Well, designating Zack Collins for assignment wasn’t something I had on my bingo card.
According to Mitch Bannon, the Blue Jays have DFA’ed the 27-year-old catcher/first baseman for assignment to make room for a reinstated Julian Merryweather.
This season, Collins is slashing .194/.266/.417 in 79 plate appearances for the Blue Jays. He added four home runs but had an incredibly high 39.2 K% with the big league club. He had a total wRC+ of 93.
With the Buffalo Bisons, he slashed .195/.361/.398 with five homers in 155 plate appearances. His K% dropped to 25.8% and had a rather impressive 20.6 BB% in that stretch. While he didn’t hit for average, he managed to post a wRC+ of 106.
Merryweather has a pretty bad 6.38 ERA with the Blue Jays, but a solid 3.50 FIP in 18.1 innings pitched. This is due to his 3.6 BB%, a fantastic rate, even if he has a rather low 20.5 K%. This isn’t to say he hasn’t been lucky with the Jays, as he has a hard hit percentage of 50.8%, or an average exit velocity of 92.2, 4 mph over the league average.
Rehabbing with the Buffalo Bisons, he posted a 0 ERA and 2.33 FIP in 12 innings pitched. He had a 34 K%, but his BB% rose to 12.8% in that short stretch. Merryweather, a flame thrower, sat in the high 90s as to be expected. I’d expect him to come out in low-leverage situations to see what he’s got.
To make room for him on the 26-man roster, pitcher Casey Lawrence was optioned back to Buffalo. Furthermore, pitcher Zach Pop is the pitcher that was called up for the doubleheader. He’ll likely be optioned back to Buffalo after today’s games.
me on Twitter @Brennan_L_D.
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