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The Blue Jays have designated outfielder Bradley Zimmer for project, in keeping with a membership announcement. The transfer opens a spot on the lively roster for George Springer, who has been activated from the 10-day injured checklist.
Zimmer, 29, has held down a spot on the Toronto roster since being acquired in an Opening Day trade that despatched righty Anthony Castro again to Cleveland. He’s had a particularly restricted function this season and struggled mightily when plugged into the lineup, hitting simply .105/.209/.237 on the season. After all, regardless of showing in 77 video games this yr, Zimmer has simply 87 plate appearances — a complete that’s reflective of his standing as a pure late-game defensive alternative and pinch-running possibility. He’s posted strong numbers with the glove and ranks within the ninety fifth percentile in Statcast’s common dash velocity, however it’s onerous to miss the obvious stage of offensive output.
That mentioned, it’s absolutely tough for anybody to carry out with such sparse alternatives to see large league pitching in a aggressive setting. Zimmer had by no means hit a lot previous to the 2022 marketing campaign, however he a minimum of entered the yr with a .226/.310/.348 batting line in 858 large league plate appearances. Had been he in a position to replicate that line whereas nonetheless functioning in a late-game substitute function, he’d make for a fantastic fourth outfielder, however the Jays seemingly really feel as if the roster spot could possibly be higher used elsewhere.
Zimmer was the twenty first total select of the College of San Francisco again in 2014. Present Toronto normal supervisor Ross Atkins was Cleveland’s farm director on the time of Zimmer’s choice and absolutely is aware of him fairly properly after spending a number of years in that function whereas Zimmer developed into one of many sport’s most extremely touted outfield prospects. A sky-high strikeout fee and a few obvious struggles towards left-handers have stored Zimmer from ever reaching that ceiling, nevertheless, and when the Jays added Jackie Bradley Jr. on a giant league deal final week, it appeared fairly doubtless that Zimmer’s Jays days had been numbered.
Trades of anybody who’s been on a Main League roster are prohibited at this level within the season, so the one decision for Zimmer’s DFA shall be to put him on outright waivers or launch waivers. He technically has sufficient large league service time to reject a minor league project if he does clear outright waivers, however he doesn’t but have the 5 years of service wanted to reject an outright project and retain the rest of his wage. As such, assuming he certainly passes by way of waivers unclaimed, Zimmer figures to just accept the project with the intention to keep away from forfeiting the rest of this season’s $1.3MM wage.
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