Blue Jays Claim Matt Waldron

The Blue Jays claimed righty Matt Waldron off waivers from the Padres, the team announced Wednesday. Lefty Patrick Corbin was transferred from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot.

Waldron, 30 next month, is out of minor league options, meaning he’ll jump right onto Toronto’s active roster. He has experience working both as a starter and long reliever, but the latter of those two roles seems likelier for now with his new club. The Jays traded Kevin Gausman ahead of the deadline and placed Trey Yesavage on the injured list earlier this morning, but they also added José Soriano and Jameson Taillon in a pair of deadline pickups. Right now, their rotation includes Soriano, Dylan Cease, Shane Bieber, Max Scherzer and Taillon.

In claiming Waldron, the Jays are adding the only active knuckleballer in the sport. About 29% of his pitches this season — and nearly 36% of his career pitches in the majors — have been knucklers.

Waldron posted decent enough results in 2023-24, combining for 188 innings of 4.79 ERA ball. He fanned 20.6% of his opponents, limited walks at a 6.5% clip and logged a 39.2% ground-ball rate. It’s not high-end production, but for a fifth starter, the results were generally fine. His 2025-26 numbers, however, have tanked.

Granted, the Padres only gave Waldron 4 2/3 innings in the majors last year, but he’s tossed another 32 2/3 frames around multiple IL stints this season. Dating back to last year, he’s been rocked for a 7.23 ERA. His command has still been good (8.1% walk rate), but his strikeout rate is down to 18% and he’s been far too susceptible to home runs. Waldron’s minor league work last year wasn’t much better. He posted solid rate stats but was still rocked for a 6.48 ERA in 90 1/3 innings thanks to a bloated .368 average on balls in play and an extremely low 61.7% strand rate.

In addition to his knuckleball, Waldron has a four-seamer, sinker, cutter and slider. The four-seamer and two-seamer sit 90-91 mph, while the cutter clocks in at about 87 mph and the slider around 80 mph. It’s a deep and varied arsenal, but only the cutter (his least-used pitch in his career) has consistently drawn decent grades in the big leagues.

The Jays can technically hang onto Waldron for four more years beyond the current season, but he’ll need to perform better in the present day before any such future considerations come into play. For now, he gives a banged-up Jays staff some innings out of the ‘pen — and possibly an option to step into the rotation if Bieber or Scherzer require additional trips to the injured list. Both have missed the majority of the season to date.