{"id":164872,"date":"2025-09-23T23:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/164872\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T23:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:12:07","slug":"blue-jays-designate-alek-manoah-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/164872\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Designate Alek Manoah For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jays have designated former Cy Young finalist Alek Manoah<\/a> for assignment. That clears a 40-man roster spot for\u00a0Anthony Santander<\/a>, who returns from the 60-day injured list. Toronto placed\u00a0Ty France<\/a> on the 10-day IL with oblique inflammation to clear space on the active roster.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an abrupt end to Manoah\u2019s time in Toronto. The Jays selected the big right-hander with the 11th overall pick in the 2019 draft. The West Virginia product reached the big leagues two seasons later. He fired 20 starts with a 3.22 earned run average to finish eighth in AL Rookie of the Year balloting in 2021. Manoah built off that promising debut with a fantastic first full season in the big leagues. He threw just under 200 innings with a 2.24 ERA across 31 starts.<\/p>\n

Among qualified American League pitchers, only\u00a0Justin Verlander<\/a> and\u00a0Dylan Cease<\/a> had a lower earned run average that year. Manoah landed behind that duo with a third-place finish in Cy Young balloting. He earned an All-Star nod and received down ballot MVP votes. Even if Manoah\u2019s underlying marks weren\u2019t quite so dominant, he was one of the most promising young pitchers in the game.<\/p>\n

At the time, it would\u2019ve been impossible to imagine the Jays cutting him loose less than three years later. Manoah\u2019s stock has tumbled since the end of 2022. He allowed almost six earned runs per nine across 19 big league starts the following year. His strikeout rate dropped nearly four percentage points while his walks doubled. The Jays optioned him to the minors twice as he fell out of favor with the team competing for a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

Manoah was slated to return to the rotation to open the \u201924 campaign. He battled shoulder soreness during Spring Training and was forced to begin the season on the injured list. The Jays activated him in May. Manoah pitched well over five starts, turning in a 3.70 ERA with much better command than he\u2019d had in the preceding season. His elbow gave out in early June, however, sending him for season-ending UCL surgery.<\/p>\n

That\u2019ll very likely turn out to be his last MLB work in a Jays uniform. Manoah finished last season on the 60-day injured list. He\u2019d been on the IL for most of this season completing his rehab. The Jays activated him a couple weeks ago but didn\u2019t have room for him on the MLB pitching staff. They kept him at Triple-A Buffalo on optional assignment.<\/p>\n

Manoah managed a 2.97 ERA across seven Triple-A starts, but that came in spite of an unimpressive set of underlying numbers. His strikeout (20.4%), walk (12.2%) and home run (1.62 per nine innings) were all worse than average. Perhaps even more concerning is that his fastball was sitting 91 MPH. His heater had been around 94 during his excellent first two seasons and was above 93 before his elbow surgery last year.<\/p>\n

The Jays are evidently pessimistic about his chance of recapturing his pre-injury form. Manoah certainly wasn\u2019t going to be in the mix for a spot on this year\u2019s playoff roster. Keeping him would have been about the next two seasons. Manoah is under arbitration control through the end of 2027. He made $2.2MM this season and will be in line for a matching rate next year if he\u2019s tendered a contract. Toronto\u2019s front office decided they weren\u2019t going to take that roll of the dice.<\/p>\n

Manoah will be placed on waivers this week. That\u2019s in reverse order of the standings and is not league specific. The Rockies will have the first opportunity to decide whether to take a flier. They\u2019ll be followed by the White Sox, Nationals, Pirates, Twins and so on. There\u2019s a good chance someone will place a claim and hope that a healthy offseason allows Manoah to rebuild arm strength.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d remain controllable for another two seasons with a new club and still has two minor league options, so a claiming team could have him begin next season in Triple-A. If he clears waivers, Manoah would likely accept an outright assignment and remain with the Jays for the remainder of the season, but he\u2019d qualify for minor league free agency at the start of the offseason.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays have designated former Cy Young finalist Alek Manoah for assignment. That clears a 40-man roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[44383,7238,49,48,82,27677],"class_list":["post-164872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alek-manoah","tag-anthony-santander","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-ty-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}