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Trent Thornton

American League Non-Tenders: 11/21/25

By Anthony Franco | November 21, 2025 at 4:22pm CDT

Every American League team has officially announced their non-tender decisions. It was a quiet evening in terms of subtractions, with only the Rangers parting with any marquee players. All players who were non-tendered are free agents without going on waivers. A few teams dropped pre-arbitration players from the back of the 40-man roster. It’s possible they preferred not to expose them to waivers and are hopeful of re-signing them to non-roster deals.

Here’s a full list of today’s activity in the AL, while the National League moves are available here. All projected salaries are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

  • The Angels announced they’ve non-tendered outfielder Gustavo Campero and catcher Sebastian Rivero. Campero is a depth outfielder who has hit .202/.272/.346 over the past two seasons. Rivero operated as the club’s third catcher for most of the season but spent the final few weeks on the active roster. Neither player had been eligible for arbitration. All their arb-eligible players were easy calls to retain.
  • The Astros technically made one non-tender, dropping infielder Ramón Urías after he was designated for assignment earlier in the week. He’d been projected at $4.4MM.
  • The Athletics officially non-tendered outfielder JJ Bleday, the club announced. He’d been designated for assignment on Tuesday, so this was inevitable unless they found a trade partner. Bleday had been projected at $2.2MM.
  • The only non-tenders for the Red Sox were first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and reliever Josh Winckowski, each of whom had been designated for assignment on Tuesday. Lowe was projected at $13.5MM, while Winckowski was at $800K.
  • The Guardians non-tendered outfielder Will Brennan and relievers Sam Hentges and Nic Enright. The latter had been designated for assignment on Tuesday. Hentges hasn’t pitched since undergoing shoulder surgery in September 2024. He underwent a right knee procedure a few months ago and will be delayed this offseason. Brennan only appeared in six MLB games this year and underwent Tommy John surgery while in the minors in June. He’d been projected at $900K.
  • The Mariners non-tendered reliever Gregory Santos, reports Francys Romero. He’d only been projected at $800K, narrowly above the MLB minimum, so the move was about dropping him from the 40-man roster. Seattle acquired the 26-year-old righty from the White Sox over the 2023-24 offseason. He has only made 16 MLB appearances with a 5.02 earned run average over the past two years because of lat and knee injuries. Seattle also non-tendered relievers Trent Thornton and Tayler Saucedo (the latter of whom was designated for assignment on Tuesday). Thornton had been projected at $2.5MM and is coming off a 4.68 ERA through 33 appearances. He suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in August.
  • The Orioles non-tendered swingman Albert Suárez, the team announced. Everyone else in their arbitration class was offered a contract, surprisingly including first baseman Ryan Mountcastle (as first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan). Suárez, 36, was a solid depth starter in 2024. He was limited to five MLB appearances this past season by a flexor strain but is not expected to require surgery.
  • The Rangers non-tendered each of Adolis García, Jonah Heim, Josh Sborz and Jacob Webb. MLBTR covered those moves in greater detail.
  • The Rays only non-tendered outfielders Christopher Morel and Jake Fraley, each of whom had been designated for assignment earlier in the week. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times reported last night that the Rays were open to bringing back Fraley at a lower price than his $3.6MM arbitration projection.
  • The Royals non-tendered outfielder MJ Melendez and reliever Taylor Clarke, per a club announcement. Melendez, who’d been projected at $2.65MM, was an obvious decision. The former top prospect never developed as hoped and is a career .215/.297/.388 hitter over parts of four seasons. Clarke isn’t as big a name but comes as the more surprising cut. He’d been projected at just $1.9MM and is coming off a 3.25 ERA with a 21.4% strikeout rate over 55 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.
  • The Tigers are non-tendering utility player Andy Ibáñez, according to Romero. He’d been projected at $1.8MM. The righty-hitting Ibáñez had been a solid short-side platoon bat for Detroit between 2023-24. His production against southpaws dropped this year (.258/.311/.403), limiting his value. The Tigers optioned the 32-year-old to Triple-A in early June and kept him in the minors until shortly before the trade deadline. Detroit also dropped the six pitchers they’d designated for assignment earlier in the week: Tanner Rainey, Dugan Darnell, Tyler Mattison, Jason Foley, Jack Little and Sean Guenther.
  • The only Twins non-tender was outfielder DaShawn Keirsey Jr., who’d been designated for assignment this morning to make room for the Alex Jackson trade. Everyone in the arbitration class was brought back.
  • The White Sox non-tendered outfielder Mike Tauchman, as first reported by Bruce Levine of 670 The Score. The lefty hitter turned in a solid .263/.356/.400 line in 93 games this past season. Tauchman has gotten on base at plus rates in three straight years but was also non-tendered by the Cubs a year ago. The 34-year-old (35 next month) had been projected for a $3.4MM salary. The Sox also announced they’ve dropped lefty reliever Cam Booser and first baseman Tim Elko. Neither had been eligible for arbitration. The former posted a 5.52 ERA in 39 appearances after being acquired from the Red Sox last winter, while the latter hit .134 in his first 23 MLB games despite a 26-homer season in Triple-A.
  • The Yankees announced five non-tenders. Relievers Mark Leiter Jr., Scott Effross, Jake Cousins and Ian Hamilton were all cut loose, as was pre-arbitration righty Michael Arias. Leiter, who’d been projected at $3MM, never clicked in the Bronx after being acquired at the 2024 deadline. He posted a 4.89 ERA in 70 innings as a Yankee. Hamilton, Effross and Cousins were all projected just above the MLB minimum but are cut to clear roster space. Hamilton was on and off the active roster and posted a 4.28 ERA in 40 big league frames this year. Effross was limited to 11 appearances and has been plagued by various injuries for the past three and a half years, while Cousins is working back from Tommy John surgery. Arias has never pitched in the big leagues and could be brought back on a minor league deal.

The Blue Jays tendered contracts to all unsigned players on the 40-man roster.

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Athletics Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox Chicago White Sox Cleveland Guardians Detroit Tigers Houston Astros Kansas City Royals Los Angeles Angels Minnesota Twins New York Yankees Seattle Mariners Tampa Bay Rays Texas Rangers Toronto Blue Jays Transactions Albert Suarez Andy Ibanez Cam Booser Christopher Morel DaShawn Keirsey Jr. Dugan Darnell Gregory Santos Gustavo Campero Ian Hamilton J.J. Bleday Jack Little Jake Cousins Jake Fraley Jason Foley Josh Winckowski MJ Melendez Mark Leiter Jr. Michael Arias Mike Tauchman Nathaniel Lowe Nic Enright Ramon Urias Sam Hentges Scott Effross Sean Guenther Sebastian Rivero Tanner Rainey Tayler Saucedo Taylor Clarke Tim Elko Trent Thornton Tyler Mattison Will Brennan

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Mariners Select Sauryn Lao

By Darragh McDonald | August 19, 2025 at 3:10pm CDT

The Mariners announced a series of roster moves today, including the previously-reported reinstatement of Bryce Miller from the 15-day injured list. They also selected the contract of fellow righty Sauryn Lao. To open active roster spots for those two, righties Jackson Kowar and Casey Legumina were both optioned to Triple-A Tacoma. To open a 40-man spot for Lao, righty Trent Thornton has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Last night, Seattle starter Logan Gilbert had a surprisingly rough start. He lasted only two innings against the Phillies but not before allowing six runs. To get through the rest of the game, the M’s got three innings from Carlos Vargas, two from Legumina and one from Kowar. Legumina tossed 38 pitches and Kowar 30.

Miller is starting tonight and it’s unclear how much length he can give. He has been on the IL for over two months due to elbow inflammation. He got to 5 2/3 innings and 76 pitches in his most recent rehab start. It’s possible he could give the M’s something like that tonight but there’s also some natural uncertainty. To freshen up the bullpen behind Miller, the M’s have sent out Kowar and Legumina to bring in Lao.

Lao was selected to the roster in April. He got to make his major league debut on April 22nd, tossing one and two thirds scoreless innings. He was optioned to the minors the next day and designated for assignment a week later. He cleared outright waivers, allowing the Mariners to bring him back in a non-roster capacity.

Interestingly, the M’s have been stretching him out in Triple-A, even though he’s primarily been a reliever throughout his career. He has thrown 66 innings over 21 appearances this year with a flat earned run average of 3.00. He has struck out 26.3% of batters faced while limiting walks to a 6.7% clip. That should allow him to provide the M’s with multiple innings of relief, if needed.

As for Thornton, it was reported a couple of weeks ago that he is done for the season due to a torn left Achilles tendon. He will be spending the rest of the year on the IL. He is making $2MM in 2025 and could be retained for 2026 via arbitration. However, given his health uncertainty, it’s entirely possible the Mariners decide to non-tender him.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

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Seattle Mariners Transactions Bryce Miller Casey Legumina Jackson Kowar Sauryn Lao Trent Thornton

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AL Notes: Thornton, Buxton, Rays, Vargas

By Mark Polishuk | August 3, 2025 at 11:06pm CDT

The Mariners placed Trent Thornton on the 15-day injured list on Friday, and announced that the right-hander will miss the rest of the season due to a torn left Achilles tendon.  Thornton had to be carted off the field after he suffered the injury in the ninth inning of Thursday’s 6-0 M’s win over the Rangers, as the reliever fell while leaving the mound to cover first base on an Adolis Garcia grounder.  Follow-up tests revealed the unfortunate and expected news of an Achilles tear, and while a specific recovery timeline isn’t yet known, Thornton could be in jeopardy of missing some time at the start of the 2026 season.

Thornton has a 4.68 ERA over 42 1/3 innings for Seattle this season.  A few particularly rough blowups have inflated his ERA, but his 17.8% strikeout rate is well below Thornton’s 26.2 K% from 2024.  Owed a raise from his current $2MM salary in his final year of salary arbitration, Thornton will probably still be inexpensive enough that he won’t be non-tendered this winter, barring an unwelcome injury diagnosis.  Since coming to the Mariners in a trade from the Blue Jays prior to the 2023 deadline, Thornton has been a workhorse out of Seattle’s pen, with a 3.65 ERA over 140 2/3 innings.

More from around the American League…

  • Byron Buxton firmly denied any possibility of a trade away from the Twins back in mid-July, stating that he would use his contract’s no-trade provision to remain “a Minnesota Twin for the rest of my life.”  It probably isn’t surprising that Buxton hasn’t changed course just a few weeks later, but in the wake of the Twins’ deadline selloff, Buxton reiterated to the Athletic’s Dan Hayes and other reporters that “nothing’s changed.  It’s just part of baseball.  It’s the business side of it.  Just cause we go through these tough roads or whatever, it is what it is.  We’ll be better once we get on the other end of it and figure things out a little bit more….But I ain’t going nowhere.”  Buxton is owed roughly $49.6MM through the end of the 2028 season, and he has full no-trade protection until the end of the 2026 campaign.
  • Most of the Rays’ deadline moves saw the team obtain either big leaguers or big league-ready talent in return, which was the team’s stated goal in any deal involving controllable talent heading out of Tampa.  President of baseball operations Erik Neander told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that the Rays received “a lot of interest” in some veteran players, but “that wasn’t going to happen for A-ball prospects this time around.”  The intention is to keep the team competitive for 2026 but also not robbing this year’s team of a chance to make a late run.  The Rays have dug themselves into a hole with their dismal play over the last five weeks, as the club is now 55-58 and sit five games back of the final AL wild card berth.
  • Miguel Vargas was a late scratch from Saturday’s White Sox lineup, and the team placed the corner infielder on the 10-day injured list today due to a left oblique strain.  While oblique problems are difficult to diagnose in terms of a timeline, Vargas’ strain is believed to be mild, so he could only miss a couple of weeks.  A very streaky season has evened out to a 97 wRC+ for Vargas over 439 plate appearances, with 13 home runs and a .229/.305/.402 slash line in Vargas’ first full season in Chicago.
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Chicago White Sox Minnesota Twins Notes Seattle Mariners Tampa Bay Rays Byron Buxton Miguel Vargas Trent Thornton

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Mariners Designate Casey Lawrence, Activate Trent Thornton

By Mark Polishuk | June 7, 2025 at 1:50pm CDT

The Mariners announced that right-hander Trent Thornton has been reinstated from the 15-day injured list.  To make room on the active roster, the M’s have once again designated righty Casey Lawrence for assignment.

Thornton returns after missing a month due to appendicitis.  The righty has allowed five homers in only 15 1/3 innings of work out of the Mariners’ bullpen, which has been the biggest culprit in Thornton’s 5.87 ERA.  A 16.9% strikeout rate also hasn’t helped, but in something of an all-or-nothing statistic, Thornton has a career-best 51% grounder rate and a .250 BABIP, so he has been successful when he has been able to keep the ball in the park.

In under two months’ time, Lawrence has already made an early bid for MLBTR’s most written-about player of 2025.  Lawrence has been designated for assignment six times in the last eight weeks, with Seattle logging five of those DFAs and the Blue Jays the other instance.  The right-hander has cleared waivers five of those six times (except for when the Jays claimed him away from the Mariners), and on three occasions Lawrence elected free agency before quickly re-signing with Seattle.

Chances are that Lawrence’s latest trip to DFA limbo will again result in the right-hander staying with the M’s, whether he just accepts an outright assignment or if he again clears waivers, elects free agency, and re-signs a new minor league deal.  Throughout this transactional whirlwind, Lawrence has also posted a 4.08 ERA over 17 2/3 innings with Seattle and Toronto, with only an 8.8K% but also a tiny 1.3BB%.

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Seattle Mariners Transactions Casey Lawrence Trent Thornton

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Mariners Acquire Trent Thornton From Blue Jays

By Darragh McDonald | July 26, 2023 at 2:05pm CDT

2:05pm: The Mariners have now announced the trade, with Gonzales indeed transferred to the 60-day IL as the corresponding move. The lefty has been on the IL since late May due to a left forearm strain and has yet to begin a rehab assignment. He’ll be eligible to return from the IL as soon as this weekend but that doesn’t seem to be a possibility.

2:00pm: The Mariners are acquiring right-hander Trent Thornton from the Blue Jays, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Thornton was designated for assignment last week when the Jays acquired Génesis Cabrera. The Mariners are sending infielder Mason McCoy to the Jays in exchange. The M’s will need to open a 40-man roster spot for Thornton, though they can do that fairly easily by transferring Marco Gonzales to the 60-day injured list.

Thornton, now 29, came over to the Blue Jays in a November 2018 trade that sent utility player Aledmys Díaz to the Astros. The righty jumped into Toronto’s rotation the next year and tossed 154 1/3 innings with a 4.84 earned run average. He struck out 22% of batters faced while walking 9% of them.

But in 2020, he was limited to just three starts by elbow inflammation and has been transitioned into a relief role since then. He served as a frequently-optioned depth piece for the Jays in the past few seasons, logging 100 1/3 frames in the big leagues since the start of 2021 with a 4.31 ERA, 22% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate. He’s also been able to throw 66 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level with a 2.98 ERA, striking out 21.8% of opponents while walking 10.9%.

Despite those decent numbers, Thornton was pushed down Toronto’s depth chart by other acquisitions and has only been able to make four big league appearances this year. He’s also in his final option year, meaning he’ll be out of options next year and will therefore have diminished roster flexibility. But the Mariners will still have the ability to option him for the rest of the year, allowing him to provide them with a bit of extra depth for their pitching staff. Daniel Kramer of MLB.com relays that Thornton will initially report to Triple-A Tacoma.

Heading the other way is McCoy, 28, who was originally drafted by the Orioles but was traded to the Mariners in a cash deal in April of 2022. Baseball America ranked him the 29th best prospect in Baltimore’s system in 2020, praising his glove and bat-to-ball skills but expressing some concern about a lack of future power.

Since that trade, he’s been playing for Triple-A Tacoma in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He hit 20 home runs last year but struck out in 25.8% of his plate appearances. His .256/.332/.473 batting line amounted to a wRC+ of 96 in that offensively-charged environment. This year, he’s added another 11 homers but struck out at a 29.5% clip. His .234/.330/.407 line this year translates to a 77 wRC+.

Despite the subpar offense, he should have a decent floor due to his other qualities. He stole 22 bases last year and has swiped another 20 already here in 2023. He also has defensive versatility, having played the three infield positions to the left of first base as well as some brief appearances in the outfield. He will be eligible for minor league free agency at the end of this season if not added to Toronto’s 40-man roster.

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Seattle Mariners Toronto Blue Jays Transactions Marco Gonzales Mason McCoy Trent Thornton

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Blue Jays Designate Trent Thornton For Assignment

By Darragh McDonald | July 21, 2023 at 1:40pm CDT

The Blue Jays have announced that right-hander Trent Thornton has been designated for assignment. His roster spot will go to lefty Génesis Cabrera, whom the Jays have acquired from the Cardinals, which was reported earlier today.

Thornton, now 29, made his major league debut for the Jays in 2019. He tossed 154 1/3 innings that year, mostly as a starter, allowing 4.84 earned runs per nine innings. In 2020, he was limited to just three starts, spending most of the shortened season on the injured list due to elbow inflammation.

The Jays moved him to a bullpen role in 2021 and he’s been serving as an up-and-down reliever for the past three seasons. He’s tossed 100 1/3 major league innings dating back to the start of that 2021 campaign with a 4.31 ERA in that time. His 22% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate for that stretch are both pretty close to league average. He’s also thrown 66 1/3 innings at Triple-A in that same timeframe with a 2.98 ERA, 21.8% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate.

It’s possible that Thornton’s time with the Jays was nearing an end even before this transaction. The club’s bullpen has been fairly strong this year, with their collective 3.62 ERA the fourth-best in the majors. Thornton has largely been squeezed out, only been able to make four appearances this year. He’s burning his final option year here in 2023 and will be out of options next year. He’s making a $1MM salary this year and will be eligible for arbitration again this winter.

The Jays will now have one week to trade him or pass him through waivers. Since he can still be optioned for the rest of the year, it’s possible a club in search of some extra bullpen depth would be interested in acquiring him. He could also be retained for future seasons via arbitration but, as mentioned, he’ll be out of options in 2024. If he were to clear waivers, he would be eligible to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency since he has more than three years of major league service time. However, since he has less than five years of service time, returning to the open market would mean forfeiting what’s left of that salary.

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Toronto Blue Jays Transactions Trent Thornton

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Blue Jays Designate Ryan Borucki For Assignment

By Steve Adams | May 31, 2022 at 1:40pm CDT

The Blue Jays have designated left-hander Ryan Borucki for assignment and recalled righty Trent Thornton from Triple-A Buffalo, per a club announcement.

Now 28 years old, Borucki is a 2012 fifteenth-rounder who bolstered his stock with strong minor league production and earned his way to a big league debut in 2018. He impressed during that rookie season, too, looking the part of a potential rotation piece for years to come. Through his first 97 2/3 frames, Borucki notched a a 3.87 ERA with solid walk (8%) and ground-ball (46.8%) rates. His 16.1% strikeout rate was well south of the league average, but Borucki at least looked like a possible fourth or fifth starter whom the Jays could control for the foreseeable future.

Elbow troubles torpedoed Borucki’s 2019 season, however, depriving him of the chance to really build on that strong debut campaign. He avoided Tommy John surgery but nevertheless endured a lengthy shutdown period following tightness in his elbow. Borucki eventually had a cleanup procedure to remove multiple bone spurs from that elbow, which ultimately ended his season.

Borucki made just two starts during that 2019 season, and those proved to be his final two starts with the team. He was moved to the bullpen in 2020, where he fanned 28.8% of his opponents through 16 2/3 innings but also issued walks at an alarming 16.4% clip. That walk rate dropped to a more manageable (but still elevated) 11.2% in 2021, and but Borucki’s strikeout rate also dropped precipitously, falling to 21.4%.

This season, Borucki has been rocked for seven runs in his first 6 1/3 innings of work. On the whole, since moving to the bullpen, Borucki has a 4.82 ERA with a 24.5% strikeout rate against an ugly 13.7% walk rate. He’s absolutely overwhelmed left-handed opponents since moving to the bullpen and has generally been effective against them his whole career (.204/.282/.288). Right-handed opponents, however, have mashed at a .281/.361/.477 pace against Borucki.

Toronto will have a week to trade Borucki, attempt to pass him through outright waivers or release him. The fact that he’s out of minor league options and earning an $825K salary after avoiding arbitration this past winter give him a better chance to pass through waivers than the standard pre-arb lefty with options remaining. Still, left-handed pitching depth is always in demand, and a lefty with some success in the past plus a 95.2 mph average velocity on his sinker could well hold appeal as a change-of-scenery candidate.

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Toronto Blue Jays Transactions Ryan Borucki Trent Thornton

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Blue Jays Activate Hyun Jin Ryu, Danny Jansen

By Darragh McDonald | May 14, 2022 at 2:06pm CDT

The Blue Jays announced a series of roster moves today, with lefty Hyun Jin Ryu and catcher Danny Jansen being activated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, catcher Tyler Heineman and righty Trent Thornton have been optioned to Triple-A Buffalo.

Ryu was only able to make two starts this year before elbow inflammation landed him on the IL. Both of them were poor outings, with Ryu allowing at least five earned runs in each. The Jays are surely hoping that Ryu can bounce back so that those results can be chalked up to the injury. In 169 innings last year, Ryu had a 4.37 ERA, with a diminished 20.4% strikeout rate but strong walk rate of 5.3%. His return to the rotation should bump Ross Stripling back into a long relief role in the bullpen, a role that Thornton had been filling in the interim.

Jansen’s season got off to a great start before an oblique injury put him on the shelf. In a tiny sample of three games, Jansen hit a couple of home runs and was slashing .571/.625/1.571 to start the season. Last year, he hit .223/.299/.473, wRC+ of 105 in 70 games. With Heineman’s option and Jansen’s activation, the club is still rolling with a three-catcher setup, as Jansen joins Alejandro Kirk and Zack Collins on the roster.

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Toronto Blue Jays Transactions Danny Jansen Hyun-Jin Ryu Trent Thornton Tyler Heineman

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Latest On Blue Jays Roster Outlook

By TC Zencka | March 28, 2021 at 5:15pm CDT

Alejandro Kirk, Trent Thornton, Tim Mayza, and Rowdy Tellez were given good news today. The quartet made the Blue Jays opening day roster, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter).

With the increasingly-popular Kirk earning his roster spot, the Blue Jays have a decision looming on Reese McGuire. If the Blue Jays decide against carrying three catchers, they will have to expose McGuire to the waiver process. There is a possibility that Toronto keeps him on the roster, however, especially if George Springer starts the year on the injured list. With Joe Panik and Jonathan Davis also announced as members of the bench, there’s probably not room for McGuire if Springer is healthy enough to play. Infielder Breyvic Valera will also have to be designated for assignment should he not make the roster, as seems likely.

In terms of the bullpen, the final roster spot will go to either Julian Merryweather, Francisco Liriano, or Anthony Castro, notes Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star (via Twitter). A.J. Cole was in the running as well, but he is less likely to start the season with the big-league club. Merrweather has some multi-inning potential as a power arm, and he is slated to pitch once more before a final decision is made. He’s also the one of the four who is already on the 40-man roster.

Speaking of which, Panik needs to be added to the 40-man roster, as does Mayza. The 40-man roster is currently full, though since McGuire and Valera are both out of options, they could be DFA’ed to open the space needed. Ben Nicholson-Smith of sportsnet.ca provides a visual representation of the decisions ahead for Toronto.

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Notes Toronto Blue Jays Transactions A.J. Cole Alejandro Kirk Anthony Castro Breyvic Valera Francisco Liriano George Springer Joe Panik Jonathan Davis Julian Merryweather Reese McGuire Rowdy Tellez Tim Mayza Trent Thornton

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Blue Jays Acquire Taijuan Walker

By Steve Adams | August 27, 2020 at 11:18am CDT

The Blue Jays have grabbed the first notable starting pitcher of deadline season, acquiring righty Taijuan Walker from the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named later. Both clubs have announced the trade. The PTBNL, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter link), is someone not currently in Toronto’s 60-man player pool.

To make room for Walker on the 40-man roster, the Blue Jays transferred righty Trent Thornton from the 10-day injured list to the 45-day injured list. He’d been diagnosed with loose bodies in his right elbow and will now miss the remainder of the 2020 season.

Taijuan Walker | Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Walker, who turned 28 earlier this month, was the No. 43 overall draft pick by the Mariners back in 2010 and spent six years in the organization before being traded to the D-backs in the 2016-17 offseason. He returned to Seattle on a one-year, $2MM deal this season after missing the vast majority of the 2018-19 seasons in Arizona due to injury. That figure is prorated to about $720K in the shortened season, with about $344K of that sum yet to be paid out. Presumably, the Jays are on the hook for that portion of the deal.

Though the reunion was short-lived, Walker looked plenty healthy in his five starts to begin the season. He’s pitched to an even 4.00 ERA with a 25-to-8 K/BB ratio, five homers allowed and a 36.8 percent ground-ball rate. Walker’s most recent outing saw him hold a tough Dodgers lineup to three runs — all solo homers — on four hits and a walk with eight punchouts over seven frames. He’s averaged 93 mph on his heater thus far in 2020, and that number has crept upward of late; Walker sat at 92.6 mph as recently as July 31 but averaged 93.3 mph in his two most recent outings.

Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto said in a radio appearance on 710 ESPN Seattle (Twitter link via 710’s Jessamyn McIntyre) that he hopes to eventually discuss another reunion between the Mariners and Walker. Given Walker’s status as a pending free agent and the Mariners’ distance from postseason contention, however, the move was widely expected. Dipoto added that he’s happy to send Walker somewhere that he’ll have the opportunity to pitch in the postseason.

The Jays will add Walker to a rotation that recently lost Nate Pearson to an elbow injury and has generally struggled beyond top starter Hyun Jin Ryu. Veterans Matt Shoemaker and Tanner Roark have matching 4.91 ERAs — each with an FIP greater than 6.00. Righty Chase Anderson has been solid in a tiny sample, but he only just returned from an oblique injury and has yet to top five innings in a single appearance this year. The Jays have ridden an unexpectedly strong bullpen into the AL Wild Card mix, but it’s been clear that rotation upgrades would be needed for the team to hang onto that opportunity.

General manager Ross Atkins made that much clear a week ago when he acknowledged his plans to focus on win-now moves — specifically those that would reinforce his team’s starting pitching. The Jays were also recently linked to Pirates righties Trevor Williams and Chad Kuhl, and it stands to reason that they could yet look into acquiring another starter. For now, Walker represents an affordable rotation upgrade who could conceivably make six or seven starts over the final 32 days of the regular season. He’d likely factor into the club’s playoff rotation as well, should the Jays ultimately qualify.

Onlookers may be a bit surprised to see the return as a PTBNL not in the Blue Jays’ 60-man player pool, although that hardly means the Mariners’ return will be negligible. No team can fit all of its noteworthy prospects into the 60-man pool, of course, particularly given that most clubs — contenders in particular — have some of those slots allocated to veteran depth pieces. (Toronto, for instance, has Ruben Tejada, Caleb Joseph, Jake Petricka and Justin Miller in its pool.)

Furthermore, the expectation throughout the industry has been that the return for rental players such as Walker will be even more tepid than usual in a given season. Clubs are typically reluctant to part with high-end prospects even for a full two-month rental of a player in a 162-game season, and parting with notable prospect(s) for half that time is obviously an even tougher sell.

That’s not to say the return for Walker will be negligible. He was among the likeliest pitchers to change hands and surely drew interest from virtually any contender in search of rotation upgrades, so the Jays are presumably parting with a prospect of some note to acquire him. The likelihood is that said prospect was omitted from the 60-man pool either due to a lack of proximity from the Majors or a current injury.

The player’s identity won’t be formally announced by the team until after the season and might not even be settled upon yet; it’s not uncommon for teams to provide lists from which a trade partner can select a PTBNL. There’s also been some speculation that conditional trades — i.e. the PTBNL is X if acquiring team makes the playoffs or Y if the acquiring team does not — could be of increased popularity given the truncated nature of the current season.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported the trade (Twitter links).

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