Nathan Lukes wins the final spot on the Blue Jays' roster!
Nathan Lukes wins the final spot on the Blue Jays' roster!
PLUS: News, notes, and thoughts on Zach Pop, Jay Jackson, Yusei Kikuchi, José Berríos, poutine dogs, pitching depth, and more!
I’m not going to lie to you, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about Nathan Lukes this spring. In all honestly, I’m not sure I’m going to spend all that much time thinking about him from here on out either. Yet, as much as I would be the first to tell you that the one specific permutation that an MLB club’s roster ends up in as spring training shifts to opening day doesn’t matter very much, it absolutely does matter to some. And for the Blue Jays, for right now, the person it surely matters to most is Lukes.
At the ripe old age of 28 years and 259 days, Lukes today finally finds himself a full-fledged big leaguer. Or, at the very least, about to be on an MLB club’s active roster for the first time. Barring a late injury or an unforeseen opportunity on the trade market — hey, business is business — last year’s Buffalo Bisons MVP will be there for all the pageantry on Thursday when the Blue Jays open their season at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (Current forecast: 19°C and partly cloudy).
So let’s talk about it…
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It's been a long journey for the left-handed-hitting outfielder to finally land a big league gig and get his first taste of something that one day might resemble security. A seventh-round pick by Cleveland out of Sacramento State way back in 2015, Lukes was dealt to the Rays at the 2016 deadline along with RHP Jhonleider Salinas for outfielder Brandon Guyer — a player who would go on to be a rather valuable playoff performer that year (despite an 0-for-4 in the ALCS against the Blue Jays), appearing in all seven World Series games while going 3-for-10 with four walks and four runs scored.
More than any other team in baseball, the Rays love to churn through their minor leaguers, so one might have expected that this move was a good opportunity for Lukes to reach the big leagues. Unfortunately, things just didn't quite click for him in the Rays org. the way that they had in A-ball for Cleveland (.301/.375/.438). He was disappointing in High-A post-trade, then managed just a 101 wRC+ over 98 games in his first taste of Double-A in 2017. He repeated the level in 2018, bumping his wRC+ up to 107 in his second go-round, but fell off a cliff when assigned to Triple-A to start the following year. In his first year Durham he hit just .219/.294/.319 in nearly 300 plate appearances.
The pandemic hit in 2020, wiping out the minor league season. Presumably because of his awful time in 2019, the Rays didn't take Lukes to their alternate site that summer. To his credit, when the world returned to semi-normal he bounced back in 2021, slashing .303/.352/.456. This, evidently, wasn’t enough to land a call-up to the big leagues. Nor was it — more importantly — enough to get him added to the Rays’ 40-man roster after the season.
By this point he'd spent parts of seven seasons on a minor league roster without graduating to the majors, which qualified him as a minor league free agent. The Blue Jays then swooped in with a pretty good opportunity. This was a team with playoff ambitions heading into 2022, but not a lot of big-league-ready outfield depth. Josh Palacios lost his 40-man spot the following spring, so clearly the team wasn’t exactly enamored with him. They took a flyer on Dexter Fowler, for crying out loud!
Lukes likely saw a viable path to the majors, especially with the Jays’ three primary outfielders being injury prone, and signed a minor league deal. He then went out and impressed, going 8-for-25 with four walks, four doubles, and a home run (.400/.467/.680) in spring training. Alas, he was the club’s final cut from camp — an "honour" this year that went to both Vinny Capra and Otto López, who were reassigned/optioned here on Tuesday. Then, on opening day, the Jays sent reliever Anthony Castro to Cleveland for Bradley Zimmer. Jackie Bradley Jr. and Whit Merrifield eventually arrived as well. Lukes didn’t get a look all year.
He did, however, put up similarly strong numbers for Buffalo (.285/.364/.425) as he had in Durham in 2021. Unlike the Rays a year earlier, the Jays added Lukes to their 40-man last winter. It has now led him to the precipice of his first taste of major league life —largely spurred by yet another impressive turn in Dunedin.
The Jays gave Lukes a pretty good look this spring, handing him 47 plate appearances — higher than all but seven other players in camp. He used those to go 12-for-42, with four of those being extra base hits. He added four walks, while striking out only four times. Two of those extra-baggers were triples, emphasizing the speed and instincts on the base paths that he has, and which the Jays seem rather impressed by. (Those instincts were also on display last season in Buffalo, when he swiped 20 in 23 attempts).
By the end of it, this penultimate-day-of-spring triple was maybe not the finest example of blazing speed (or tenacious outfield defence), but three bases is three bases!
Impressive stuff — and not even Nathan’s hardest hit ball of the day on Monday, as he also had a fifth inning single off of big league reliever Connor Brogdon that came off the bat at 103 mph. He has some major league calibre skills, for sure. But, uh, let's maybe not get too ahead of ourselves about his attributes just yet, eh?
Speaking to reporters in Dunedin, including Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith, manager John Schneider was pretty definitive about the job Lukes is here to do.
“We trust him in the outfield. We trust him on the bases. Obviously, his at-bats have been great. But the way we're built and constructed right now, it'll be in a probably here-and-there role to start. But just excited that he's got the chance at the major leagues.”
I don’t want to bring up Gosuke Katoh here, who made last year’s opening day roster for the Jays, but… well… as much as this is a great reward for Lukes, things can change in a hurry in a business as cutthroat as baseball. Speaking of that, one actually wonders if the 24-year-old López was denied this opportunity less because the Jays are especially enthralled with Lukes and more because the club would prefer to see the younger, still-developing guy continue to take regular at-bats rather than languishing for however long this is going to last as a fifth outfielder who doesn’t even land particularly high on the centre field depth chart.
Johnny Schneids also said this on Tuesday about López, in particular.
“When we start this whole thing at the beginning of camp, I tell the guys it's going to take contributions from everyone in the room. He's going to be part of that at some point as well.”
With a 40-man spot, options to burn, and versatility to cover in a few places — or, more likely, cover as a backup in a few places — that’s undoubtedly true. Just as it is for the man of the hour. Lukes is getting the first crack at a spot here, but this tweet could have just as easily been about him (minus the Simpsons reference, and plus the presumed “not” between “is” and “created”). Maybe even more so.
Rest assured, Lukes will be caught in those gears at some point. And probably will keep being caught there for quite some time, seeing as he was only just added to the 40-man. He’s got three options remaining, meaning that the Jays can keep sending him up and down from Buffalo for the next three seasons — or until they deem his services unnecessary and outright him off the 40 for someone else. Whichever comes first.
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
The other thing I think is worthy of note in all this is that there has been talk throughout the spring about how the optimal Jays roster should include a right-handed bench bat who, ideally, could play some outfield in that 26th spot. Such a player would help keep the catchers from being drawn into the lineup at DH — something the Jays appear to want to do — and take whatever extra outfield reps he’s slated for away from Merrifield — which they should want to do. The club’s most platoon-y guys hit from the left side, so having a player like that would also be useful as a pinch hitter when Kiermaier, Varsho, or Belt come up late against lefty relievers.
I’m not pining for the washed likes of Chad Pinder or Darin Ruf here, and I can accept that this player may not arrive to spare us from too much Whit1 until July, but either way, Lukes is decidedly not it.
Which is fine! Bradley Zimmer had a role on this team for a long time last year, and that was fine too. I’m just saying, while this is a cool honour, it’s great that he’ll be in the big leagues to start the year, he’s interesting as a player and as a story of perseverance, you should maybe think twice before tossing your Lukes Bisons jersey just yet.
Quickly-ish…
• The other player to finalize his spot on the Jays’ opening day roster this week was reliever Zach Pop. The Brampton native was lit up for a couple home runs in his final tune-up on Sunday against the Yankees, though it's worth noting a few things about those. First is that those accounted for just his second and third runs surrendered this spring. Second is that they came in his first attempt at working on back-to-back days.
Third is that one was surrendered to Anthony Rizzo, on a sinker that ended up right on his barrel — and was thrown nearly 1.8 mph below Pop's average sinker velocity last season. And fourth is that the other was to Aaron Judge. On a pitch that was, uh, not exactly located well.
These may seem like bad things, but in fact, Pop has been locating really well all spring — both on the backfields and in games. It’s a major part of the reason he’s landed a spot in the Jays’ bullpen to start the year.
“He’s moving that elite sinker around to where righties know it may not just be coming in on you, it may be a back-door two-seamer,” Schneider told MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson last week. “He’s landing his slider more consistently than he did last year, too, so [hitters] have a little doubt that a sinker may not be coming.”
Per Spotsnet’s Benny Fresh, pitching coach Pete Walker added some very high praise recently, too.
“He’s an underrated arm right now. He's someone that could step up, with his kind of stuff and have like a Clay Holmes type of year. He is potentially that kind of guy. The fact that he's now throwing his sinker to both sides of the plate and not just one side as evidenced (Wednesday). When he starts getting left handers out routinely he's an elite reliever and not just a right-on-right guy.”
Sign me up.
• Speaking of the phrase “sign me up,” those words — or something to that effect — were uttered this week by Jay Jackson, who has re-signed with the Jays only a few days after being granted his release. The right-hander was very impressive in camp this spring, striking out 13 batters in 9 1/3 innings while allowing no earned runs on just seven hits and two walks. He lasted long into camp, but ultimately wasn’t going to make the opening day squad, which forced the Jays to offer him his release due to a stipulation in his contract.
He also seems genuinely excited to be back on board.
• Jackson presumably explored the market and wasn’t able to find a better deal or situation than the one he was offered by the Blue Jays — which, it’s worth noting, wasn’t a simple minor league contract. Per Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, Jackson will be on a split contract. He explains:
• Speaking of guys in the minors, the Buffalo Bisons announced the players who have been assigned to them to start the season, and it’s easily the most impressive collection of arms the Jays have had as minor league depth in quite some time.
Not bad!
• Sticking with me just copy-pasting Mitch’s tweets, evidently the Jays' final tuneup of the spring wasn't as full of minor leaguers as I assumed it would be in my previous post. In fact, a bunch of big leaguers got in on the action, most notably — believe it or not — Yusei Kikuchi.
None of those 10 walks came during today’s outing, either. I don’t know what any of it means — the BB% is still too high for my liking — but I guess I’m ready to roll with it. I guess I have no choice. Bring on the Royals!
• I'd joke about maybe not bringing on the Royals just yet for Tuesday's Blue Jays starter, José Berríos, but he actually pitched quite a better than his line looked, I think.
The box score says he allowed four runs over 4 2/3 innings, giving up three hits and three walks while striking out four. Look a little deeper and you'll see four pretty good frames (one run on one hit, two walks, four strikeouts). These were non-consecutive innings, as he ran up his pitch count with an unfortunate start to the fourth: walk, single, sac fly, single (E9 and E4 on the play!), sac fly. He then exited, Tim Mayza got lit up, and, after Andrew Bash replaced Mayza and ended the inning, Berríos came back out and pitched a clean fifth.
He allowed just one hard hit ball all day. (Let's just ignore that his velocity was down 1.4 mph or more on every pitch, OK?)
• WHO’S READY FOR POUTINE DOGS????
• Lastly, we sure do, BK. We sure do.
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Below average as a right-handed hitter even against left-handed pitching (96 wRC+) since the start of 2020! What are we doing here???