Blue Jays News & Notes: Mayza, Payroll and more!

JFtC brings you a collection of Blue Jays news and notes. This time, hits on Tim Mayza, Toronto’s payroll and more!

* The Toronto Blue Jays suffered a bit of a loss yesterday, in more ways than one. Not only did they drop the game to the Twins, they watched their only lefty bullpen option dislocate his non pitching shoulder during a bunt play at the plate. Mayza tried to scoop toss the ball with his glove and the runner slid right into his arm, sending him to the IL and the Blue Jays scrambling to find a replacement option.

Some might argue the club didn’t do enough at the Trade Deadline to cover for the loss of their only lefty reliever. There’s not much to be done about that now, of course. Now, some creativity may be in order since their natural lefty option, Tayler Saucedo is also on the IL.

Perhaps, this is where the ripple effects come into play. Toronto has Ross Stripling on the IL, hopefully returning soon and newly acquired Mitch White (both righties) who could share some innings in the rotation and/or a swing man type roll, so some bullpen innings can be covered. However, if Toronto really believes in the lefty/righty matchup, they may need to consider getting even more creative. Stripling is seeing lefties hit .212 against him while righties are hitting .261 and White has a bit less success with lefties hitting .237 and righties hitting .248.

One idea floated by Mark Polishuk of MLBTR has an interesting idea: “…the Jays could look to shift Kikuchi to relief pitching. A move to the pen could both help the lack of left-handed pitchers, and also help Kikuchi get on track during what has been a difficult first season in Toronto.” On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Yusei Kikuchi has performed disappointingly to date and maybe a shift to shorter outings will help him.  For what it’s worth, lefties are hitting .170 against Kikuchi. Aside from the matchups, Stripling and White seem to be better options for multiple innings, where Kikuchi could bounce back in shorter outings.

* Over the last couple of years, we have heard about the Blue Jays having the ability to use their financial power to make trades. With relatively low commitments over the last couple years, they were able to take on risks like Tanner Roark since it only cost them money. We’ve also seen Toronto spend money on key free agents in an attempt to build a championship team. All that has resulted in an escalating payroll.

According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, Toronto has gone from a 2020 Opening Day payroll of $51.5M to a 2022 amount a tick above $171M with a CB tax for the 40 man roster amount of $190M. This came up in a tweet by JFtC podcast guest, Mat Germain: