Brock Holt, who the Blue Jays pursued back in the off-season, is a free agent again

Brock Holt’s time in Milwaukee has come to an end.

Holt had been designated by assignment by the Brewers last week and it seems he cleared through waivers without any interest, so the team has opted to release him.

I imagine part of that was because of the price tag that came along with him. The Brewers inked the veteran utility guy to a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $3,500,000, so they’ll be on the hook for all of that.

Back in January, it was reported that the Blue Jays had an interest in signing Holt. Here’s what I had to say at the time…

It isn’t overly surprising they didn’t want to toss much cash at Holt back in the winter given the fact they had Drury playing pretty much the same role, but things might be different now.

For one, Holt won’t cost anything to pick up. He’s already earned his guaranteed $3,500,000, so he’ll surely just be looking for a place to play and rebuild his value. And, beyond that, Drury has been much, much worse than anticipated.

Through 21 games this season, Drury is slashing an absolutely paltry .152/.184/.174 line. He has seven hits in 49 trips to the plate and all of them are singles.

Everybody is rightfully screaming for the end of the Brandon Drury experiment, but the issue is that there isn’t really anybody on the roster who can fill the role, unless the Jays are interested in calling up a prospect like Jordan Groshans or Austin Martin. And we all know that isn’t going to happen.

So, as bad as Holt has been this year (he was worth -0.7 WAR and slashed a .100/.222/.100 line over 16 games for Milwaukee), at least there’s some pedigree there. While Drury has produced a .600 OPS over 167 games since getting traded out of Arizona, Holt managed a .772 OPS between 2018 and 2019.

Ross Atkins said after acquiring Taijuan Walker on Thursday that he’s planning to be “extremely active” between now and Monday’s trade deadline. I imagine finding an upgrade on Drury and the left side of the infield is a priority. Holt obviously isn’t the ideal target, but he would come cheap.