Article: Making Sense of the Blue Jays’ Opening Day Roster Decisions

[Davy Andrews]

The Blue Jays' Opening Day roster doesn't look exactly how most of us expected. How did Myles Straw and Alan Roden make the cut, and what should we expect from them?

On Sunday evening, Blue Jays manager John Schneider gave reporters a few roster updates. Right-handed reliever Jacob Barnes will break camp with the big club, as will outfielders Alan Roden, Myles Straw, and Nathan Lukes. Neither Barnes, Roden, nor Straw is on the 40-man roster, so the team will need to make space for them. Barnes’ inclusion on the roster makes plenty of sense, as the veteran would have had the chance to opt out had he missed the roster and the team needs to fill the spots of injured Erik Swanson, Zach Pop, and Ryan Burr. Likewise, Lukes’s inclusion makes sense, as he performed well in both Buffalo and a 22-game sample in Toronto last season. But just on Saturday, Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors wrote that the competition to fill in for Daulton Varsho, who will start the season on the IL, was down to Roden, Straw and Lukes. Now it’s going to be all of them? Let’s talk about the roster and how Straw and Roden ended up on it.  

The answer is a bit simpler for Roden: the guy has been mashing. Roden batted .407 during spring training while running a 16% walk rate and 11% strikeout rate. He hit two home runs and ran a 219 wRC+. That means that he was 119% better than the league-average hitter. Obviously, there’s some serious small sample size theater going on here. The best batting average Roden has run at any stop in the minors is .317, and the projections see him batting around .256 with a roughly 108 wRC+ this season. In other words, the computers think he’ll be just a bit better than league-average at the plate, rather than the second coming of Ted Williams.

That said, how can you not be impressed with what Roden did this spring? He’s 25 years old, and even though he hasn’t shown the most impressive tools – he doesn’t possess great athleticism and doesn’t hit the ball as hard as you’d expect from a bat-first corner outfielder – he’s run immaculate walk and strikeout rates and he’s hit at absolutely every stop. He’s earned a chance, and it’s hard to argue that staying at Triple-A would be the best thing for him from a developmental point of view. Even if his ceiling is league-average corner outfielder who doesn’t hit for as much power as you’d like, that’s still, at minimum, a useful bench piece. Toward that end, Arden Zwelling's report that the team wants Roden getting regular playing time is very encouraging. Bringing him up to Toronto only to make him sit on the bench would be the worst possible thing for his development. He’s made the team, and now he’ll get a chance to see what he can do against major league pitching. Manager John Schneider told reporters, “We trust his skillset, not only on the field but between his ears,” manager John Schneider said, “when it comes to being able to process things and slow things down. I think there’s a really good chance he’s an impact player for us, and I think there’s a really good chance he won’t be [up and down] in that time. I think he’s going to be [steady].”

Myles Straw had every bit as good (and unsustainable) a spring training as Roden. The Gold Glover batted .400 with a .440 BABIP en route to a 173 wRC+. Even more amazing, Straw, who has six career home runs at the big league level, even managed to hit one out during spring training. It was, as the video below makes clear, the world’s most Myles Straw-coded home run imaginable, a low line drive hit that just barely squeaked over the wall in the left field corner.

That’s still a home run, and Straw really did run excellent walk, strikeout, and hard-hit rates during spring training, but there’s nobody in baseball who’s expecting him to magically turn into a good hitter. He’s got a career wRC+ of 78, and he was even worse than that in the minor leagues for the Guardians last season. Worst of all, Straw played a full season in Cleveland in 2023, but his defense took a major step back; that’s really not an option for a player whose defense is his only tool. Straw is in the organization both because of his glove and because the Blue Jays decided to make a last-second shot at wooing Roki Sasaki with some extra bonus pool money. Now that he’s made the team, it seems safe to assume that the Blue Jays really were high on Straw, and that they believe he can go back to contributing on defense, even if his batting average falls back down to .200 rather than .400.

According to Keegan Matheson, Straw and Lukes will essentially platoon in center field until Daulton Varsho returns from the IL, with the right-handed Straw facing lefties. Roden is expected to see time in all three outfield spots, allowing George Springer and Anthony Santander to get frequent turns as designated hitter. The team wants Joey Loperfido and Addison Barger (who also excelled during spring training) to get regular playing time, which means starting the season in Triple-A. That’s a lot of outfielders to keep track of, and the calculus will change once Varsho returns. Assuming everyone hits as expected, it would make sense for Straw to be the first one back down once Varsho returns, as the all-world defender would essentially render him redundant. And if Loperfido or Barger should tear up minor league pitching, demanding a spot in Toronto? That would certainly be a good problem to have.

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[max silver]

Are you suggesting that Roden has a likely ceiling of a league average outfielder, or simply stating that even if this ends up being his ceiling that he's still a useful piece? The various projection systems essentially see him producing at a rate similar to a league average outfielder in his rookie season, surely there would be a solid possibility for improvement to become more than that in the future. 

[Orgfiller]

1 hour ago, max silver said:

Are you suggesting that Roden has a likely ceiling of a league average outfielder, or simply stating that even if this ends up being his ceiling that he's still a useful piece? The various projection systems essentially see him producing at a rate similar to a league average outfielder in his rookie season, surely there would be a solid possibility for improvement to become more than that in the future. 

With his age and pedigree (or lack thereof), I think it's pretty fair to claim Roden's ceiling is that of a league average OF. The nice thing about Roden is his ceiling and floor are likely close to each other. He has good bat to ball abilities, a good eye, but lacks premium power, defensive/baserunning utility, and he'll likely have to be platooned. Keep in mind that as good as he's looked, he's pretty much a consensus 45/45+/low end 50 FV prospect, and for a guy with his tools. league average is the likely outcome.

Think of Spencer Horwitz. That's pretty much Roden to a tee.

[max silver]

42 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

With his age and pedigree (or lack thereof), I think it's pretty fair to claim Roden's ceiling is that of a league average OF. The nice thing about Roden is his ceiling and floor are likely close to each other. He has good bat to ball abilities, a good eye, but lacks premium power, defensive/baserunning utility, and he'll likely have to be platooned. Keep in mind that as good as he's looked, he's pretty much a consensus 45/45+/low end 50 FV prospect, and for a guy with his tools. league average is the likely outcome.

I'm not going to hold Roden's age or draft status against him all that much, as he was a college draftee and has only been a professional for a shade over 2 seasons up to this point. I can't help but feel that Roden is being underrated to a degree by the scouting community at large, as they seemed to have completely missed the massive leap forward that he made at the AAA level and carried that over completely into spring training. Having said that I'm aware of the danger of stat scouting, so we shall see how he responds to proper MLB level pitching and defenses in the near future.

I can agree that Spencer Horwitz is a good comparison for Roden at the plate, but I expect that Roden will likely offer up a lot more value defensively and on the bases as he's a far better athlete.

I see that MLB Pipeline recently upgraded Roden to a 50FV over the previous 45FV they had assigned to him. Keith Law was fairly complementary in his own ratings, He had the same concerns about a potential platoon role, but Roden was actually very solid against LHP in his time in Buffalo with a .317/.353/.524 line.

Quote

Roden improved as much as anyone in Toronto’s system last year, increasing his average and peak exit velocities by over 4 mph without losing any of his strong contact skills. He hit .314/.406/.510 in 71 games in Triple A, boosting his line over what he did in Double A — with just a 14.3 percent strikeout rate — and topped out at 112.2 mph off the bat. It’s corner outfield only, and he still has some platoon risk, with just a .304 OBP against lefties last year on the whole, albeit with enough power (.453 SLG, four homers in 112 PA) to make up for it. He’s probably a solid regular in a corner, and if he improves against southpaws or converts more of that hard contact into over-the-fence power, he’s a 55.

 

[Laika]

I love Roden but if he's a 2 win player you take that to the bank. House money. 

You do need to adjust his minor league numbers a bit for age vs. level, he was always a bit old. His 140 wRC+ in AAA is also good but not like, otherwordly or something. 

A lot depends on defensive value. 

Spencer Steer is a similar non-prospect mid 20s with a good stick and two years of MLB data. He hits well and has never been over 2 WAR. 

[max silver]

8 minutes ago, Laika said:

I love Roden but if he's a 2 win player you take that to the bank. House money. 

You do need to adjust his minor league numbers a bit for age vs. level, he was always a bit old. His 140 wRC+ in AAA is also good but not like, otherwordly or something. 

A lot depends on defensive value. 

Spencer Steer is a similar non-prospect mid 20s with a good stick and two years of MLB data. He hits well and has never been over 2 WAR. 

A factor that has me excited about Roden is that he appeared to have flipped a switch later in the season in AAA and fully carried over that level of performance into spring training. He appeared to require a period of adjustment as he really struggled to start the level with a 49 wRC+ over his first 23 games. His last 48 games saw him mash to the tune of a 181 wRC+, and that's impressive no matter the age of the player, particularly a guy who was essentially a second year pro at that point of his career. If he were to start the year in AAA and continue producing like that I expect that Roden would start rocketing up prospect rankings accordingly.

[glory]

The thing about Roden's age is that his first full pro season was at age 23 (2023). Realistically, another organization may have had him start 2024 in AAA and been a mid-season call up, which would have had him reach the Majors before completing two full pro seasons, but the Jays went slower with him for whatever reason. I tend to agree that Horwitz + ability to play LF is probably a fair outcome for him, and not a bad one for the Jays, but if he's as good of a baserunner as Keegan Matheson seems to think (I think he does the Pipeline bios) and can handle the OF corners at an average or better level, then there might be a bit of upside there. 

But yeah, if he's just a 2 WAR platoon player, then the Jays still come out ahead. 

[Davy Andrews]

4 hours ago, max silver said:

A factor that has me excited about Roden is that he appeared to have flipped a switch later in the season in AAA and fully carried over that level of performance into spring training. He appeared to require a period of adjustment as he really struggled to start the level with a 49 wRC+ over his first 23 games. His last 48 games saw him mash to the tune of a 181 wRC+, and that's impressive no matter the age of the player, particularly a guy who was essentially a second year pro at that point of his career. If he were to start the year in AAA and continue producing like that I expect that Roden would start rocketing up prospect rankings accordingly.

Hi Max, you make a good point, and I know that Roden was considered for the top 100 at FanGraphs. I think the biggest concerns are physical. He has some bat path issues, his defense will likely be a problem as he ages, and he doesn't hit the ball particularly hard. It's not impossible to overcome those issues and succeed, but when you put them all together, it does limit his upside.