{"id":749822,"date":"2026-06-21T00:37:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T00:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749822\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T00:37:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T00:37:17","slug":"blue-jays-acquire-luis-urias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/749822\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Acquire Luis Ur\u00edas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jays have acquired infielder Luis Ur\u00edas<\/a> from the Diamondbacks, according to Mitch Bannon of The Athletic<\/a>. Arizona receives cash in return. Ur\u00edas had been with the Diamondbacks on a minor league deal, though it appears he\u2019ll join Toronto\u2019s big league roster after exercising an upward mobility clause, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ur\u00edas signed that minor league pact with Arizona in the middle of March. He didn\u2019t appear with the big league club, instead spending most of the season at Triple-A aside from a handful of plate appearances in the Arizona Complex League. In 117 plate appearances at Triple-A, Ur\u00edas was batting .361\/.393\/.546 with a 123 wRC+. That\u2019s a pretty fortunate outcome, as evidenced by Ur\u00edas\u2019 unsustainably high .367 average on balls in play. He\u2019s also walking only 6.0% of the time, so Ur\u00edas\u2019 overall output could regress if his luck on contact starts to even out.<\/p>\n

Ur\u00edas peaked from 2021-22 with the Brewers. He played in 269 games between those two seasons and batted .244\/.340\/.426 with a 111 wRC+. Although Ur\u00edas didn\u2019t hit for a high average, he compensated by walking 10.8% of the time and showing solid power with 39 home runs in that span. Altogether, Ur\u00edas was worth a combined 4.8 fWAR in his age 24-25 seasons.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Ur\u00edas\u2019 production tailed off right as he should have been hitting his physical peak. After missing the first two months of 2023 with a strained left hamstring, Ur\u00edas performed poorly enough that Milwaukee optioned him to Triple-A that June and eventually traded him to the Red Sox at the deadline. Ur\u00edas ended that season with an 84 wRC+ in 177 plate appearances as his batting average fell below the Mendoza line. The next two seasons weren\u2019t much better, with Ur\u00edas putting up a 90 wRC+ in 439 plate appearances for the Mariners and Athletics.<\/p>\n

Presumably, the Diamondbacks weren\u2019t willing to give Ur\u00edas a spot on their big league roster. He will now get that chance with the Blue Jays instead. Toronto has an open spot on its 40-man roster, though Ur\u00edas will still need an active roster spot. Of the team\u2019s three bench players who aren\u2019t catchers, only Yohendrick Pi\u00f1ango<\/a> is hitting well (113 wRC+). Meanwhile, Davis Schneider<\/a> and Myles Straw<\/a> are each hitting at least 13% below average by wRC+.<\/p>\n

Straw is out of options and is an above-average defender, but it\u2019s been five years since he was even close to average as a hitter. Schneider has more positional flexibility, but is striking out 32.1% of the time en route to a 40-point drop in wRC+ from last year\u2019s 127 mark. That said, Toronto optioned Schneider just last month, and he\u2019s hit well in seven games since returning on June 12th, so the Jays might not be in a rush to option him again. Regardless, someone will probably get demoted, lest the club operate with a short bullpen.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Daniel Kucin Jr., Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays have acquired infielder Luis Ur\u00edas from the Diamondbacks, according to Mitch Bannon of The Athletic.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,360079,591,85],"class_list":["post-749822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-luis-urias","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}