The Blue Jays have designated outfielder Bradley Zimmer for task, based on a membership announcement. The transfer opens a spot on the energetic roster for George Springer, who has been activated from the 10-day injured listing.
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. In fact, regardless of showing in 77 video games this 12 months, Zimmer has simply 87 plate appearances — a complete that’s reflective of his standing as a pure late-game defensive substitute and pinch-running possibility. He’s posted stable numbers with the glove and ranks within the ninety fifth percentile in Statcast’s common dash pace, however it’s laborious to miss the evident degree of offensive output.
That stated, it’s absolutely tough for anybody to carry out with such sparse alternatives to see huge 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 12 months with a .226/.310/.348 batting line in 858 huge 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 wonderful fourth outfielder, however the Jays seemingly really feel as if the roster spot may very well be higher used elsewhere.
Zimmer was the twenty first total pick of the College of San Francisco again in 2014. Present Toronto basic 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 recreation’s most extremely touted outfield prospects. A sky-high strikeout fee and a few evident struggles in opposition to left-handers have saved Zimmer from ever reaching that ceiling, nevertheless, and when the Jays added Jackie Bradley Jr. on an enormous league deal final week, it appeared fairly seemingly that Zimmer’s Jays days have 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 will likely be to position him on outright waivers or launch waivers. He technically has sufficient huge league service time to reject a minor league task if he does clear outright waivers, however he doesn’t but have the 5 years of service wanted to reject an outright task and retain the rest of his wage. As such, assuming he certainly passes via waivers unclaimed, Zimmer figures to just accept the task in an effort to keep away from forfeiting the rest of this season’s $1.3MM wage.
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