Before this afternoon’s game against the Rays, the Blue Jays activated catcher Danny Jansen from the injured list and optioned Riley Adams to Triple-A. Jansen will be limited to scripted usage in the near-term, as manager Charlie Montoyo is committed to riding the hot hand of Reese McGuire for now, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter). McGuire was designated for assignment at the start of the season, and he’d have to be waived again for Toronto to take him off the active roster. He’s not going anywhere for now, however, not while he continues to hit as he has, with a .302/.350/.406 triple slash line through 104 plate appearances. That means Alejandro Kirk will remain in Triple-A for the time being, where he is currently on a rehab assignment.
More from Toronto and the rest of the American League:
- In other Blue Jays catching news, top prospect Gabriel Moreno underwent surgery on his fractured right thumb, as first reported by Future Blue Jays (and confirmed by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet). There’s no specific timetable on his return, but the young backstop will be out for multiple weeks. Moreno entered the season as one of the top catching prospects in the minors, and he’s taken his stock to another level with Double-A New Hampshire. Despite only being 21 years old, Moreno has thrived at the minors’ second-highest level, hitting .373/.441/.651 with eight homers across 145 plate appearances.
- The Mariners don’t appear particularly close to returns from either of a pair of injured regulars. There’s still no timetable on center fielder Kyle Lewis, who is recovering from a meniscus tear in his right knee, relays Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (Twitter links). Lewis isn’t eligible to return from the 60-day injured list until early August, but it doesn’t seem feasible to expect him back at that point given the vague outlook on his injury. First baseman Evan White, meanwhile, “isn’t close” to even resuming baseball activities after receiving a cortisone shot in his ailing left hip, per Divish. White is eligible to return from the 60-day IL in a little over a week, but he’s obviously going to need significantly more time than that to recover.
- The Tigers are planning to be more judicious with Casey Mize’s and Tarik Skubal’s in-start workloads in the coming weeks, writes Evan Woodbery of MLive. Detroit isn’t planning to shut down either of their prized young hurlers entirely; instead, there’ll be pre-planned quick hooks during some starts to keep their innings totals in check. The process already began during Mize’s start yesterday, as manager A.J. Hinch lifted the 24-year-old after three innings and 56 pitches against the White Sox. Mize, who threw 28 1/3 innings during last year’s shortened season, is up to 91 1/3 frames in 2021. Skubal tossed 32 innings in 2020 and is up to 82 2/3 this season after today’s five-inning outing against Chicago.
Blue Jays left Vlad in AA longer than necessary, injures his knee. Blue Jays left Moreno in AA longer than necessary, thumb fracture. He was making a case for minor league player of the year.
One of the overlooked moves was Chatwood to the IL for having a case of the yips. Not good. Hope he gets the psych help he needs to get back on-track.
Are you saying players are more prone to injuries in AA than any other level of the minors?
You could argue that a player is more likely to be hurt when you keep them at a level where they excel, because they have to run the bases more. The safest strategy is to promote them to a level where they’ll be benched, although there are still guys who trip on the dugout steps.
But if you argue that as a serious strategy, you are of course an idiot.
Smuz the comment was a fact that both guys should have been in AAA when the injuries happened. They earned promotion by their play. That is it. That was the comment. You want to argue they didn’t deserve a promotion? Then you’d be the idiot.
No. Guys should have been promoted. That is all.
Either of them could be dead if they were called up. There’s no way to know how different circumstances would play out.
PitcherMe, point out why Moreno and Vlad shouldn’t have been promoted a level based on their great play. Both guys earned it. Both guys get hurt playing a level they shouldn’t have been.
What a stupid comment Werealljustguestshere
They’re not known for having great insight.
Goalie, you think Moreno didn’t deserve a promotion to AAA? Vlad too 3 years ago? Goalie, look at their numbers. Stupid is a term you haven’t earned the right to call anyone with your baseball takes.
AA is the new AAA anyway. Lots of top prospects go from AA to the bugs, with AAA being an extra step for those who need seasoning or vets who can’t stick.
In any case, rushing a 1B/DH with a hot bat isn’t a big risk. You can’t rush a catcher, though. Let him get his time in AA
Ted, AA is not the new AAA. AAA is where fringe major league players play. That’s where the pitchers pitch before they are called up. The pitchers Moreno could’ve been working with the last month to prepare for 2022, build a rapport with the pitchers and face guys near-major league ready at the plate.
AA is not the new AAA. His time in AA should have been over. Nothing left to prove.
This is one of those ignorant about how the minors work/hindsight comments, really. We are talking about a 19 year old and a 21 year old respectively. The 21 year old being a catcher in an organization with a lot of catching depth. How many catchers do you think they can keep on a AAA contact? Besides the fact that catchers take more time to develop. What an awful take. Just clueless.
Vladatat – a player at .371/.441/.651 doesn’t deserve a promotion? What does age have to do with anything? Moreno is a career .308/.358/.501 in the minors. Who’s ignorant? You.
If you cared about the Jays, and you don’t given your comment, you’d know Moreno’s defensive work is strong. His performance dictated a promotion the moment Jansen was injured and Adams was promoted. Before you make accusations please follow the players discussed so you have a clue.
Adams was called up because of his experience and knowledge of how to handle the pitchers on the big league roster, as he has caught most of them in AAA. Moreno is a converted middle infielder who missed a full season of development last year, you will likely see him be in AA all year for his growth and development behind the plate. There’s far more that goes into a call up then his ability to hit, is he ready, how’s his defence/offence, game calling, blocking, throws to second. Agreed he can do most of that in AAA, however he would see much of the field with the catchers rehabbing and Adams being the guy there. You leave him in AA to continue to get reps, see the field 4-5 times a week and let him build on things.
@jaysrule1399 your argument for why Adams got called to the majors is totally flawed. Who does Adams have knowledge and experience catching on the major league roster that is so great he deserves the promotion based on that. Is it Ryu? Ray? Matz? Stripling? Chatwood? Dolis? Thorton? I can keep going but NO the answer is a couple of bullpen guys and Manoah at best and he never got to catch Manoah when he was in the majors so sorry dude your argument is flawed. He got called up simply because the options were limited based on 40 man spots and who was available and Adams was closest to being ready and on the 40 man so he got the call.
It was more for why Moreno needs to be in AA.
Out of those pitchers, prior to Adams call up, how many of them stayed healthy? He would’ve caught them on rehab assignments, meaning a catcher needs to know pitcher tendencies and preferences even for 2-3 starts. Additionally, there’s something called Spring Training, where pitchers and Catchers work extensively together
Haha.. seriously..I won’t waste much more of my time explaining something you should know as a baseball fan, but just because a guy can throw out runners doesn’t mean he is an excellent defender. I follow Moreno very closely. I also know how much experience he has in the position.. do you? Besides the fact that your logic is very poor (like he is anymore prone to injuries in AA) you obviously don’t know how development works or how depth works. Or the fact that we have 4 catchers already in AAA. Your comment is just ignorant of the facts is all. Horrible take.
After disrespecting his manager AGAIN, plus the fact that he truly stinks (and has seen a serious decline in his spin rates since MLB started enforcing the foreign substance rules), I don’t think Chatwood ever sees the field as a Blue Jay again. Chatwood’s average spin on his fastball in April was 2591rpm… in May it was 2467rpm, but in June it fell to 2315rpm and is only 2138 this month. Same for his sinker, which he uses 46% of the time, and his cutter which he throws 37% of the time: the sinker spin rate was 2498rpm in April but fell to 2195 as of July, while the cutter spin rate fell from 2796rpm in April to 2517rpm in July.
He also has a hard time throwing strikes, Charles.
You don’t want your sinker to spin a lot
What’s the difference if they got injured in AA when they shouldn’t have been there? Just entire comment really makes no sense. If you feel they should have got promoted sooner well that’s a different comment altogether.
Not knocking ya I usually enjoy your comments but ya this one wasn’t the most thought out.
Bullpen has given away many, many games this year. Way too many to count. Guessing the most or one of the most in baseball?
I wonder where this Jays team would be without all the injuries to the bullpen. We’d be neck in neck with the Red Sox and rays for the division in my opinion.
Either way, Jays look really nice of late, they certainly have a run in them for a wild card , I doubt the division. But who knows, who knows.
Also, I think Atkins building an offensive minded ball club first was maybe the wise thing to do? Maybe the Jays knew, or were preparing for baseball to come down hard on this tampering with substances to put on the baseball stuff ?
It’s not a bad thing to have possibly the best offense in baseball, when pitchers are forced to pitch using their god given talent. Maybe Atkins and co didn’t invest that much in pitching so far for this exact reason. They went the opposite route, and possibly were prepared ?
Dreaming of a world where Phelps, Merryweather, Yates, and Borucki were healthy.
I dream every night about that bullpen. What a bullpen we would have with those four healthy. I am very disappointed I couldn’t watch Yates throw in the season. Hoping Merryweather gets on track to throw soon!
After disrespecting his manager AGAIN, plus the fact that he truly stinks (and has seen a serious decline in his spin rates since MLB started enforcing the foreign substance rules), I don’t think Chatwood ever sees the field as a Blue Jay again. Chatwood’s average spin on his fastball in April was 2591rpm… in May it was 2467rpm, but in June it fell to 2315rpm and is only 2138 this month. Same for his sinker, which he uses 46% of the time, and his cutter which he throws 37% of the time: the sinker spin rate was 2498rpm in April but fell to 2195 as of July, while the cutter spin rate fell from 2796rpm in April to 2517rpm in July.
So was Ross Atkins back in mid May when he thought rookies Travis Bergen, Jeremy Beasley and Tyler Saucedo, plus blown save machine Carl Edwards Jr., and Jacob Barnes would be enough to replace all of those lost bullpen arms you’d mentioned… that failure led to 11 bullpen losses on nine blown saves since May 10th… just winning five of those games would have meant a Wild Card spot at 48-33… to know and not to act is not to know. Ross is to blame, 100%.
Couldn’t agree more! I will never understand why the Jay’s havent truly added to the BP. I get they want to see what we have in the minors, but you need reliability at the back end of the pen.
As for chatwood, he is not the same pitcher he was earlier in the season. He relies on movement and since the crackdown on tac he has lost all spin on his 2sfb and his cutter. I am hoping we cut em.
I also still have some faith in Ross but its dwindling. If he doesnt make a legit move this deadline to help us push to the playoffs the fans will want his head. Me included
It is probably best to have Ross Atkins in another organization or a non decision-making role.
Jdgoat, that is a dream. Many teams passed on Yates due to bad medicals. Phelps is old. Merryweather is a small fragile righty with years of injuries behind him and Borucki made a conscious decision not to maintain his muscle mass and therefore exposing his ligaments and tendons and skeletal structure to max effort stress, injury was inevitable.
The wise thing about not investing big money in pitching last offseason is the injury risk coming off a 60 game season. Pitchers are far more likely to get hurt this year from the disruption of routines and sudden increase in innings, compared to position players. You don’t want to spend hundreds of millions on a guy who needs tommy john surgery in April.
The Giants may have taken the smartest approach to pitching by collecting a bunch of cheap injury-prone starters. In a year where everybody’s injury-prone, the guys who are always injury-prone are a better relative risk.
Stupid comment Smuz. Starting pitchers not going deep in games the first month crippled the bullpen. They hit a wall mid-May after pitching quite well. Jays not investing in pitching, and wasting $5.5-million on Yates, put them in this position.
The Jays would be in first place in the division based on run differential. Yeah, the bullpen has cost them big time in close games.
Jays manager has cost them 5-6 games but you’d know nothing about that since you didn’t bring it up. Mismanaged games against Baltimore, Tampa, Cleveland, Boston, NYY. Chatwood was part of a few of those.
An MLB worst 11 bullpen losses on nine blown saves since May 10th, when GM Ross Atkins knew full well they’d be without Yates, Phelps. Merryweather and Borucki. So who does he try to replace those arms with? A journeyman he signed to an MiLB contract in blown save machine Carl Edwards Jr., and five rookies in Castro, Payamps, Bergen, Beasley and Saucedo. Not to mention head case Chatwood and the excruciatingly slow Rafael Dolis. This is 100% on Ross Atkins.
Add Chatwood.
Nobody pulls off big trades in May. Doing so would require giving up big prospects.
There is some irony in the phrase “riding the hot hand of Reese McGuire…”
Took way, way too long for somebody to point this out.
There’s no way that was an accident. Just too perfect.
Well past the expiry date of being funny. Guy’s career was nearly over and now that he’s back on-track we’re going to continue with this overplayed joke?
Ok cool.
Yes. We’re continuing with or without you, Guest. Sit back and shut up for once.
Hmm you’re absolutely right, his career was nearly over. And now he’s a valued steady contributor on a team with great aspirations. It’s a great story.
And he has that incident last year where he got caught hot-handed. I mean red-handed. It was a bit sad, unfortunate and full of opportunity for juvenile quips about self pleasuring. There may never be a time people won’t have a laugh about that short documented event of his life. It happened and it was ridiculous. He can still move on and I expect he has. Until the day comes when masturbating in public spaces becomes an accepted practice (even in the veiled privacy of one’s automobile where one can be seen) then there will be people shocked and amused that someone was caught doing so. And where there is surprise, there is laughter.
It would be sad if he was in fear of the public attention and became reclusive, but it’s a testament to his character that he will not be fazed by people who giggle about the moment he burst into the public spotlight. There are much worse things he could be known for.
I had to reread that to make sure lol
When Kirk gets healthy Jansen should be DFA. I think I could steal off Jansen, plus his SLG% is only 30 points higher than his OBP. What a waste of a 40 man roster spot
He has options. They can just send him to AAA.
That should be the play I think.
What Dexxter said. Use Jansen’s options.
I agree totally. However I think Chuckles the Bonehead manager loves Jansen and he will use him every chance he gets. I have a feeling come Allstar break Jansen will have been in as many games as McGuire but he should not even be in the majors.
Reese’s hand is always at least warm…
Fans are starting to wake up to the fact that the BlueJays pitching decisions by mgmt are in general very poor over the last few years.