What happens when an injury replacement gets injured? You reach even deeper into the bag of reinforcements than you’d ever expect. Darrell Ceciliani has been placed on the 10-day disabled list with a shoulder injury suffered while homering last night off of Julio Teheran, and coming up in his place will be top prospect Anthony Alford.
BREAKING: Former Petal star Anthony Alford has been called up by the Toronto Blue Jays. He will join the team in Baltimore this afternoon.
— Jason Munz (@munzly) May 19, 2017
With Ceciliani headed to DL, #BlueJays have no other 40-man position players that they'd conceivably call up. Just need 1-day patch, though.
— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) May 19, 2017
Nobody expected Alford to be up in a situation like this, but my god are the Blue Jays desperate. In terms of position players, they have Dalton Pompey, Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin, Steve Pearce, and Ceciliani on the DL, and Kevin Pillar serving a suspension. The only options left on the 40-man to join the team are Alford, Harold Ramirez, Lourdes Gurriel, and Richard Urena, all prospects.
So up comes Alford! All the way from Double-A New Hampshire, where he’s been tearing the damn cover off of the ball. Alford, through 33 games and 141 plate appearances, has three homers and 11 RBIs and is slashing a .325/.411/.455 line.
I doubt he gets much game action, but based on the way 2017 has gone, anything can happen and it wouldn’t be that surprising. Yesterday, the Jays had Ceciliani in centre field, Zeke in left, and Jose Bautista in right. When Ceciliani left the game, Dwight Smith Jr. replaced him and Zeke slid to centre. Tonight? Who knows!
When Pillar finishes his suspension and is re-activated Saturday, Smith will go back down to Triple-A, because he isn’t on the 40-man and is only an emergency replacement for Pillar, and when Tulo is activated, which is hopefully soon, Alford will likely be sent back.
Interesting times.
I love seeing the young guys make their debut, as I’m getting to be an old fan it’s become one of my favorite things.
So what does this mean with respect to the team’s control over Alford? Burns an option year I presume, and doesn’t this bring his arbitration period a year closer because he was called up before mid June?
Super 2 status is dependent on where is is relative to all the other players between 2 and 3 years of service time. If I was going to guess, with the seemingly huge number of injuries and call-ups so far this season around MLB, I’d say he won’t get Super 2 even if he sticks permanently on the roster from today forward.
I feel like this is just for tonight until they bring back Pillar tomorrow. My guess would be that they’re much more likely to keep Smith Jr around for a look than run Alford out in the majors daily. Alford will probably go to Buffalo now when he gets sent down, though. He took a pretty solid run at AA so far, and his numbers were holding pretty well even facing teams for the second and third time. That .325/.411/.455 slash is pretty sexy especially when it goes with a K% under 20% (17.2) and a BB% over 10% (11.5)
It’s a common misconception that a player has to be called up to trigger an option. If a player is on the 40-man to start the season it’s pretty much guaranteed that an option will be used.
“Once a player is put on the 40-man roster, the option countdown begins. A player is assigned three options as a rostered player. Each year, when a player who is on the roster gets sent to the Minor Leagues for a stint of more than 20 days, it counts as an option.”
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/17188016//
Called it!
Ceciliani is batting cleanup – Fuck!!
He hit a home run -Yah!!
He injured himself on the swing and is on the DL – Fuck!!!
Alford is called up in his place – ?????
The Alford is also cursed.
Very excited to see this kid, even if it is just for a game or two. The team desperately needs some “new blood’.
Fuck it, start Alford in centre. I wanna see him hit.
“When Pillar finishes him suspension and is re-activated Saturday, Smith will go back down to Triple-A, because he isn’t on the 40-man ”
this 100% incorrect.
Gah. Not 100%. That typo.
I feel bad for Pompey, he’s probably gonna get passed over.
He as been hurt all season, that’s why he hasn’t been up.
Yeah I know, but that’s what I mean, this would have been his opportunity