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Blue Jays: How Eloy Jiménez differs from the 2022 Greg Bird Spring Training audition
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Photo credit: © Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
Feb 25, 2026, 19:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 25, 2026, 18:53 EST
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Remember Greg Bird?
I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, his tenure as a Toronto Blue Jay was brief. Signing a minor-league contract with the team ahead of the 2022 season, he slashed .261/.393/.565 with two home runs in 28 plate appearances for a 143 wRC+. Bird made some noise in his brief tenure with the team, but elected to opt out of his contract, returning to the team that drafted him, the New York Yankees.
There was some optimism that he could return to the form he had in his rookie season in 2015, where he slashed .261/.343/.529 with 11 home runs in 178 plate appearances. It was helped thanks to a solid 2021 season with the Colorado Rockies’ Triple-A team, where he slashed .267/.363/.532 with 27 home runs.
Ultimately, Bird struggled in 2022 with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders and hasn’t played in affiliated baseball since the organization released him in July of that year, instead playing with the Québec Capitales, Melbourne Aces, and two teams in Mexico.
So why am I writing about Greg Bird early in 2026? Well, it’s a cautionary tale of not being too excited about a Spring Training performance. So in this article, let’s overreact to Eloy Jiménez’s Spring Training, because there’s a chance he may not be another Greg Bird.

From top prospect to injury riddled

Bird, drafted in the fifth round of the 2011 draft, was never considered a top prospect in baseball. In 2014, he was the Yankees seventh-best prospect according to MLB Pipeline, then their 4th-best prospect in 2015. He was a good prospect, but he never had the expectations of a superstar.
Jiménez, on the other hand, was a bonafide top 100 prospect for three consecutive seasons, ranking as Pipeline’s 14th-best prospect in 2017, fourth in 2018, and third in 2019, with only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatís Jr. ranking higher.
The final time he ranked, Jiménez was given a 65 grade hit tool and a 70 grade power tool. He made his debut with the Chicago White Sox the same year as Guerrero Jr. did with the Blue Jays, slashing .267/.315/.513 with 31 home runs in 504 plate appearances. A solid power hitter, Jiménez struck out 26.6% of the time with a 6 BB%.
As noted earlier, Bird had a strong rookie campaign in limited plate appearances, hitting 11 home runs in just 178 plate appearances while slashing .261/.343/.529. Bird’s career was hampered from there, missing all of 2016 with a shoulder injury, which also hampered him in 2017, limiting him to just 170 plate appearances. The 2018 season was also injury filled, as he had a career-high 311 plate appearances, before just 41 more big league appearances in 2019.
During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Jiménez slashed .296/.332/.559 with 14 home runs in 236 plate appearances, winning his one and only Silver Slugger award thanks to a 138 wRC+. Unfortunately, the injuries began after that season.
Before the 2021 season even began, Jiménez ruptured his pectoral tendon, returning in late July and finishing with 10 home runs in 231 plate appearances for a 100 wRC+. He was injured early in 2022, missing two and a half months, but still had a productive season where he slashed .295/.358/.500 with 16 home runs in 327 plate appearances.
Jiménez’s stint on the injured list in 2023 was due to poor luck, as he needed his appendix removed, ending the season slashing .272/.317/.441 with 18 home runs in 489 plate appearances for a 106 wRC+.
For the first time in his career, Jiménez had a wRC+ below 100, as he hit just five home runs in 249 plate appearances with the awful White Sox in 2024. Before the trade deadline, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles, where he had a rough end to his season, finishing with a 78 wRC+.
The first baseman/outfielder/designated hitter played 54 games last season, all in the minor leagues, where he struggled to hit. In July, he was released by the Tampa Bay Rays, and signed with the Blue Jays in late August. By this point, the shine he had when he was a prospect is all but gone, but not all hope is lost for Jiménez to be a productive hitter.

His off-season and early into Spring Training

There’s reasons to be optimistic about Jiménez. On top of once being a top prospect in baseball, and having a solid track record when healthy, Jiménez had an impressive off-season. While Bird hit 27 home runs in Triple-A the season before signing with the Jays, those were in the Pacific Coast League, which is notorious for high home run totals due to its teams being in elevation.
While Jiménez’s 2025 season was a rough one, he found success with the Toros del Este in the Dominican Winter League, slashing .246/.324/.426 with five home runs in 139 plate appearances. In the postseason, that improved to slashing .323/.360/.505 with a home run and 12 doubles in 23 games. He was named the LIDOM round robin MVP.
Jiménez turned that into a minor league deal with the Blue Jays, where he is slashing .625/.625/1.250 with a home run and two doubles over eight plate appearances. Obviously, that is a miniscule sample size, but it’s the underlying numbers which are encouraging. 
Of the six balls that he’s put in play, four of them have been considered hard hit balls (95+ mph), with three of them clocking in at 104.8 mph or higher. A single on Wednesday came in at 111.1 mph, as his two balls in play had the highest exit velocity in the game. Those six balls in play have an average exit velocity of 99.6 mph, higher than Bird’s 92.4 mph exit velocity on 11 balls in play four years ago.
Even though Jiménez hasn’t lived up to the hype he had in the late 2010s, he’s been a productive player when healthy throughout his career, 2024 aside. In a recent article by Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling, Jiménez is healthy, which hasn’t happened in years. If he can remain healthy and hit well, there’s a legitimate argument that he could make the roster, even if the fit is difficult given his subpar defence in the outfield.
Time will tell if Jiménez will go the way of Greg Bird, but the 2025 Blue Jays had two important pieces who were signed to a minor league deal. Perhaps Jiménez hits like he did early in his big league career.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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