Blue Jays place Isiah Kiner-Falefa on 10-day Injured List, recall top prospect Leo Jimenez

The Toronto Blue Jays announced a roster move ahead of Tuesday’s game with the Houston Astros.

The team placed Isiah Kiner-Falefa on the 10-day Injured List because of a left knee sprain and called up infielder Leo Jimenez from Triple-A Buffalo.

Kiner-Falefa was a late scratch before Toronto’s game with Houston on Monday and manager John Schneider said the infielder’s injury “popped up out of nowhere.” It’s unfortunate timing for both Kiner-Falefa and the Blue Jays, as he’s been one of the team’s best hitters over the past few weeks.

The Blue Jays received plenty of criticism this winter for signing Kiner-Falefa, a gl0ve-first utility player, to a two-year contract given the team’s obvious need for power hitters, but the 29-year-old has been putting together the best season of his career offensively in his first year in Toronto.

Kiner-Falefa is slashing a .292/.338/.420 line over 281 plate appearances in 2024, all of which are career-highs. The highest on-base plus slugging percentage of Kiner-Falefa’s career came during the shortened 2020 season when he posted a .699 OPS over 228 plate appearances for the Texas Rangers. His seven home runs are one shy of matching the career-high he set in 677 plate appearances in 2021.

Joining the big-league roster in Kiner-Falefa’s place is Leo Jimenez, who was ranked the fifth-best prospect in the Blue Jays’ system coming into the 2024 season by MLB Pipeline. The 23-year-old infielder is slashing a .271/.416/.431 line over 226 plate appearances with the Buffalo Bisons this season and has seven home runs with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 34-to-30.

The Blue Jays signed Jimenez out of Panama in 2017 for a bonus of $825k. He was known as a glove-first shortstop with a good eye at the plate in the early levels of the minors but grew into some power as he moved up through High-A Vancouver and Double-A New Hampshire. Jimenez posted a .725 OPS with the Canadians in 2022, improved to a .767 OPS between the Fisher Cats and Bisons in 2023, and has an .847 OPS thus far in 2024.