It was an eventful long weekend for Jays news. The big one was that Alejandro Kirk fractured and dislocated his thumb on an Austin Hays foul tip late in Friday’s game. His actual prognosis won’t be known until he meets with specialists on Monday. In the best case scenario, though, it’ll be several weeks before we see him again. That’s a major blow to a team already dealing with a spate of rotation injuries. Brandon Valenzuela got the call up from Buffalo, and it sounds like he and Tyler Heineman will effectively be co-starters for the next few weeks based on John Schneider’s comments. Valenzuela came over from San Diego in exchange for Will Wagner. He’s not much of an offensive threat, although he can take a walk and has more than zero power. Defence is his calling card, as he projects as a solidly above average receiver with a good arm. He won’t replicate Kirk’s bat, but he might be able to do a passable impression of his game calling and framing.
They also made a couple of acquisitions. First, they signed Patrick Corbin to a one year, $1m deal with up to $1m in incentives. Corbin has been a free agent all spring, but has apparently been stretching out and was able to go 74 pitches with A Dunedin on Saturday afternoon, striking out nine over five one run innings. The 36 year old lefty made two All Star teams in the 2010s with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but struggled after signing a big free agent contract with the Washington Nationals and was the worst regular starter in the league from 2021 through 2024, posting a 5.71 ERA across 679 innings. He regained his footing last year after a move to the Texas Rangers, posting a 4.40 ERA over 155 innings with his best strikeout rate in years. There’s a reason he was unsigned in April, but if he can give them anything close to what he did in Texas for a few weeks he could be a badly needed rotation stopgap and his length on Saturday suggests he’s close to MLB ready.
Second, they acquired infielder Tyler Fitzgerald from the San Francisco Giants for cash considerations and optioned him to Buffalo. Fitzgerald had a good major league season in 2024, hitting .280/.334/.497. The underlying stat suggested that was way over his head, though, and he hasn’t produced like that before or since. He projects as more of a low .600s OPS guy. He played mostly shortstop in San Francisco, grading out below average there, but he’s also a solid second baseman and centre fielder, and has some time in third and left. He’ll slot into the depth utility infielder role until recently occupied by Leo Jimenez.
Last, they finally decided to send Brendon Little down after a brutal start to the season. His meltdown on Saturday raised his ERA to 24.55 on the season, and it hasn’t looked like anything at all is working for him. I don’t want to give up on him, it’s nasty stuff and he was excellent in the first half last season, but a reset is sorely needed. Lazaro Estrada also went back down. He came up for Cody Ponce and gave the Jays four desperately needed shutout innings, but they need a fresh arm and so he heads back to Buffalo. Such is live on the 40-man options shuttle. Lefty specialist Joe Mantiply and journeyman swing man Austin Voth come up in their place. Mantiply has been an effective lefty specialist for a long time with the Arizona Diamondbacks but declining velocity and poor MLB results got him sent down and then released last season before the Jays picked him up. Voth spent all of last season starting effectively for the NBP’s Chiba Lotte Marines after a decent 2024 spent as a conventional reliever in the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen. Both appeared in yesterday’s game. Voth went 2.2 innings, allowing one earned run (plus allowing an inherited runner to score) on three hits and a walk with one strikeout. Mantiply relieved him and worked one and a third, with a trio of strikeouts.
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