Leo Morgenstern

The Toronto Blue Jays have officially selected infield prospect Charles McAdoo to their active roster. He will replace fellow righty-batting infielder Lenyn Sosa, who heads to the IL with a right wrist contusion after getting hit by a pitch on Tuesday. Lazaro Estrada (shoulder impingement) has been transferred to the 60-day IL to open space on the 40-man roster; the right-hander had been on the 15-day IL since April 4. The Jays will hope McAdoo (Jays Centre's No. 14 prospect) can be a spark for their offense, which has struggled against left-handed pitching in 2026. In addition, Connor Seabold has reported to the Jays. He will be available out of the bullpen tonight, giving the Jays a much-needed fresh arm. Fellow right-hander Chase Lee has been optioned to make room on the active roster. Toronto already freed up a 40-man slot for Seabold when they traded for him yesterday. View full rumor

Note: I wrote this story yesterday, before the news broke that the Blue Jays will call up Charles McAdoo. While they haven't officially announced that Sosa will be cut to make room for McAdoo, it seems like the inevitable corresponding move. Lenyn Sosa is celebrating a home run in the picture you see above. He hit that home run on May 2. It was his first (and remains his only) home run of the season. Yet, until last night, Sosa somehow had more home runs than walks on the year. The infielder didn't earn a base on balls until his 113th plate appearance of 2026. Sosa's walk rate still starts with a goose egg, but at least it doesn't end with a zero anymore. Sitting at 0.9%, it ranks last among major league hitters with at least 50 PA. (Tyler Heineman ranks second-to-last. Nathan Lukes ranks sixth from the bottom. The Blue Jays as a team have the third-worst walk rate in baseball.) In the grand scheme of things, the difference between one and zero walks is negligible. But I love anything odd and unusual, and Sosa's long walk-less streak definitely fits into that category. It took him 38 games (excluding one in which he only appeared as a pinch-runner) to draw his first free pass. That's the longest such streak to start a season since Willians Astudillo in 2021, who didn't draw a walk until his 40th game of that year. It's also the longest walk-less streak to start a season in Blue Jays history, although that comes with an asterisk, since Sosa played his first 12 games of 2026 with the White Sox. The longest walk-less streak at any point in Blue Jays history belongs to Alfredo Griffin. The shortstop didn't walk at all in his final 56 games of the 1984 season. He was then traded to Oakland and spent the next seven seasons with the A's and Dodgers. When he returned to the Blue Jays in 1992, he appeared in another 10 games (with at least one PA) before he drew a walk, so technically, his walk-less streak with Toronto lasted an incredible 66 games – and almost eight years. For the sake of remembering guys, other Blue Jays with long walk-less streaks include Dámaso García, John McDonald, Darwin Barney, Tony Fernández, Pat Borders, and Garth Iorg. McDonald, one of my favourite remembersome guys, holds the team record for lowest walk rate in a season (min. 100). In 2009, the infielder walked just once in 156 trips to the plate, a 0.6% rate. Among hitters who played a more regular role, Griffin holds the record with a 0.9% walk rate over 442 PA in 1984. No other Blue Jay with even 300 PA in a season has ever finished with a walk rate under 2.0%. Turning back to Sosa, his walk-less streak actually extended several games back into 2025. From last September to this May, he went 175 PA without a base on balls. So, how does something like this happen? Are opposing pitchers so unafraid of Sosa that they only throw him pitches in the strike zone? Not at all. Sosa ranks third among all batters this season (min. 50 PA) in out-of-zone rate. Almost 60% of the pitches he's seen have been outside the zone, according to Statcast. The MLB average is 52.6%. The only two batters who have seen more out-of-zone pitches than Sosa are Moisés Ballesteros and Junior Caminero. And unlike those two, Sosa isn't a serious power threat. He just has really poor plate discipline, and, well, pitchers know it. The righty batter is one of only four hitters (min. 50 PA) with a chase rate over 50%. His opponents are taking advantage. Let me summarize. About 60% of the pitches Sosa gets are outside the strike zone. He has swung at just over half of them. That means 30% of all pitches opposing pitchers have thrown to Sosa have resulted in a swing on a pitch outside the zone. No wonder he never walks! It's hard to overstate how much good Sosa could do himself by just keeping the bat on his shoulder more often. It wouldn't work forever. Eventually, opposing pitchers would start challenging him in the zone. Temporarily, however, I think he should just try mentally flipping a coin. Heads, he swings; tails, he lays off. It might sound dumb, but we're talking about a guy with a .207 on-base percentage and a 32 wRC+ this season. Do you really think the coin flip approach would be any worse than whatever approach he's trying right now? I'll leave you with the sequence of pitches that led to Sosa's first (and who knows, maybe his only) walk of 2026: It was a garbage time plate appearance – the Jays were down six in the bottom of the ninth – but to his credit, Sosa worked back from an 0-2 hole. That said, all four balls from Marlins lefty Cade Gibson were so far outside that even you or I could have drawn the walk. Hopefully, that walk helped Sosa remember how nice it is to trot to first base unencumbered. (He got hit by his first pitch of the season the next day, but I'm sure he prefers reaching base without any searing pain.) The fact that he can bat right-handed and play multiple infield positions has kept him on the roster to this point, but the Blue Jays won't be willing to stomach his .207 OBP forever. View full article

Charles McAdoo is heading to Baltimore. Jays Centre's No. 14 prospect will join the Blue Jays tomorrow as they start a series against the Orioles, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan. He'll be making his MLB debut when he first gets in a game. The Jays can free up space for McAdoo on the active and 40-man rosters by designating Lenyn Sosa for assignment. While I'm only speculating, it's all but certain that's how they're going to do it (unless there's been another injury we don't know about). McAdoo, like Sosa, is a right-handed-hitting infielder. He is primarily a third baseman but has recently started getting reps in at second base, which is Sosa's primary position. And while Sosa is hitting beyond poorly this season (.195 with a .490 OPS), McAdoo has hit well down in Triple-A Buffalo. He has eight home runs and a 13.9% walk rate, and his wRC+ is 12% better than league average. The Blue Jays will hope McAdoo can keep it up at the MLB level, much like his former Bisons teammates Yohendrick Piñango and Brandon Valenzuela. View full rumor

On Monday, the Blue Jays selected the contract of right-hander Tanner Andrews from Triple-A Buffalo. The next day, they signed a new arm to replenish their right-handed minor league relief depth. Matt Bowman, 35 on Sunday, has appeared in 231 games over seven major league seasons. From 2016-19, he pitched to a 4.02 ERA and 3.20 xERA in 183 games for the Cardinals and Reds. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020 and did not return to the majors until September 2023. Since then, he has tossed 59.1 innings with a 5.46 ERA and 5.05 xERA for the Yankees, Twins, Diamondbacks, Mariners, and Orioles. While Bowman hasn't had much success since his surgery, he's been an interesting pitcher to watch. If you're curious to learn more about Bowman, Michael Rosen of FanGraphs wrote a great piece about the unusual right-hander last season. This past winter, Bowman signed a minor league deal with the Twins. Although he pitched to a 1.69 ERA with 25 strikeouts in 21.1 innings at Triple-A St. Paul, he never got a call-up to the majors. Last week, he exercised an opt-out clause in his contract, prompting Minnesota to grant him his release. Matt Bowman will now report to the Buffalo Bisons, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him pitching for the Blue Jays at some point this year. View full rumor

Looks like I published this minutes too soon. Tanner Andrews is the corresponding move. 30-year-old righty. He has a 1.35 ERA in 15 games (20 IP) at Triple-A Buffalo this season. He's never pitched in the majors before. Jays already had a 40-man opening, so no more transactions are necessary. Although they can move Berríos to the 60-day IL when they do need another 40-man spot.

So much for day to day. Dylan Cease is heading to the injured list after straining his left hamstring in Sunday's series finale against the Pirates. There's no timeline for his return as of yet, but John Schneider is hopeful that it's a "minimal stay." The earliest Cease could return is June 9. The Blue Jays were already working a less-than-full rotation before Cease's injury. In addition to Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, and Patrick Corbin, rookie Spencer Miles has been filling a bulk role in pseudo bullpen games. It isn't clear yet who the Blue Jays will call up to replace Cease right away or how they'll get through the next couple of weeks without him. As for Cease, this will likely end his streak of five straight seasons with at least 32 starts. This is the first non-COVID-related IL stint of his eight-year MLB career. View full rumor

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Dylan Cease left Sunday's game early, while several of their teammates are working their way back from the injured list. Let's dive right in. Dylan Cease (Hamstring) Cease was dealing as usual on Sunday before discomfort in his left hamstring forced him from the game. With eight strikeouts through 4.2 innings (on 76 pitches), the MLB Ks leader was well on his way to his fourth double-digit strikeout game. With that said, he also gave up two home runs to the Pirates. He's now given up four homers in his last two starts, compared to just one in his first nine. When the discomfort first set in, John Schneider initially let Cease stay in the game. However, the righty only lasted a few more pitches before he got the hook. The abruptness with which he was pulled – in the middle of an at-bat – was concerning. Thankfully, the messaging right now is that the injury is mild, and Cease only left the game out of an abundance of caution. We'll know more later today after he goes for an MRI, but it's possible he'll be able to make his next scheduled start on Friday against the Orioles. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Elbow) There was no hemming and hawing before Vladdy left the game in the bottom of the fifth. The first baseman quickly went from frustrated to forlorn after a 92-mph sinker from Mitch Keller hit him in the right elbow. He walked straight to the dugout, shaking his head at John Schneider and trainer Voon Chong. “I followed him, and he just said, ‘I can’t feel my hand,'" Schneider told reporters post-game. "It was kind of like [hitting] a funny bone, but travelling at 90-plus miles an hour.” X-rays were negative, and the team is calling the injury an elbow contusion. Presuming that's really all it is, an IL stint is unlikely (thank goodness). Indeed, Schneider suggested Guerrero could even play today against the Marlins, although I think it's more likely he takes at least one day off to let the pain reside. Nathan Lukes (Hamstring) Nathan Lukes has been on the IL for a month with a left hamstring strain. He played his fourth rehab game for the Dunedin Blue Jays on Sunday, and he's expected to travel back to Toronto today, as reported by Sportsnet's Arden Zwelling on Friday. If the Jays activate the outfielder today, it will be interesting to see how they make room on the roster. Optioning the struggling Davis Schneider to Triple-A Buffalo would be the easiest way to do it, but that would leave the offense quite left-handed-heavy. Max Scherzer (Forearm, Ankle) The veteran hit the injured list at the end of April with right forearm tendinitis and left ankle inflammation. The arm injury sounds scarier, but he was pitching through forearm discomfort for a while; the ankle injury was the straw that broke the camel's back and sent him to the IL. Max Scherzer is throwing again now. He started with bullpen sessions last week, and he will progress to facing live hitters before eventually going on a rehab assignment. Barring any setbacks, it seems like a return at some point in mid-June is most likely. That's good news, but it means the Jays will still need to survive at least three or four more turns through the rotation before they have a proper fifth starter again. Shane Bieber (Elbow) We've gotten shockingly little information about Shane Bieber's health from the very beginning, so I won't get my hopes up until I actually see him on a mound. And by that I mean a major league mound, because Bieber is set to take the mound for the FCL Blue Jays this afternoon. It will be his first rehab start of the year. Although Bieber is starting his rehab assignment before Scherzer, the latter is still expected to return sooner. The plan seems to be for Bieber to ramp slowly across four or five rehab outings, which puts his estimated 2026 debut somewhere around the end of June. More Blue Jays Injury Updates Right-handed reliever Yimi García has been out all season recovering from elbow surgery. He is throwing again, and he's set to face live hitters this week. Catcher Alejandro Kirk has been out since early April with a fractured thumb. John Schneider says he could start a minor league rehab assignment by the end of this week. Outfielder Addison Barger returned from the IL for one game earlier this month before elbow inflammation sent him back to the shelf. He reportedly resumed baseball activities (everyone's favourite vague injury update) this weekend. View full article

The Blue Jays needed innings, and no one had thrown more of them over the past decade than Patrick Corbin. It was a perfect fit. Indeed, with Shane Bieber, Cody Ponce, José Berríos, and Max Scherzer on the injured list, Corbin has been a key addition for the Blue Jays in 2026. His 38.1 innings pitched rank third on the team, behind only Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease. He has given the Jays a chance to win in all eight games he's started, and he's helped to preserve a bullpen that's been called upon heavily early in the year. The southpaw owns a perfectly respectable 4.23 ERA, and the Blue Jays are 4-4 in his eight appearances. Yet, I can't help but worry that the other shoe is bound to drop. And I don't know what the Blue Jays are going to do when it does. Corbin doesn't look like a pitcher who should have a league-average ERA. His last great season was in 2019. Over the next six years, he pitched to a 5.41 ERA. He struck out his opponents at an 18.2% rate and induced grounders on 44.2% of his batted balls. That's an 18.2% K-rate and a 44.2% groundball rate. Those are the numbers that resulted in a 5.41 ERA. Keep that in mind. So far in 2026, his strikeout rate is down to a career-worst 15.0%. Similarly, his groundball rate is down to a career-low 37.1%. Those aren't the numbers of a pitcher who should be able to maintain an ERA under 5.00. Heck, I'm not sure I'd trust someone with those numbers to post an ERA under 6.00. Baseball Savant and Baseball Prospectus agree with me. Despite his 4.23 ERA, Corbin owns a 6.41 xERA and a 5.97 DRA. Indeed, he is showing all the classic warning signs of a pitcher whose numbers are too good to be true. His home run-to-fly ball ratio from 2020-25 was 15.9%. This year, it's a career-low 9.5%. Meanwhile, his left-on-base rate is currently 77.6%, compared to a 69.0% average over the previous six seasons. And though you may look at his .331 BABIP and think "that's awfully high," it isn't actually anything out of the ordinary. His BABIP from 2020-25 was .327, and considering all the groundballs he's given up this year, I'm honestly surprised his BABIP isn't higher. Soon, Corbin is going to start giving up more home runs. He's going to start allowing more baserunners, and more of those baserunners are going to come around to score. Like I said, the other shoe is bound to drop. If I were going to believe that Corbin could keep giving the Blue Jays league-average innings, I’d need evidence that his stuff was meaningfully better than it has been for the last several years. Instead, it might be worse. Corbin is a stopgap. And to his credit, he’s filled that role with aplomb. Even so, he just isn’t a pitcher that a team with serious playoff aspirations can keep running out there every five days. Maybe he can keep giving the Blue Jays innings, but they won’t be the kind of innings that can help the team win games. Unfortunately, there might not be an end in sight for the Corbin era in Toronto. Ponce is out for at least the rest of the regular season. Berríos just had Tommy John. Eric Lauer is a Dodger. Scherzer and Bieber are supposedly nearing their returns, but they both feel like huge wild cards right now. I wouldn’t count on anything from either of them until we see it. Even if Scherzer and Bieber both come back healthy, I wonder if Toronto would use a six-man rotation – Gausman, Cease, Yesavage, Bieber, Scherzer, and Corbin – at least temporarily. Yesavage could certainly benefit from a lighter workload, as could Scherzer and Bieber. A six-man setup would also allow the Blue Jays to keep Corbin in the mix, in case another injury comes up. I don't love the idea of Corbin starting more games for the Jays, but I'm even more concerned about the alternative. We don't want to end up in a situation where the team is left with no choice but to cross its fingers and hope that Spencer Miles — who has already thrown more innings this season than he has in his minor league career — can handle a proper role in the rotation. So, where does this leave us? Well, it’s still early in the season, but it’s not too early to start thinking about the trade deadline. The Jays don’t need to make a move right away, but this rotation is going to need reinforcements eventually. Patrick Corbin is doing great, but he can’t keep doing this all year. View full article

At least we have an answer. Last September, the Blue Jays placed José Berríos on the injured list with elbow inflammation. I'll admit I was skeptical at the time. I thought it was a phantom IL stint. After all, Berríos was never hurt. Never. All of a sudden, shortly after the team moved him to the bullpen – a move he was openly upset about – a vague injury allowed the Jays to remove the struggling veteran from their active roster while preserving some of his dignity. It just felt a bit too convenient. Then, when Ross Atkins revealed that Berríos chose not to be with the team during the World Series because "he was disappointed that he wasn’t in our rotation," I thought my suspicions were confirmed. This wasn't about an injury. It was personal. I didn't know what any doctors might have seen on the righty's scans, but clearly, Berríos himself thought he was healthy enough to pitch. A couple of months later, we got another update. Berríos explained that he was pitching through discomfort throughout the entire 2025 season. Huh. I had to rethink my phantom IL conspiracy theory. Maybe the truth was somewhere in between an actual injury and my cynical speculation. My new hypothesis? Berríos really was hurt, but the Blue Jays let him pitch through the pain until it became a convenient reason to remove him from the roster. Regardless, it seemed like we were done worrying about Berríos and his elbow. After his first spring start, the veteran told reporters that he felt "pretty healthy, pretty strong." “Last year, at this time, I had doubt in my mind already,” he explained. “Today, I felt like nothing's on my mind. I'm clear.” Unfortunately, while his mind may have been clear, his scans weren't. When Berríos was first denied insurance coverage to pitch in his fourth World Baseball Classic, I was among the outraged. For all we knew at the time – from what the Blue Jays and Berríos had communicated – he was perfectly healthy. However, when he was denied a second time, it came with the news that an MRI had found more inflammation in his elbow. Even so, Berríos maintained that he was "feeling great and throwing the ball well." Both he and the Jays were so unconcerned that he wasn't even shut down from throwing. It was puzzling, but it still didn't seem like a big deal. Or at least, the Blue Jays and Berríos weren't making it seem like a big deal. A week later, the "big deal" alarms finally started to go off in my head. Berríos was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his elbow. He would miss Opening Day. Once again, he claimed he was still pain-free. John Schneider was confident Berríos wouldn't be out for long. My confidence, however, was starting to wane. How did the team miss a fractured elbow? How on earth was Berríos pain-free? Were we getting the full story? To be fair, the stress fracture diagnosis really didn't keep Berríos down for long. He made his first rehab start on April 16. But the mixed messages continued. The Jays maintained that the right-hander was nearing his return, despite his struggles against minor league hitters. Even when he suffered a setback and went for another MRI, the messaging was that this wasn't a soft tissue injury. Until it was. Yesterday, Berríos went under the knife. Afterwards, the team announced that he had undergone a full Tommy John procedure. He will miss the rest of the 2026 season and likely most of 2027 as well. Eight months ago, "La Makina" was the most durable pitcher in baseball. Since then, his elbow has taken him on a roller coaster ride. It's always a gut punch when a pitcher looks dominant one moment, then he exits a start early, and the next day you learn he'll be out for the next 12-18 months recovering from Tommy John. Yet, I think the long, drawn-out Berríos situation was even more frustrating. The only good news is that it's finally over (for now). It may not be the answer anyone wanted, but at least we have an answer. View full article

No player was more important to the Blue Jays' success in 2025 than George Springer. It's not just that he led the team in home runs, runs scored, on-base percentage, wRC+, and every type of Wins Above Replacement. It's not just that he stayed red-hot in October, battling through injuries to hit another four home runs, including the go-ahead shot in Game 7 of the ALCS. It's that he, like the Blue Jays themselves, achieved so much more than anyone anticipated heading into the year. Springer wasn't Toronto's only star in 2025. He had help from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Kevin Gausman, Alejandro Kirk, and Bo Bichette, all of whom had excellent seasons of their own. The difference is that the Blue Jays were counting on Guerrero, Gausman, Kirk, and Bichette to lead the way. Springer was 35 and coming off the worst season of his career. He was only supposed to be a role player. FanGraphs' preseason projections saw Toronto as an 82-83 win team. They saw Springer as a 1.5-2.0 win player. No single factor elevated the Blue Jays more than Springer turning back the clock and earning MVP votes for the first time since his peak in Houston. The Blue Jays sure could use that version of Springer now. Through 29 games and 125 trips to the plate, the four-time All-Star is slashing .197/.274/.321 with three home runs and nine RBI. His wRC+ is 30% worse than league average, while his expected wOBA puts him among the bottom 20% of hitters in the sport. Last year, it felt like every fly ball he hit had a chance to leave the yard. These days, he's having trouble getting fly balls out of the infield. I don't know how concerned I should be. I never expected Springer to repeat his 2025 season. That would have been too much to hope for. However, my theory over the winter was that any regression from Springer would be counterbalanced by a return to form for Anthony Santander. Springer was worth 5.2 fWAR last year. Santander was worth -0.9. I hoped each of them could be worth, say, 2.5 wins in 2026. Needless to say, we aren't getting 2.5 WAR from Santander this season. But can Springer still be an above-average contributor? Evidently, John Schneider thinks so. Aside from the 15 games he missed with a fractured toe, Springer has played almost every day. He's hit leadoff in all 28 games he's started. Of course, it's not like Toronto has another perfect option for the leadoff spot right now. Even so, it would be hard for Schneider to justify keeping Springer at the top of the order unless he thought a bounce-back was imminent. Springer has a .232 on-base percentage in May. His 37 wRC+ in the month is the third-worst mark on the team, ahead of only a slumping Guerrero and an at-risk-of-losing-his-job-soon Tyler Heineman. None of that is good. At the same time, the fact that Vladdy came up in that last sentence is precisely why I'm not smashing the panic button. Maybe my concerns about Springer are overblown. Springer's 70 wRC+ is bad. But guess what? Fernando Tatis Jr. has a 71 wRC+ right now. Cal Raleigh has a 63 wRC+. Bo Bichette has a 74 wRC+. Samples are still small around the league, and Springer's especially so, given the time he spent on the IL. Need more proof that 29 games is a small sample? Just last year, when Springer was one of the best hitters in baseball, he had a 29-game stretch where he was barely better than he's been this year. From May 15 to June 18, he hit .188 with an 85 wRC+. In 2024, he had a 30 wRC+ in his worst 29-game period. The year before, it was a 59 wRC+ in his lowest 29-game sample. In 2022, he had two completely separate 29-game stretches with a 90 wRC+, and in 2021, his first year with the Jays, he posted a 56 wRC+ in a 29-game span from August to September. Even in 2017 and '18, his first two All-Star seasons with the Astros, he had equally poor stretches of similar lengths. Ups and downs are just a part of baseball. Underlying numbers aren't immune to the small sample size effect either. Springer's .286 xwOBA is poor. His .306 xwOBA on contact is more troubling. Yet, he's had stretches with numbers like that before. He's always managed to rebound. That's a reassuring thought. That is, until I start to worry that it's too reassuring. What if I'm using the small sample size defense to shield myself from the truth? Springer's quality-of-contact metrics look a lot like they did in 2024. His bat speed is higher than it was that year, but he's swinging under the ball so often that he isn't putting that bat speed to use. I feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie, staring at so many different George Springers, and I don't know which is real. There's the superstar from 2025. There's the disappointment so far in 2026. There's also the player Springer was in 2024, which seemed like a disappointment at the time, but who the Jays would take in a heartbeat now. Finally, there's the Springer I thought we'd get this year. The 2.5-win player. The happy medium between superstar and scrub. They say that when you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses, not zebras. It's good advice. My problem, however, is that I don't know which option here represents the horses and which ones represent various other hoofed creatures. Am I ignoring the facts in front of me if I still believe in Springer? Am I ignoring his track record if I don't? Am I just avoiding the hard decisions if I split the difference? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is that it's May 20 (as I'm writing this), and George Springer is hitting .196 with a .596 OPS. How concerned are you about that? Stats and rankings updated prior to games on Wednesday, May 20. View full article

Monday was a rough one for Brandon Valenzuela. The Blue Jays catcher made two errors and let the Yankees steal five bases. He was well off the mark in his only ABS challenge of the game. His called strike rate on pitches in the shadow zone was uncharacteristically poor. Overall, his pitchers only earned strikes on 60% of their pitches. They gave up seven runs on 11 hits, four walks, and three homers. Yet, even in what was otherwise the worst defensive game of his young career, Valenzuela made the play of the night. Yankees catcher J.C. Escarra bunted a pop-up down the third base line. The ever athletic Valenzuela sprung to his feet and laid out for a sliding grab, the kind a catcher rarely has the opportunity to make. Despite the backwards somersault that knocked his helmet off his head, he held on to the baseball. Jeff Hoffman pumped his fist in celebration. Even the fans in the stands at Yankee Stadium were impressed. My point? Valenzuela has been nothing short of phenomenal behind the dish for the Blue Jays this season. His latest outing against the Yankees wasn't the most prototypical example of his defensive skills, but nonetheless, his glove found a way to shine. Valenzuela started the season with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. He only got the call to the majors when Alejandro Kirk hit the injured list eight games into the year. Then, he had to prove he deserved to be more than Tyler Heineman's backup. As a result, he has only played in 29 of Toronto's 48 games so far. His 203.2 defensive innings rank 27th among catchers. Despite that disadvantage, he leads his position in Statcast's Fielding Run Value (+6). He's tied for second in Defensive Runs Saved (+4). His framing has been spectacular, as has his ability to control the running game. The sample is small, but the company Valenzuela is keeping is elite: Catcher FRV Brandon Valenzuela 6 Patrick Bailey 5 Adley Rutschman 5 Dillon Dingler 4 Carlos Narváez 4 Tyler Heineman 4 J.T. Realmuto 4 Truth be told, that one leaderboard is pretty much the whole reason I wanted to write this article. I saw Valenzuela sitting just ahead of Bailey, Rutschman, and Dingler, and I wanted to shout from the metaphorical rooftop that the Blue Jays have the best defensive catcher in baseball – and his name isn't Kirk or Heineman. Yet, Valenzuela deserves commendation for more than just his glove. The switch-hitter has looked much more competent with the stick in May. He went 5-for-34 (.147) with one walk, one extra-base hit, and 14 strikeouts in his first three weeks with the Jays. Over the next three weeks, he hit .308 with three home runs, walking nearly as often as he struck out. His full-season OPS is up to a respectable .720. Both his wOBA and xwOBA sit right around league average. All told, Valenzuela's .233/.309/.411 slash line is nothing to write home about. But the difference between an elite defensive catcher who can hold his own against big league pitching and one who can't is massive. That's why Valenzuela is taking more and more playing time from Heineman. When the Blue Jays called up Valenzuela, all they were asking for was solid defense and a bat they could hide in the nine-hole of the order. They've gotten so much more. Since the day of his big league debut, Valenzuela ranks second among Blue Jays position players with 0.9 FanGraphs WAR. (Daulton Varsho is first with 1.2 fWAR.) That should tell you that the team has struggled, which you probably already knew. But it should also tell you how valuable Toronto's rookie catcher has been. Can Valenzuela keep playing at this level? The jury is still out on that one. Right now, however, he's helping to keep the team afloat while almost everyone else around him is either slumping or injured (or a bit of both). Hopefully, Kirk will come back soon, and Valenzuela won't have to do this much longer. But no matter what he does going forward, the young backstop has already been a hero for the Blue Jays in 2026. View full article

What's that line from The Dark Knight? Oh yeah, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Eric Lauer was a hero for the Blue Jays in 2025, pitching to a 3.18 ERA over 104.2 innings between the bullpen and the rotation. He gave the team another 8.2 innings with a 3.12 ERA in October. While he seemed superfluous throughout most of the 2025-26 offseason, the southpaw had a spot in Toronto's Opening Day rotation. Yet, although the team's rotation depth is even thinner now than it was then, Lauer just wasn't pitching well enough to hold onto a roster spot. By the time he was designated for assignment last Monday, he had more runs (27) than strikeouts (26) on the season. He also gave up 16 walks, 38 hits, and 11 home runs in 36.1 innings. Yesterday, Lauer finally escaped DFA limbo when the Blue Jays announced they had traded him to the Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash considerations. According to The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya, he will take on a "reliever/swingman" role in L.A. View full rumor

It's unfortunately official. Yesterday, manager John Schneider suggested that surgery was "on the table" for right-hander José Berríos. Today, he confirmed that Berríos will indeed go under the knife. The surgery will take place on Wednesday. Berríos has been on the injured list all season with a stress fracture in his right elbow. On Friday, Schneider said he did not believe the issue involved any soft tissue damage: Today, however, he revealed that there could be "some ligament stuff going on" after all: According to MLB.com's Keegan Matheson, Berríos could return within a couple of months in a best-case scenario. But if his surgeons discover any soft tissue damage during the initial procedure, he would surely be out significantly longer. View full rumor