 11 walks.

Toronto will now have a week to trade Kay or place him on waivers. The 27-year-old still has a minor league option year remaining, so another team could stash him in Triple-A for a season if they’re willing to keep him on the 40-man roster. With between one and two years of MLB service, he won’t reach arbitration until after the 2024 season at the earliest.

Blue Jays Activate Julian Merryweather From Injured List

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The Blue Jays announced they’ve reinstated reliever Julian Merryweather from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Bryan Baker was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo to open active roster space, while lefty Anthony Kay was placed on the COVID-19 injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.

Merryweather is back after missing nearly five months due to a severe oblique strain. Injuries have unfortunately been frequent occurrences for the right-hander, who missed most of the 2018-19 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery and also dealt with elbow tendinitis towards the end of last season.

There’s little question about Merryweather’s ability, though. He’s long been regarded as a potential high-leverage reliever by scouts and he flashed that talent at the big league level over the season’s first few weeks. The 29-year-old struck out seven of the fourteen batters he faced, allowing just a pair of baserunners over 4 1/3 scoreless innings. His fastball averaged a stellar 98.2 MPH and he racked up swinging strikes at a 14.5% rate to earn the closer’s role early in the season. It seems unlikely manager Charlie Montoyo will immediately reinstall him into the ninth inning after such a long absence, but Merryweather has a chance to emerge as the lockdown relief ace the Jays have been seeking all year.

His return comes at a fortuitous time for the Jays, who have caught fire of late to vault themselves back into the American League Wild Card picture. Toronto is riding a six-game winning streak and has taken nine of their last ten, putting them two games back of the Red Sox and two and a half behind the Yankees. The Jays won’t face Boston again this season, but they have five more against New York — including tonight’s and tomorrow’s contests.

Blue Jays Place Cavan Biggio On Injured List, Option Anthony Kay

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The Blue Jays announced they’ve placed third baseman Cavan Biggio on the 10-day injured list with a cervical spine ligament sprain. Additionally, lefty Anthony Kay and righty Jeremy Beasley were optioned to Triple-A Buffalo. To replace that trio on the active roster, infielder Joe Panik and reliever Anthony Castro were each reinstated from the IL, while righty Ty Tice was recalled from Buffalo.

Biggio’s IL placement is the most impactful of today’s spate of transactions. The 26-year-old has started 35 of Toronto’s first 42 games, with the bulk of his work coming at the hot corner. It’s been a difficult start to the year for Biggio, who has just a .205/.315/.315 slash with three homers across 151 plate appearances. That’s a far cry from the cumulative .240/.368/.430 mark (118 wRC+) he put up between 2019-20. Biggio’s impeccable plate discipline has remained intact, but he’s made contact on a career-worst 72% of his swings this season. (The league average contact rate is 75.2%). It’s no coincidence he’s striking out at a career-high 31.1% clip.

Panik and Santiago Espinal look like the best bets to handle third in Biggio’s absence. Neither has offered much offensively over the past few years, so the Jays will be anxious for Biggio’s return. It seems reasonable to expect him back in the short-term, as Scott Mitchell of TSN tweets that Biggio’s been playing through some neck stiffness recently and the team hopes a “few days” of rest will get him past the issue.

Kay has started four of his five appearances this season. He’s been hit around for a 6.62 ERA, although his peripherals suggest he’s been a bit unlucky to allow so many runs. Kay has stranded an unsustainably low 64.7% of baserunners and opposing hitters have managed a lofty .356 batting average on balls in play against him. A few more batted balls finding gloves and/or better sequencing could’ve resulted in an ERA closer to Kay’s 4.38 SIERA. Returning to the minors will give him a chance to work on his control; the lefty has walked a too-high 12.3% of batters faced this year.

The Jays will run a bullpen game to take Kay’s spot in the rotation for now, manager Charlie Montoyo said (via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet). Top prospects Nate Pearson and Alek Manoah are each performing well in Triple-A, though, and Kay’s demotion will only fuel speculation one or both of the vaunted young arms could get a look in the big leagues relatively soon. Pearson, of course, made a brief big league debut last season, while Manoah is pitching above A-ball for the first time this year.

Blue Jays Place Kirk, Milone, Castro On 10-Day IL

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MAY 3: Kirk could miss at least six weeks, Ben Wagner of Sportsnet tweets.

MAY 2, 5:20PM: Right-hander Anthony Castro was also sent to the 10-day IL due to a forearm strain.  The severity of the strain isn’t known, though Castro did undergo Tommy John surgery earlier in his career.  Left-hander Anthony Kay was called up from the alternate training site.

11:40PM: The Blue Jays indeed decided to recall Riley Adams from Triple-A to replace Kirk on the active roster, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter).

9:10PM: The Blue Jays will make a number of roster moves today. Alejandro Kirk and Tommy Milone will head to the injured list, while Ross Stripling will return to the team, per Ben Wagner of Sportsnet (via Twitter). Presumably, with Kirk out for at least 10 days, the Blue Jays will need to add a backup to the roster for Danny Jansen.

Speculatively speaking, Reese McGuire or Juan Graterol would be the Jays’ top option, though either one would need to be added to the 40-man roster. The Jays do have an open spot on their 40-man, but they also have Riley Adams, 24, who is already on the 40-man roster and could slot into Jansen’s backup role without a 40-man move. If the Jays expect Kirk to return after a minimum stint on the IL, they might prefer to avoid the rigmarole that comes with putting the out-of-options McGuire back onto the active roster. Graterol, 32, does have an option remaining.

On the pitching side, Milone heads to the injured list after contributing 14 innings of 6.43 ERA baseball (4.09 FIP). The veteran southpaw made one start and five appearances out of the pen. Stripling will return to the rotation for the first time since being placed on the injured list with a flexor strain in mid-April. Stripling and the Blue Jays hope he can re-gain the form that made him a valuable swingman for the Dodgers from 2016 to 2019.

Blue Jays Set Opening Day Roster

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The Blue Jays announced their Opening Day, 30-man roster this morning. Left-hander Brian Moran and right-hander A.J. Cole were both selected to the 40-man roster and will make the club. Toronto also placed righty Chase Anderson on the 10-day IL (retroactive to July 20) with an oblique strain and opted to carry infielder Santiago Espinal, lefty Anthony Kay and right-handers Thomas Hatch and Jacob Waguespack.

Notably absent is right-hander Nate Pearson, one of the game’s elite pitching prospects. He’s on the team’s three-man taxi squad (along with southpaw Ryan Borucki and catcher Caleb Joseph) but won’t accrue service time in that role. He’ll reportedly be called up next week, when the Jays will be able to promote him while extending their club control of him for an additional season (as has long been expected).

Moran, 31, is the older brother of Pirates third baseman Colin Moran. He made his big league debut at 30 years of age with the Marlins last season, pitching 6 1/3 innings while yielding three runs with a 10-to-2 K/BB ratio. A seventh-round pick in 2009, Moran has had quite the odyssey to the Majors, twice taking to the independent circuit as a showcase to get back into affiliated ball. But he carries a career 3.67 ERA with 11.5 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 in 176 1/3 Triple-A frames and will now get his second opportunity in the Majors.

Cole, 28, is a former top prospect who’s yet to find his footing despite multiple MLB chances. He’s seen action with three teams in parts of five seasons but posted a pedestrian 4.86 ERA and 5.03 FIP in 174 innings. Cole had some success both with the Nats in 2017 and the Indians last year, logging identical 3.81 ERAs in both years. He’s averaged better than a strikeout per frame in the big leagues but has also surrendered an average of 1.8 homers per nine innings pitched.

The Jays don’t need to make any corresponding transactions to add Moran and Cole to the 40-man. The team recently placed Breyvic Valera on the restricted list after he was unable to leave his native Venezuela and report to Jays Summer Camp in Toronto. The club also has Brandon Drury, Jonathan Davis, Wilmer Font and Elvis Luciano on the Covid-19 IL, and none of the four will count against the team’s 40-man roster while on that list.

Blue Jays Option Anthony Kay, Sean Reid-Foley

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The Blue Jays have optioned hurlers Anthony Kay and Sean Reid-Foley, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reports on Twitter. That provides some clarity to the team’s pitching plans.

Both of these pitchers featured among the conceivable possibilities for a rotation slot. But the upgraded Toronto staff doesn’t have many openings and there are quite a few candidates. Trent Thornton and Shun Yamaguchi appear to be the front-runners.

It’s still possible that either or both will end up seeing action in the majors. They’ve each done so already, though obviously neither was able to sew up a long-term spot.

Kay, 25 tomorrow, came over in the Marcus Stroman trade. The southpaw had a few ups and downs but mostly logged good results last year in the upper minors. In 133 2/3 total frames, he worked to a 2.96 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9.

Reid-Foley is a bit younger. He has consistently produced strong strikeout numbers but hasn’t yet managed to tamp down on the free passes. In 120 2/3 innings last year at the Triple-A and MLB levels, he produced 133 strikeouts and 86 walks.

Blue Jays Notes: Ryu, Boras, Shapiro

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The Blue Jays have remade their pitching staff this winter with the additions of Hyun-Jin Ryu, Tanner Roark, Chase Anderson and Shun Yamaguchi. Along with the return on Matt Shoemaker and the development of Anthony Kay, Trent Thornton, Ryan Borucki and Nate Pearson, the Blue Jays have plenty of options for their 2020 rotation. It doesn’t come together, however, without Ryu at the top. With that in mind, let’s check in on some of the factors that brought the Korean southpaw to Toronto…

  • To remember the last time one of Scott Boras’ clients signed with the Blue Jays, he had to go all the way back to the mid-eighties. Bill Caudill signed a two-year, $2.37MM deal to play the 1985 and 1986 seasons in Toronto. Caudill is now one of a couple ex-clients to work for Boras. But until Hyun-Jin Ryu’s four-year, $80MM deal, the Blue Jays were one of Boras’ favorite teams to pick on, per the Athletic’s John Lott. It wasn’t personal, of course, Boras simply believes Toronto’s market should make them a top-10 team capable of signing top free agents while retaining their own homegrown stars – a trend he’s starting to see with the current Toronto regime. And of course, it behooves Boras to push potential large market teams to open their wallets.
  • As for Ryu’s choice to join the Blue Jays, the decision largely came down to where he wanted to raise his young family. That said, Toronto’s early and persistent interest also helped bring Ryu north of the border, per the Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath. Long-term security wasn’t necessarily a driving factor for Ryu, though securing a four-year deal for the 32-year-old certainly counts as a win for Boras. Team President Mark Shapiro spoke on Ryu’s importance to the community, saying: “It was more recognizing what an incredibly international city Toronto is, very aware of the Korean population here, both in students and business and what a tightknit community it is. And so feeling like it would be a great place for Ryu and his family to be and feeling like it would be a great synergy with Toronto and Canada, in general. That was a consideration — not a driving factor, but certainly something that we thought would make for a great alignment in the relationship moving forward.”
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