Blue Jays Make Right Call Cutting 'Disaster' Jesus Sanchez

Jesus Sanchez Was a Defensive Disaster

This season, Sanchez was a defensive disaster, as his outfield defense was statistically among the worst in the league.

According to Baseball Savant, Sanchez was worth -8 outs above average, tying him for the second-worst mark among outfielders in all of MLB, just one ahead of Athletics outfielder Lawrence Butler.

Sanchez did not pass the eye test, either, as he constantly made bat reads in the outfield for Toronto, costing them critical runs — and important games — along the way.

His defense was so bad that it could not make up for his offense, which was decent.

With eight home runs, Sanchez has the same number of long bombs as Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and he did so in nearly half the at-bats.

His OPS of .734 and OPS+ of 101 were slightly above league average.

But when you account for his terrible defense, cutting him was an easy decision for the Blue Jays’ front office when you consider where they currently are in the standings.

The Blue Jays enter a weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles just 1 GB of the Cleveland Guardians, but they have both the Orioles and Texas Rangers hot on their heels, so they can’t afford to drop winnable games right now.

The thought of Sanchez dropping a ball in the outfield and costing the Blue Jays an important win at crunch time this season was just too cringeworthy for the team’s front office, so deciding to part ways with Sanchez was an easy call to make.

Every Remaining Game Is Important

With just 15 games left in the regular season, every single remaining game is super important for the Blue Jays to win.

The team doesn’t have much margin for error right now, so every single game is crucial to securing a victory, which is why they had to cut bait with Sanchez.

The Blue Jays simply couldn’t afford to risk Sanchez dropping another fly ball or taking another bad route in the outfield in these important games.

The risks outweighed the rewards, so he had to go.

Thus ends a very disappointing and short tenure for Sanchez in Toronto, one that was initially met with optimism as the smiling Dominican Republic native appeared to be a good fit on Toronto’s roster.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be anything but, and now he’s gone.

The Blue Jays will hope that Santander, the player whom Sanchez supplanted on the team’s roster when he went down due to injury, will be back before the season’s end.

Obviously, with just 15 games left this year, there isn’t a lot of time for Santander to get back into the field and into the team’s lineup and do some damage.

But the thought of him coming back was enough for the Blue Jays to ultimately decide that letting go of Sanchez was worth it.