Who doesn’t love late night rumours? Per Hector Gomez, the Jays offered 30-year-old utility infielder Jonathan Villar a one year, $6 million dollar contract.

Gomez mentioned that Villar has declined this offer, but now this apparently isn’t the case. Has he declined it? Has he accepted it? Have the Jays even offered it? Who knows! Rumour season BABBBYYY.

This isn’t the first time the Jays have had an interest in the infielder, in fact, they traded prospect Griffin Conine for Villar in 2020. He wasn’t very good. In 79 plate appearances, he slashed .188/.278/.481 without a home run. He also had a rather high K% of 27.8%, but this number is only slightly elevated from his career 26.5% K%. He also stole 7 bases in all of his attempts, but had issues running the bases, being picked off multiple times.

It’s a small sample size, but that’s not all.

The guy picked up his things and walked out of the Jays dugout after being pinched hit. This was in game one of what would be only two games in the 2020 playoffs. My message to Villar: Don’t play like crap and you won’t get pulled.

Villar slashed .249/.322/.738 in 505 plate appearances in the past season. He added an additional 15 homers, but his K% was still on the high side at 26.1%. His wRC+ totaled 105, slightly above average, but still not the replacement you’d expect at third base.

He also had his lowest success rate stealing bases at 66.666%, and the first time he’s been under 70% since his rookie season in 2013. What’s worse is the fact he had a -4 DRS at third base, where he played 748 innings in 2021, the most out of any position.

Considering how the Jays have had no interest in both Josh Donaldson or Marcus Stroman since their departures, it’s hard to believe they’d be interested in Villar. Even if the Jays were, you’d hope that they were/are looking at him as a utility player or a second baseman. Hopefully the Jays are also looking to add a power bat to play third base, such as Jose Ramirez or Matt Chapman.