Blue Jays Release Easton Lucas To Pursue NPB Opportunity

[Leo Morgenstern]

This afternoon, the Toronto Blue Jays announced they had placed left-handed pitcher Easton Lucas, 29, on unconditional release waivers. This will free up another space on the 40-man roster, giving the front office three open spots to work with. 

Lucas made his MLB debut with the Athletics in 2023 and bounced from the A's to the Tigers to the Blue Jays in 2024. He made a pair of excellent starts for Toronto this past April, striking out 11 in 10.1 scoreless innings. Unfortunately, he struggled after those two outings and could not stick with the major league club.

As is often the case when a team releases a player seemingly out of nowhere, it is believed that the Blue Jays granted Lucas his release so he could sign a contract with a foreign professional team (per Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith). According to reporter Francys Romero, that team will be in Japan's NPB.

Featured image courtesy of Mitch Stringer, Imagn Images.

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[John_Havok]

15 hours ago, Leo Morgenstern said:

This afternoon, the Toronto Blue Jays announced they had placed left-handed pitcher Easton Lucas, 29, on unconditional release waivers. This will free up another space on the 40-man roster, giving the front office three open spots to work with. 

Lucas made his MLB debut with the Athletics in 2023 and bounced from the A's to the Tigers to the Blue Jays in 2024. He made a pair of excellent starts for Toronto this past April, striking out 11 in 10.1 scoreless innings. Unfortunately, he struggled after those two outings and could not stick with the major league club.

As is often the case when a team releases a player seemingly out of nowhere, it is believed that the Blue Jays granted Lucas his release so he could sign a contract with a foreign professional team (per Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith). According to reporter Francys Romero, that team will be in Japan's NPB.

Featured image courtesy of Mitch Stringer, Imagn Images.

 

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going over there will hopefully help with his control/command, then he comes back in a year or two as a beast

[Laika]

it's an interesting career choice 

you'd think he would just turn into a lefty reliever at this point, there would be an MLB track for that somewhere and he has enough Stuff+ on his FB and secondaries to make it work 

I suppose the team he is signing with is probably offering him enough over the MLB minimum to make it worthwhile. Hard to say no to guaranteed money when your signing bonus was $75k

[Spanky__99]

Good for the Jays honouring his request, I wish him well, Stay Classy Toronto.