Right-hander Tanner Roark has cleared waivers and become a free agent, Scott Mitchell of TSN tweets. The Blue Jays designated Roark for assignment last week.
It’s no surprise that the 34-year-old Roark is heading to the open market, as there was no expectation he’d be traded or claimed because of his $12MM salary. On the heels of a solid several seasons divided among the Nationals, Reds and Athletics, Roark signed a two-year, $24MM deal with the Blue Jays going into 2020, but the move went south in a hurry for the club. Roark posted a 6.80 ERA in 47 2/3 innings last year, and despite the Jays’ injury troubles this season, he barely factored into their rotation. Roark tossed seven frames over three appearances (one start) and gave up five earned runs before the Jays cut the cord on him.
Roark boasted a respectable track record before signing with Toronto, so the likelihood is that he’ll find a different team soon. However, this trip to free agency won’t be nearly as lucrative as Roark’s previous one. He may have to settle for a minor league contract.
Interesting. Twins, Astros, Padres, Giants, and possibly Cubs could make a minor league deal with him.
And reds
Roark just lost his stuff. There’s no other way to put it. He started missing his spots, his pitch mix wasn’t fooling guys, and he gave up a bunch of runs. Watching his starts made it clear that he isn’t the same pitcher he was when Toronto signed him in free agency.
The mans out of shape too. He clearly just doesn’t care
Well, he’s always been kinda big, but yeah, I don’t think he really cares anymore. Almost certainly headed for retirement.
From watching him it looks like like he’s gotten out of shape quickly in the midsection. Everything comes out flat and BP-like.
Another funny titbit I like to share about him is that he makes more money than Auston Matthews who is the number one sports figure in Toronto.
Papi is the #2 man in the whole NHL
Where is that guy who laughed at John Means?
He’s on the toilet after consuming an excessive amount of humble pie
to be fair, i dont think it was reasonable to ever expect him to be a dropped third strike away from a perfecto.
Now pitching for the Dodgers Tanner Roark
He looks more like a Giant
Despite his ineffectiveness he’ll be signed by someone fairly quickly for no other reason than he’s ramped up, stretched out, and not injured. With like 5-10 SPs hitting the IL every 3 or 4 days, somebody has to pitch. At league minimum he won’t be in limbo for long.
You stated the magic words : “ at league minimum”. He’ll sign a MLB contract, not a minors deal.
I heard the Jays are interested…
I have to believe the Dodgers must at least be considering Roark
Not if they watched him pitch this year.
Past his prime, lost his velo & command…Rockies
An NPB team could think they could fix him like what happened with Matt Moore.
So how does his contract work ? Is he paid out in full at release from Toronto ? Or does he make that over rest of season ? I understand he’s paid by Toronto for rest of contract but would that also be the rest of his salary for season or can he get paid again ?
Players are typically paid twice per month unless they have negotiated a different pay schedule into their contract. Tanner will continue to pull regular paychecks from the Blue Jays for the rest of the season. Anything he signs now is “bonus” money on-top of his Jay’s contract although he will probably not pull much more than a minimum offer, if anything.
Not sure that it is like bonus money.
I think that the new team pays him the prorated minimum salary and the Blue Jays pay him the sizeable difference.
He still takes home the same amount,but the Blue Jays are paying almost all of it.
Correct.
Very confusing post by me, not sure why I said “bonus” but MendozaLiner is correct. Any contract amount he now signs for would be deducted from what Toronto owes.
Gwynning-No problem.We all occasionally get brain fog.
Anyone associated with the great Tony Gwynn is fine by me.
dodgers has this written all over
Not a surprise. Which club is going to claim that contract for that poor performance? Answer: None.
Will a club sign him to a FA deal? Probably but they shouldn’t. Any club that wants to win should avoid Roark. Any club out of the playoff picture with a boatload of injuries needing a warm body I suppose would sign him. But they’ll end up soon releasing him too.
As commenter said above, he is overweight and out of shape. His stuff sucks. Enjoy retirement.,
thats pretty harsh man
Jimmy can usually be ignored without losing any valuable insights.
Dodgers-As it goes against the grain of most people and players,sometimes these guys take the money and run.I cannot comment on Roark,but once in awhile it does happen.They have to be so disciplined to compete at this level that I think it eventually gets to some of them.
Dude made half a million per inning in Toronto.
Tanner only pitched 7 innings this Season in Toronto for $12M. Sounds like a good job to me.
Yeah but you jagoffs forget he pitched almost 800 innings for league min with the Nationals.
Hopefully this isn’t the end of the road for Tanner and somebody will take him on. He’ll be a deal at the MLB minimum.
Don’t worry the Giants will sign him and he will have Cy Young caliber stuff in no time….like any other scrub they sign….
He should quickly land somewhere. This guy should excel in long relief in the new extra inning set up.
I haven’t looked it up, sorry, but I feel like he would be much better once through the lineup following another pitcher.