The Blue Jays announced they’ve acquired right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson from the Twins for cash considerations. Toronto transferred lefty reliever Joe Mantiply from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. Mantiply recently underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.
It’s the second time the Toronto front office has acquired Woods Richardson. The first came as a prospect back in 2019, when the Jays landed him from the Mets as part of the Marcus Stroman deal. Woods Richardson was one of the better pitching prospects in MLB and found himself in another notable deadline trade two years later. Toronto packaged him and then-top prospect Austin Martin to Minnesota in ’21 for José Berríos.
Woods Richardson debuted the following year with one start. He also made one appearance the following season. The former second-round pick held a rotation spot for the better part of the next two years. Woods Richardson was a decent mid-rotation arm, posting a low-4.00s earned run average in consecutive seasons. He combined for a 4.11 ERA with a league average strikeout and walk profile across 245 innings from 2024-25.
That included a strong September last year that added optimism about Woods Richardson’s form going into 2026. Things have gone completely off the rails this year instead. Woods Richardson made two strong starts to open the season. He was knocked around over his next seven appearances, allowing almost 10 earned runs per nine innings. Minnesota pushed him to the bullpen for two scoreless outings. He drew back in as a spot starter on May 28 and was blitzed for five runs in 2 2/3 innings by the White Sox.
Minnesota pulled the plug at that point. Woods Richardson is out of options and can’t be sent to the minors, so the Twins designated him for assignment on Saturday. That gave them five days to see if they could line up a trade before exposing him to waivers. They were able to find a trade partner but only for cash.
Woods Richardson is averaging 92.7 mph on his fastball. That’s down marginally from last year’s 93.2 mark but not a dramatic drop. He has scaled up the usage of his splitter while abandoning his changeup and cutting back on his curveball. Nothing has worked this year, but his splitter and slider were both effective offerings last season.
Toronto’s rotation has been decimated by injuries. Berríos and Cody Ponce are done for the year. Shane Bieber remains weeks away from his season debut. Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer are both out of action but on rehab assignments, so they’ll be back soon. Woods Richardson could make a spot start or two in the interim or work out of the bullpen. The Jays are using Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage and Patrick Corbin as traditional starters and have Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles working mostly in 3-4 inning stints behind an opener.
Woods Richardson is playing for around the league minimum salary. He’ll qualify for arbitration as a Super Two player this winter if he holds his roster spot. He’s under club control for four seasons beyond this one.
Mitch Bannon of The Athletic first reported the trade. Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn, Imagn Images.
Back to where it started for him. Very young still I think he has time to show he’s a good pitcher but he was terrible with the Twins even with how bad our pitching is it was hard to keep him around.
Dang he’s only 25, why doesn’t feel like he’s been around so much longer
Dang? Hillbilly much
They have Cody Lawyerson and Travis Adams on the active roster, keeping him would have been no trouble
there has to be a reason for the DFA no one is telling us.
Probably the woke mob?
Very Manoah – ish
Each time he pitched he was getting shelled his ERA was almost 8 Minnesota tried to turn him into a spot starter or opener and that didn’t work out either so maybe a change of scenery will straighten him out how ironic he is back with the team that drafted him
The Mets drafted him. The Jays traded for him from the Mets.
He pitched twice out of the pen, 3 innings, 0 ERs
Travis Adams has a career ERA of almost 8 in 50 innings pitched. He’s gotten shelled way worse than SWR ever has
Travis Adams has options. SWR doesn’t. Helpful to be able to shuttle your cannon fodder between majors and minors.
You must not have watched him pitch this year.
My point though is the twins are harboring multiple terrible relievers on their team at any given time. SWR could have very easily sat at the back of the bullpen for now with no consequence.
Bad baseball teams should not be getting in the habit of dumping major league ball players for nothing. The Blue Jays were two outs away from winning the World Series and they wanted a guy that a team who is likely on pace for 90+ losses decided to dump.
That’s another red flag to add to a long list for the twins in the past year
Twins have a dozen guys they could DFA/outright/release/whatever it’s called and nobody would think twice about it.
Yep they didn’t want him in the locker room.
Very manoah-ish
Except the twins don’t have the luxury of claiming this, knowing that almost all issues amongst the twins organization come from the top. The twins aren’t failing because a couple guys in the organization are cancers in the clubhouse.
They’re failing because they have ownership that doesn’t care who built a front office who isn’t up for the task and brought in a coaching staff that nobody wanted
not quite. he started in the Mets organization
I get that this has been a really rough year for SWR, but he’s still only 25 and was a very serviceable back half rotation piece in his 23 and 24 year old seasons.
If the Twins were truly competing for a playoff spot, I would get kicking him to the curb, but they really aren’t built to compete right now. It might have better to hold onto him, maybe let him spend some time in the pen or something.
My guess is that they don’t want to run through the arb process with him and have to pay him more. Better to get something if you truly have classified him as a dead fish.
Have the Twins hired a GM yet lol
He can be offered the league minimum in arbitration, because that’s what he’s making now. A team can’t offer worse than a 20% pay cut in arbitration, but since he makes the minimum a cut isn’t on the table anyway. If he keeps pitching like this, he won’t be in line for a raise… and if he rebounds, the terrible early season numbers will sabotage his arbitration case and severely limit next year’s raise making him a great bargain. So he’s really not really a non-tender candidate like somebody with a heftier salary heading back to arbitration would be.
Ackchyually it started in Queens for him.
It all started for him in the Mets organization.
Didn’t he start with the Mets?
Another guy challenged to get that all on a uniform.
He needs to decide what his name is.
You don’t know how names work, do you?
I do know that players are in control of what name they want to be known as.
I dont trust duded with 2 last names
Better than people with first names as last names
I don’t trust dudes who can’t spell dudes.
Average enough number 5 in ’24 and ’25 but he’s had the boots put to him this year. Depth/project piece?
He’s left the Twins, so he’ll become a #2/#3 starter in no time.
But he joined the Jays which means he’ll be on the IL in no time.
Maybe dfa’d and sent to the Dodgers for cash? They can always use another arm
Both very valid points!!! Ahaha
Getting hurt would probably be for the best for the team in this case, really. If he goes on the IL he can spend a month rehab assignment in the minors fixing his problems.
Scam!
That Cash Considerations gets around, doesn’t he?
Milwaukee will fix him
How do they fix someone they do not have?
They are so good they just go around and randomly fix players on other teams
I saw him pitch in a game late last season and he was terrific. I guess he’s just one of those truly inconsistent guys that can’t quite keep it together. Dude has talent. Maybe stick him in the bullpen, keep it simple, and maybe it’ll click-in at some point…
Time for him to study every Bill James book and article and start understanding and utilizing sabermetrics and algorithms in his preparation. Don’t just fire it in there! Work the formulas in more.
Jays are bad anyways so worth a flier.
Blue Jays crushed it in that trade
After Austin Martin continues his downward spiral and dips below the Mendoza Line, the Blue Jays can buy him back at a yard sale price.
As soon he was DFA I texted my mom “Jays are gonna pick him up aren’t they”. Not excited about it, took a bit longer than I thought, and it was a trade. They’re just throwing anyone out there right now though.. Might as well throw some more at the wall..
Why are you texting your mom about Simeon Woods-Richardson
Because he is Simeon Woods Richardson.
Because we are Jays fans and talk about Jays stuff. Didn’t expect to be texting her about Patrick Corbin in 2026 either but that has happened a few times ffs lol.
Maybe the Jays can keep him in the pen for a stint and his stuff will tick up.
Right now they are on an epic churn with the pitching staff – just trying to find some short and medium term stopgaps.
He’s an emergency inning eater. He’s either starting or going 3+ with an opener. Jays are short with starting pitching and need him, potentially.
Those are the most likely scenarios. But they could try to have him eat innings late in games that are already lost. Use guys you have more faith in early, but if it’s looking hopeless in the middle innings put him in there for the last 4 innings of the lopsided loss. Might be a smarter way to get innings eaten without losing additional games, considering SWR hasn’t been giving his team any chance lately.
‘Course that’s already what guys like Seabold and Rodriguez are for, but they don’t have the length and too often they end up using Fluharty or Fisher in futile situations.
Jays need more depth. That is the reality.
Jays scraped the bottom of the barrel.
@Windowpane
10 pitchers on the IL kinda forces your hand.
Were you expecting prime Randy Johnson to walk into the room? This is standard operating procedure.
Jays should have included Hoffman along with cash for him!
Dallas and Andrews had some fun good attitudes and pitched well for us in a pinch so I feel this is a mistake given the nearly 8 ERA for SWR. What’s he like in the clubhouse?
Amazing how frequently high end prospects don’t turn out. I remember at the time of the Berrios trade that while he was a good add for the Jays, the prospect capital seemed big. Separate of Jose being done for the year, he’s definitely been more valuable than Wells and SWR. It’s a testament to how difficult it is to truly know which top prospects will actually turn out.