{"id":47996,"date":"2025-08-05T22:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47996\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T22:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:08:08","slug":"blue-jays-designate-ali-sanchez-for-assignment-select-buddy-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47996\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Designate Ali S\u00e1nchez For Assignment, Select Buddy Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jays announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Buddy Kennedy<\/a>. In a corresponding move, catcher Ali S\u00e1nchez<\/a> has been designated for assignment. The 40-man roster remains full.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez was selected to the roster a little over a week ago when Alejandro Kirk<\/a> landed on the seven-day concussion-related injured list. Kirk was reinstated on Sunday but Tyler Heineman<\/a> had been removed from Saturday\u2019s contest after being struck by a foul ball. The Jays decided to keep all three catchers for a few days to buy some time as they evaluated Heineman.<\/p>\n

In order to keep that catching depth, they had to cut into their infield group, as Leo Jim\u00e9nez<\/a> was optioned down to Triple-A Buffalo move as the corresponding move for Kirk\u2019s activation. It now appears the club is satisfied with Heineman\u2019s health enough to restore the previous balance, so they have swapped out a catcher for an infielder. Since S\u00e1nchez is out of options, he had to be removed from the 40-man roster. Since the trade deadline has passed, the Jays will have to place him on waivers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second time this year that S\u00e1nchez has gotten a brief stint on the roster as an injury replacement. He was called up in May when Heineman was on the concussion IL. S\u00e1nchez was designated for assignment just over a week later when Heineman was reinstated. He cleared waivers, elected free agency and re-signed on a new minor league deal, which allowed him to get back to the big leagues again when Kirk got hurt. It\u2019s possible the same sequence of events plays out in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Around the transactions, S\u00e1nchez has hit .238\/.238\/.333 in 21 big league plate appearances. He has a strong .279\/.347\/.419 line and 107 wRC+ in 199 Triple-A plate appearances this year. The Jays added some catching depth ahead of the deadline by sending Will Wagner<\/a> to the Padres for Brandon Valenzuela<\/a>, but Valenzuela has no big league experience and even limited time at Triple-A. The Jays would presumably be open to bringing S\u00e1nchez back in a non-roster capacity so he could again be the first man up if one of the big league catchers gets hurt.<\/p>\n

Simply recalling Jim\u00e9nez to retake his roster spot wasn\u2019t a possibility since the ten-day minimum stint for an optional assignment hadn\u2019t yet elapsed, so the Jays have tapped Kennedy instead. Kennedy signed a minor league deal with the Jays a few weeks ago after being cut loose by the Phillies. He has since played 16 games for the Bisons with a dismal .207\/.309\/.259 line.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not too far off from the .193\/.287\/.296 line he has in his major league career, but his larger body of work at the Triple-A level is better. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has a .268\/.372\/.408 line and 111 wRC+ at the top minor league level. He has big league experience at the non-shortstop infield positions.<\/p>\n

Kennedy is out of options and may have a tenuous grip on a roster spot. Per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com<\/a>, both Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez<\/a> and George Springer<\/a> are beginning rehab assignments this week, so the Jays will need to open some more roster spots soon.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Kevin Jairaj, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Buddy Kennedy. In a corresponding move,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[33133,33134,49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-47996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ali-sanchez","9":"tag-buddy-kennedy","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47996","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=47996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}