So, in the month of July, the Blue Jays added 18 draftees (assuming the safe bet that Trey Yesavage signs today), 11 more free agents, and traded for 13 prospects (counting Joey Loperfido who&#8217;s technically graduated from rookie status recently). In the case of the first two groups, only four of the 30 have been assigned to rosters (many of the pitchers probably won&#8217;t be this summer) but we now know where the players traded for will start their Blue Jays career.
I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen all the opinions more relevant than mine about the potential abilities and history of these guys so I&#8217;m not going to pretend to be an evaluator. I&#8217;m instead going to look more at how they plug into their new rosters given both their own history (positions played and such) and the history of the players who just became their teammates. Starting with the highest level assignments and working down through the system.

Joey Loperfido &#8211; You likely know by now that the 25-year-old has joined the Blue Jays. He can play first and second but the best guess is that he&#8217;ll get the majority of starts in LF for a while to see what pops. The LH hitter was in the midst of a 2 for 26 slump on the day of the trade but was hitting well before that. Meanwhile, incumbent Davis Schneider has an OPS of .533 since June 3 but he may well still get some reps out there vs LHP.
Jake Bloss &#8211; Initially assigned to Buffalo, his first stop is the PD complex in Dunedin for, one assumes, intense data collection among other things. Bloss was rushed from AA by the Astros out of, frankly, desperation and while his overall line looks like he was overmatched, in three outings two were middling and one was bad. My speculation here is that they would like to see him take one game of the August 26 doubleheader* against Boston if things go smoothly. If that&#8217;s the plan, there&#8217;s time for 3-4 starts in AAA first.
Will Wagner &#8211; Assigned to Buffalo to start, observers have commented &#8211; and Ross Atkins seemed to confirm &#8211; that assignment will be short-lived. In his minor league career he&#8217;s gotten significantly more innings at 2B than at either corner, but this season it&#8217;s been a bit more at 1B. Possibly due to organizational needs in Houston. Even though there&#8217;s a lot of &#8220;he looks ready&#8221; chatter about his offence, he&#8217;s only played in six AAA games so my guess is he&#8217;ll stay with Buffalo until their season ends and then come to Toronto after Labor Day.
Jonatan Clase &#8211; Also in Buffalo, likely not for long. A burner who collected 79 steals in 2023 (an ability wholly absent on the Blue Jays) with surprising pop for his side, he&#8217;s said to have CF tools, though they are rough, but he&#8217;s not displacing the best fielding CF in the majors so he&#8217;ll have to hit (and run) with enough authority to win LF. John Schneider&#8217;s major task will be to figure out how to get both he and Loperfido (who&#8217;s capable in RF as well) into the lineup regularly &#8211; when Clase arrives.
Charles McAdoo &#8211; Assigned to AA New Hampshire, which is a level he&#8217;d only gotten 27 games at in the Pirates system. Still listed as an outfielder on his MiLB player page, the overwhelming majority of his work this season (only his second in the pros) was spent at 3B and it would be a boon to the Jays if he can stick there. Third had been covered here mostly by Alex De Jesus who still hasn&#8217;t gotten his bat going, and, lately, Cade Daughtry who&#8217;s spent a lot of the season injured and can easily slide to 2B so there&#8217;s no immediate obstruction to plugging him in and letting him run.
Eddinson Paulino &#8211; Also at AA where he&#8217;s been the whole season. Listed as an SS, he&#8217;s played about as much 2B and some 3b as well. His role for New Hampshire really looks like a true utility man. Josh Kasivich, hasn&#8217;t hit much lately but has elite defensive skills and was a second-rounder in 2022 is pretty locked in at SS, McAdoo seems likely to get the bulk of work at third and Daughty (also a high pick in &#8217;22) will take up a lot of space at 2B. Minor league managers do good work at finding ways to get everyone some at-bats but he&#8217;s not going to have a true home. He&#8217;s also currently on the IL.
Yohendrick Pinango &#8211; Also at AA. Pinango has been a fairly ordinary hitter throughout his professional career, then he started off this season playing at High A where he caught fire for 100 AB and forced his way to AA where he promptly became wholly ordinary again. He&#8217;ll mainly compete with Gabriel Martinez (who&#8217;s in his second season of being ordinary) for playing time in left.
RJ Shreck &#8211; Also at AA. How some experience in RF but more in left. Reaching AA after being drafted last year is noteworthy, but he&#8217;s only gotten 8 games there so no significant conclusion can be drawn. However, he was better at High A overall than Pinango has ever been apart from that hot streak (though admittedly almost two years older). Besides Martinez, RF Garret Spain may lose playing time but he&#8217;s an org guy.
Josh Rivera &#8211; Also at AA. A 23-year-old SS that only got 25 games at High-A last year and was, well, fine but not pushing for a promotion this year. Arguably he was rushed and he&#8217;s floundered this season at the plate. Given the competition for at-bats here it wouldn&#8217;t be crazy if the Jays dropped him back to Vancouver for the rest of the season. I don&#8217;t see how he gets to play much for New Hampshire.
Cutter Coffey &#8211; At High-A Vancouver. Defensively he&#8217;s split time between short and third. Offensively he was unimpressive last season but has had a mild breakout this year mostly due to a spike in power. Remains to be seen if that can be sustained and the rest of his game can round out. For Vancouver he&#8217;ll have no competition from talented hitters. Every hitter who plays to the left of 1B is doing unimpressive work.
Jacob Sharp &#8211; Also at Vancouver. Defense is a much more important factor for catcher playing time and that&#8217;s not information I have on Sharp. Offensively he did well enough in Lo-A and will likely split most of the at-bats with Nick Deschamps (At least, once they get acclimated to the new pitching staff) who is also freshly arrived from Dunedin. Statistically, their Lo-A results were quite similar.
Jay Harry &#8211; Vancouver as well. Split time between SS and 2B so far, hit nicely in Lo-A last year, pretty much not at all in Hi-A this year. No way to predict playing time as none of the incumbents are doing well enough to stand in his way. To be honest, there&#8217;s maybe one or two that might be released soon.
Gil Batista &#8211; Dunedin. Generally good results working primarily as a starter in the complex leagues. It&#8217;s unlikely that he gets all that much in-game work for the D-Jays this month but may well be in their rotation next season as the Jays&#8217; Florida Complex team didn&#8217;t generate any exciting SP prospects this year.
Three 2024 draftees, OF Carter Cunningham (10th rd) and catchers Aaron Parker and Brock Tibbits (6th, and 13th, respectively) have joined the D-Jays. Free agent signing Alex Stone, also a catcher, has joined Vancouver but is on the Development List.

So, in the month of July, the Blue Jays added 18 draftees (assuming the safe bet that Trey Yesavage signs today), 11 more free agents, and traded for 13 prospects (counting Joey Loperfido who's technically graduated from rookie status recently). In the case of the first two groups, only four of the 30 have been assigned to rosters (many of the pitchers probably won't be this summer) but we now know where the players traded for will start their Blue Jays career.

I'm sure you've seen all the opinions more relevant than mine about the potential abilities and history of these guys so I'm not going to pretend to be an evaluator. I'm instead going to look more at how they plug into their new rosters given both their own history (positions played and such) and the history of the players who just became their teammates. Starting with the highest level assignments and working down through the system.



Joey Loperfido - You likely know by now that the 25-year-old has joined the Blue Jays. He can play first and second but the best guess is that he'll get the majority of starts in LF for a while to see what pops. The LH hitter was in the midst of a 2 for 26 slump on the day of the trade but was hitting well before that. Meanwhile, incumbent Davis Schneider has an OPS of .533 since June 3 but he may well still get some reps out there vs LHP.

Jake Bloss - Initially assigned to Buffalo, his first stop is the PD complex in Dunedin for, one assumes, intense data collection among other things. Bloss was rushed from AA by the Astros out of, frankly, desperation and while his overall line looks like he was overmatched, in three outings two were middling and one was bad. My speculation here is that they would like to see him take one game of the August 26 doubleheader* against Boston if things go smoothly. If that's the plan, there's time for 3-4 starts in AAA first.

Will Wagner - Assigned to Buffalo to start, observers have commented - and Ross Atkins seemed to confirm - that assignment will be short-lived. In his minor league career he's gotten significantly more innings at 2B than at either corner, but this season it's been a bit more at 1B. Possibly due to organizational needs in Houston. Even though there's a lot of "he looks ready" chatter about his offence, he's only played in six AAA games so my guess is he'll stay with Buffalo until their season ends and then come to Toronto after Labor Day.

Jonatan Clase - Also in Buffalo, likely not for long. A burner who collected 79 steals in 2023 (an ability wholly absent on the Blue Jays) with surprising pop for his side, he's said to have CF tools, though they are rough, but he's not displacing the best fielding CF in the majors so he'll have to hit (and run) with enough authority to win LF. John Schneider's major task will be to figure out how to get both he and Loperfido (who's capable in RF as well) into the lineup regularly - when Clase arrives.

Charles McAdoo - Assigned to AA New Hampshire, which is a level he'd only gotten 27 games at in the Pirates system. Still listed as an outfielder on his MiLB player page, the overwhelming majority of his work this season (only his second in the pros) was spent at 3B and it would be a boon to the Jays if he can stick there. Third had been covered here mostly by Alex De Jesus who still hasn't gotten his bat going, and, lately, Cade Daughtry who's spent a lot of the season injured and can easily slide to 2B so there's no immediate obstruction to plugging him in and letting him run.

Eddinson Paulino - Also at AA where he's been the whole season. Listed as an SS, he's played about as much 2B and some 3b as well. His role for New Hampshire really looks like a true utility man. Josh Kasivich, hasn't hit much lately but has elite defensive skills and was a second-rounder in 2022 is pretty locked in at SS, McAdoo seems likely to get the bulk of work at third and Daughty (also a high pick in '22) will take up a lot of space at 2B. Minor league managers do good work at finding ways to get everyone some at-bats but he's not going to have a true home. He's also currently on the IL.

Yohendrick Pinango - Also at AA. Pinango has been a fairly ordinary hitter throughout his professional career, then he started off this season playing at High A where he caught fire for 100 AB and forced his way to AA where he promptly became wholly ordinary again. He'll mainly compete with Gabriel Martinez (who's in his second season of being ordinary) for playing time in left.

RJ Shreck - Also at AA. How some experience in RF but more in left. Reaching AA after being drafted last year is noteworthy, but he's only gotten 8 games there so no significant conclusion can be drawn. However, he was better at High A overall than Pinango has ever been apart from that hot streak (though admittedly almost two years older). Besides Martinez, RF Garret Spain may lose playing time but he's an org guy.

Josh Rivera - Also at AA. A 23-year-old SS that only got 25 games at High-A last year and was, well, fine but not pushing for a promotion this year. Arguably he was rushed and he's floundered this season at the plate. Given the competition for at-bats here it wouldn't be crazy if the Jays dropped him back to Vancouver for the rest of the season. I don't see how he gets to play much for New Hampshire.

Cutter Coffey - At High-A Vancouver. Defensively he's split time between short and third. Offensively he was unimpressive last season but has had a mild breakout this year mostly due to a spike in power. Remains to be seen if that can be sustained and the rest of his game can round out. For Vancouver he'll have no competition from talented hitters. Every hitter who plays to the left of 1B is doing unimpressive work.

Jacob Sharp - Also at Vancouver. Defense is a much more important factor for catcher playing time and that's not information I have on Sharp. Offensively he did well enough in Lo-A and will likely split most of the at-bats with Nick Deschamps (At least, once they get acclimated to the new pitching staff) who is also freshly arrived from Dunedin. Statistically, their Lo-A results were quite similar.

Jay Harry - Vancouver as well. Split time between SS and 2B so far, hit nicely in Lo-A last year, pretty much not at all in Hi-A this year. No way to predict playing time as none of the incumbents are doing well enough to stand in his way. To be honest, there's maybe one or two that might be released soon.

Gil Batista - Dunedin. Generally good results working primarily as a starter in the complex leagues. It's unlikely that he gets all that much in-game work for the D-Jays this month but may well be in their rotation next season as the Jays' Florida Complex team didn't generate any exciting SP prospects this year.

Three 2024 draftees, OF Carter Cunningham (10th rd) and catchers Aaron Parker and Brock Tibbits (6th, and 13th, respectively) have joined the D-Jays. Free agent signing Alex Stone, also a catcher, has joined Vancouver but is on the Development List.

Looking at where the newly acquired Blue Jays prospects have been assigned

Toronto Blue Jays left fielder Nathan Lukes (38) steals second base ahead of the tag by Texas Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien (2) during the seventh inning at Globe Life Field.

Recent articles from Tammy Rainey

Breaking News