The Blue Jays are in agreement on a minor league contract with veteran second baseman Eric Sogard, per Robert Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link). He’ll head to Major League Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. Sogard is represented by Octagon.
Sogard, 33 in May, floundered through the worst season of his career in 2018, hitting just .134/.241/.165 through 113 trips to the plate before being designated for assignment and subsequently released by the Brewers. He’s posted terrific defensive marks at second base throughout his career, though the Brewers played him more at shortstop this past season. He did give Milwaukee a strong performance in 2017, slashing .273/.393/.378 through 299 plate appearances.
In 1743 career plate appearances at the MLB level, Sogard is a .238/.309/.314 hitter whose value has been derived almost entirely from that aforementioned defensive prowess at second base. He’ll give the Jays a potential utility option following the trade of Aledmys Diaz to the Astros, the non-tender of Yangervis Solarte and the release of Troy Tulowitzki.
Someone had a worse BA than Chris Davis? Holy s***!
Check out morales and grichick after the first 100AB last year and it would make that batting line look good
Pretty sure Morales and Grichuk had a bad 1st 100 AB’s and then picked it up a bit
Ya it’s amazing how well Grichuk performed to get his numbers to where they finished. Two spring training injuries killed him early.
Not sure what you’re talking about there. Morales and Grichuk were pretty good after having dreadful starts. Grichuk had a fantastic June and August, a poor July, and an okay September/October, while Morales was good from about mid-May (with a superb July) until August; he did have a terrible first and last month of the season, though.
I will never forget Sogard’s 2017 in Milwaukee. Seemed like he was on 1st base every day. Good luck to him north of the border!
I like this move.. cheap option and is a stopgap. 2B is a big question mark so having the added depth will be good
Ehh… meh
I don’t care if it is just a minor league signing, I’m just glad we finally did something.
Really. I understand that the jays are in rebuilding mode. But they have to spend if they want to be competitive in the east. Their payroll is $64millions with out their arbitration players. They could have sign Happ and keichel. That way the fans can still go fill the stadium.
Rebuilding teams are rarely competitive. Especially in the first year of a rebuild. Jays fans are just going to have to hope the rebuild has direction and isn’t in the vein of a Reds rebuild.
Why would Happ come back at this point? I know that they were saying that Toronto was in the running to re-sign him and I know Happ enjoyed being in Toronto, but at this point I think he wants to win more than anything, and re-signing with the Yankees gives him a far better chance to do so. Happ is 36 and this might be his last contract before retirement and the Jays likely won’t be competitive until he’s 40 or so. And why would Keuchel want to come to Toronto at this point? He’s going to be 31 in a few weeks, and this will likely be his penultimate contract since he’ll likely sign somewhere for 3-5 years. Why come to Toronto and have to face the Yankees and Red Sox a bunch while playing on a team that will be finishing 4th (3rd at best) in the AL East for the new few years?
I’m not sure how “competitive” and “rebuild” are synonymous in this. You CAN be competitive during a rebuild but it’s rarely the case and almost never by design.
Ah the face of MLB!
Still forever convinced it was rigged so Wright could win over him. Still triggered to this day.
As long as everybody in TOR is OK that this guy is all glove and no stick, then congrats to team and player.
Possible trade of Travis to Milwaukee now possibly ? heh
If he even makes the team they will be. A lot of us really liked Ryan Goins while he was here, and he’s a pretty similar player (actually Sogard might have a better bat).
Will compete for the final utility infield spot as Urena will play everyday in AAA.
That’s all.
FACE OF MLB!!!
Going to be tough to go to Jays games until the Savior Vlad gets called up.