The Toronto Blue Jays have indeed signed another Izturis brother, it’s just not the one everyone was led to believe.
On Wednesday afternoon a report surfaced that the Blue Jays has signed 32-year-old Cesar Izturis to a minor-league contract.
Earlier this month, the Blue Jays signed Cesar’s younger brother Maicer, to a three-year, $9-million deal.
The source of the Cesar report — Matt Eddy of Baseball America — and the rationale behind the signing, both seemed credible, especially given the Blue Jays’ lack of organizational depth in the middle infield.
As a result, several media outlets — including Sportsnet.ca — ran with the story.
Then things simply got weird.
Tweets began surfacing from an account claiming to be Cesar Izturis’s. The tweets appeared genuine at first but when they quickly turned dark, vulgar and profane it became obvious the account, no longer in existence, was a hoax.
On Thursday a Blue Jays official told Sportsnet 590 The Fan the team has not signed Cesar Izturis. A short while later, Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi learned the truth was the Blue Jays had actually signed another Izturis brother, in this case 23-year-old Julio.
According to baseball-reference.com, the 23-year-old Julio last played in 2011 with the short-season single-A Salem-Keizer Volcanoes in the San Francisco Giants system.
He too is a middle infielder. Just don’t ask me for his Twitter handle.
