TORONTO — All season long, as a constant stream of injuries has tested the Toronto Blue Jays’ organizational depth, the one area where the club has maintained a surplus of talent is in the outfield.
Nathan Lukes’ return from the injured list Monday, leading to the option of Davis Schneider for a reset at triple-A Buffalo, reinforced a big-league group that also includes Daulton Varsho, Jesus Sanchez, Myles Straw and Yohendrick Pinango, who survived this round of roster churn. Addison Barger, due to resume throwing in the next couple of days, is on the horizon and, barring injury, will force someone else down. In Buffalo, R.J. Schreck is trending well after a slow start and Jonatan Clase, who will be out of options next year, recently returned from injury. At double-A New Hampshire, centre-fielder Victor Arias is back after recovering from off-season shoulder surgery and is someone the club is excited about.
That’s a deep upper-level mix, one that creates opportunities as the Blue Jays seek external help, both in the short term and in a couple of months when the trade deadline arrives.
Still, as desirable as surplus is, effectively managing surplus is complicated, with Otto Lopez’s return with the Miami Marlins on Monday serving as a timely reminder of that.
The Blue Jays signed the Montreal-raised shortstop batting .332/.363/.472 as an international free agent in 2016 and, with an exciting mix of contact and speed, he made his big-league debut in 2021, when he played in one game. He appeared in eight more contests in 2022 and looked primed for a jump after playing for Canada at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, but lost a big chunk of his season to an oblique injury.
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By the time 2024 rolled around, he was out of options and on the periphery of the Blue Jays roster picture. In the majors, Bo Bichette was locked in as the shortstop and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had just been signed to be part of an infield mix that also included Cavan Biggio and Ernie Clement, with free agent Justin Turner also expected to take some reps at third base.
Below them, Orelvis Martinez was one of the organization’s top prospects and on the cusp, with Leo Jimenez and Addison Barger also providing depth. So when the Blue Jays needed a 40-man roster spot for newly signed Yariel Rodriguez that February, Lopez was designated for assignment and eventually traded to the San Francisco Giants for cash.
That opportunity fizzled, but the Marlins claimed him on waivers April 4 and he blossomed there, delivering seasons of 2.5 and 2.3 wins above replacement, as calculated by Fangraphs, before really taking off this year after another stint as Canada’s shortstop at the World Baseball Classic, looking very much like the type of player the Blue Jays can use.
Player trajectories can really change fast.
“It was just bad timing for us, I feel like, with him,” said manager John Schneider. “It was never really sure about the opportunity to play with the roster we had. He always played hard. I thought he had some sneaky power, which he's showing this year, and he had really good bat-to-ball skills and he's shored up some things defensively. You don't love seeing it when you get rid of a guy, but I'm happy for him because he's an awesome dude.”
His growth underlines how difficult it is for clubs to project a player’s development path. It was Clement’s growth after being signed as a minor-league free agent in 2023 — once both Cleveland and Oakland had cut him — that helped box out Lopez in Toronto.
The Blue Jays experienced a similar organizational crunch with their catchers in 2012, when J.P. Arencibia and Travis d’Arnaud were the priority backstops in the farm system and Yan Gomes slipped through the cracks. He was eventually traded to Cleveland with Mike Aviles for Esmil Rogers and went on to play 1,118 big-league games, accumulating 17.5 fWAR.
“You never really know, right?” said Schneider. “The industry as a whole, we all identify guys and label guys a certain way. And then some guys outplay that and some guys underperform that. It's just up to the person individually to figure out what they need to do to get to where they want to get.”
Lopez credited the Marlins for helping him to do just that, saying, “if you tell me that I'm doing this bad, I'll go fix it.”
Compared to when he was with the Blue Jays, Lopez is now “more mature, definitely more experienced about the game and learned from mistakes the last two years with the team,” he said, mentioning changes he’s made with his approach at the plate and physically in the batter’s box. “They showed me what type of player that I can be and just going with that path that they saw.”
The Marlins also gave him the playing time to follow that path, the one thing the Blue Jays didn’t have. Timing, as they say, can certainly be everything.
