The Blue Jays release Greg Bird

[TwistedLogic]

Edited April 4, 2022 by TwistedLogic

[King]

Thank God I can stop reading about Greg Bird now

[Jimcanuck]

Spanky gonna be pist.

 

News is a bit surprising

[Stangstag]

Huh, definitely thought he would have made the team as a bench piece with the extra roster spots…

[Sammy225]

I am going back and forth so much Now it seems like that they will carry 3 catchers now and have Kirk DH a bit lol. When do rosters need to be set because now i am intrigued.

[John_Havok]

Probably a situation where he just didnt quite fit in the plans, and they are doing the classy thing to let him explore his options elsewhere.

[ColdPint]

Surprising - really thought he had worked his way into a roster spot.

 

Any insights as to what this means for roster construction? Given the dearth of left handed options I wonder if they've found a deal to be made for someone they like a little bit more than Bird.

[Jimcanuck]

Espinal, Tapia, Collins bench, all extra spots for pitchers?

 

Seems likely

[Oh Canada]

I think they made a big mistake, this guy needed a shot !! I hope it works out for him, there is talent there. I'm very shocked.

[Jimcanuck]

Probably a situation where he just didnt quite fit in the plans, and they are doing the classy thing to let him explore his options elsewhere.

 

Yes, he's limited to 1B/DH, doubt he can handle the OF anymore. Tough for carry these types of players on a bench.

[TwistedLogic]

I was certain Birb was getting an opening day roster spot so I have no idea what this means tbh. It could be something boring like wanting two of Lukes, Katoh, Collins and Fowler on the major league roster but there are reasons for all four of those things to not make sense. And they already had one open spot for one of those guys after the McGuire trade.

 

Unless they have some complicated trade lined up, I'm pretty confused about this.

 

[color="#000000"]C  | Danny Jansen
1B | Vladdy Guerrero Jr.
2B | Cavan Biggio
SS | Bo Bichette
3B | Matt Chapman
LF | Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
CF | George Springer
RF | Teo Hernandez
DH | Alejandro Kirk

B1: IF/PR | Santiago Espinal
B2: OF/PR | Raimel Tapia
B3: ?
B4: ?

SP1 | Jose Berrios
SP2 | Kevin Gausman
SP3 | Alek Manoah
SP4 | Hyun-jin Ryu
SP5 | Yusei Kikuchi

RP1 | Jordan Romano
RP2 | Nate Pearson
RP3 | Tim Mayza
RP4 | Jimmy Garcia
RP5 | Adam Cimber
RP6 | Trevor Richards
RP7 | Ryan Borucki
RP8 | Julian Merryweather
RP9 | David Phelps
RP10 | Ross Stripling[/color]

[Laika]

I am surprised, not gonna lie

[Jays24]

Don't want to overblow this situation but I'm legit shocked here. Seemed like a perfect low risk left handed bat to roll the dice on. I am sure that I won't like the alternative here.

[John_Havok]

I am surprised, not gonna lie

 

Makes you wonder what he would have to have done to warrant a spot.

[Jimcanuck]

Makes you wonder what he would have to have done to warrant a spot.

 

Break a bone on Vlad or LGJ

 

Actually, maybe he was s*** fielding 1B and effectively a DH only guy - and the Jays have Kirk

 

Or maybe Shatkins worried Dumtoyo would play Bird more than Kirk

[Brownie19]

Interesting. I have to think this means we're carrying Collins, which I like if it means Kirk gets lots of starts at DH. Could they really like what they've seen from Fowler already? Seems unlikely, but maybe?

[Terminator]

Writing was on the wall when they traded for Collins. Didn’t need them both and Collins was already on the 40 man and Bird wasn’t. Now they can use that final 40-man spot on someone like Katoh or Lukes.

[TwistedLogic]

My best guess is some other teams liked what they saw with Bird and told his agent they could give him a more concrete role than what the Jays had to offer and so they asked out. Shatkins would likely honor that type of request.

 

That being said, I'm surprised my head isn't sweating from the amount of mental gymnastics I'm currently doing to figure out how this leads to Jose Ramirez on the Blue Jays.

[The_DH]

I am surprised, not gonna lie

 

I gotta second that. He seemed like a cheap lefty dh, good for 250 at bats and balancing the lineup with one left handed power bat. With McGuire gone, and if Kirk is the #2 C, then we will have two lefty bats. Don't tell me that one of the outfielders will always be the dh?

[BTS]

Thank God I can stop reading about Greg Bird now

 

lol, this was my first thought as well

[Krylian]

We just released the next Jose Bautista

[TwistedLogic]

lol, BNS left out the most important bit of context in his original tweet:

 

So we were speculating for nothing. This wasn't a Blue Bird decision, it was a Greg Bird decision.

[JaysAllMighty]

Disappointing for sure. Bird looked good.

[Terminator]

My best guess is some other teams liked what they saw with Bird and told his agent they could give him a more concrete role than what the Jays had to offer and so they asked out. Shatkins would likely honor that type of request.

 

That being said, I'm surprised my head isn't sweating from the amount of mental gymnastics I'm currently doing to figure out how this leads to Jose Ramirez on the Blue Jays.

 

Making the a big league team in itself is probably a good enough role for someone who has been out of the bigs in recent years. Once we traded for Collins there was no need for another lefty DH.

[glory]

Bird had limited value as a bench player, and there is no doubt in my mind that he was going to steal PA's from Kirk against RHP regardless of performance, so I'm fine with this. If Bird pans out elsewhere, then so be it. He is a huge long shot and the Jays have contention in mind. Better to give as many PA's to Kirk as possible.

[King]

 

This was Bird's choice. It's likely that he's going to have way better offers with his big spring. Don't really blame him for exercising his out clause.

[Jays24]

Writing was on the wall when they traded for Collins.

 

Said no one ever lol

[TwistedLogic]

Making the a big league team in itself is probably a good enough role for someone who has been out of the bigs in recent years. Once we traded for Collins there was no need for another lefty DH.

 

Read the second BNS tweet I linked above, lol.

[Terminator]

Greg Bird is so trash that he he packed his bags because he doesn’t think he can beat out Zack Collins for ABs. We won’t miss him.

[Grant77]

lol, BNS left out the most important bit of context in his original tweet:

 

So we were speculating for nothing. This wasn't a Blue Bird decision, it was a Greg Bird decision.

 

I'm making an assumption based on how pretty much every minor league contract works, but this clause was triggered because we didn't add him to the MLB roster. This was a Blue Jays decision.