Blue Jays Mailbag: September Call-Ups, 2018, and the Greatest Jay Ever

September is fast approaching and the Blue Jays are… pretty much what we thought they were? Though, I suppose that could mean anything, because there have been times this season where they’ve looked like world beaters (remember that 9-1 stretch in late May? Me neither), times they’ve looked like the worst baseball team in history, and all points in between.

Still, though, the AL wild-card race is a mess, and the club remains theoretically in it—with a bunch of September call-ups to look forward to, some of whom could even be game-changers. Will it matter? What does the offseason hold? Should I just give up and embrace the sweet release of death? Answers to some of these questions and more are straight ahead in this week’s mailbag!

If you have a Blue Jays question you’d like me to tackle for next week, be sure to send it to stoeten@gmail.com. As always, I have not read any of Griff’s answers.

For obvious reasons I’ve paired these two questions together. First, to Bob’s: a player does have to be on the 40-man roster in order to get called up. There’s a chance that the Jays will add someone to their 40-man just ahead of the deadline in order to bring him up for the final month of the season—something we might see with guys like Carlos Ramirez and Michael Saunders—but I’m not sure we’ll see too much manoeuvring, because to get those guys onto the 40-man will mean having to move somebody off it.

Who do I think will come up? Luke Maile and Teoscar Hernandez, for sure. Almost certainly Anthony Alford and Dwight Smith Jr., and a bunch of pitchers, many of whom we’ve already seen cycled through the big leagues. Leonel Campos, Chris Rowley, and Nick Tepesch are currently on the 40-man but in Buffalo, though that will almost certainly change by the end of the week. We might also see a Lourdes Gurriel call-up, perhaps even Richard Urena, and maybe Devon Travis activated off the 60-day DL. It would be nice if Dalton Pompey was deemed fit to get a call-up, too, but I’m not holding my breath on that one, unfortunately.