Blue Jays: Nick Sandlin clears waivers, elects free agency

The 28-year-old was outrighted to triple-A Buffalo to clear a 40-man roster spot on Saturday, a move that essentially equalled an early non-tender, signifying that the team was not going to make him an offer in arbitration. They acquired Sandlin, along with Andrés Giménez, from the Cleveland Guardians last off-season for Spencer Horwitz and prospect Nick Mitchell.

Sandlin appeared in only 19 games for the Blue Jays amidst a season plagued by right elbow inflammation, pitching to a 2.20 ERA with 16 strikeouts and eight walks over 16.1 innings. He has an impressive 27.3% career strikeout rate, but struck out only 23.2% of the batters he faced during his brief Blue Jays tenure; meanwhile, he has run well above-average walk rates in every season of his career. Sandlin most recently pitched in early July.

The Blue Jays’ efforts to clear roster space come ahead of the 6 p.m. Tuesday deadline to add Rule-5 eligible players in the organization to the 40-man to protect them from the upcoming Dec. 10 draft during the Winter Meetings. Ricky Tiedemann, Yohendrick Piñango, Victor Arias, Josh Kasevich and Edward Duran are among the top Blue Jays’ prospects eligible to be selected by other teams.

Sandlin was projected to make $2 million in arbitration by MLB Trade Rumours.