{"id":713476,"date":"2026-06-04T01:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/713476\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:30:09","slug":"blue-jays-acquire-simeon-woods-richardson-from-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/713476\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Acquire Simeon Woods Richardson From Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jays announced they\u2019ve acquired right-hander\u00a0Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> from the Twins for cash considerations. Toronto transferred lefty reliever Joe Mantiply<\/a> from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. Mantiply recently underwent<\/a> arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second time the Toronto front office has acquired Woods Richardson. The first came as a prospect back in 2019, when the Jays landed him from the Mets as part of the Marcus Stroman<\/a> deal. Woods Richardson was one of the better pitching prospects in MLB and found himself in another notable deadline trade two years later. Toronto packaged him and then-top prospect\u00a0Austin Martin<\/a> to Minnesota in \u201921 for\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson debuted the following year with one start. He also made one appearance the following season. The former second-round pick held a rotation spot for the better part of the next two years. Woods Richardson was a decent mid-rotation arm, posting a low-4.00s earned run average in consecutive seasons. He combined for a 4.11 ERA with a league average strikeout and walk profile across 245 innings from 2024-25.<\/p>\n

That included a strong September last year that added optimism about Woods Richardson\u2019s form going into 2026. Things have gone completely off the rails this year instead. Woods Richardson made two strong starts to open the season. He was knocked around over his next seven appearances, allowing almost 10 earned runs per nine innings. Minnesota pushed him to the bullpen for two scoreless outings. He drew back in as a spot starter on May 28 and was blitzed for five runs in 2 2\/3 innings by the White Sox.<\/p>\n

Minnesota pulled the plug at that point. Woods Richardson is out of options and can\u2019t be sent to the minors, so the Twins designated him for assignment on Saturday. That gave them five days to see if they could line up a trade before exposing him to waivers. They were able to find a trader partner but only for cash.<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson is averaging 92.7 mph on his fastball. That\u2019s down marginally from last year\u2019s 93.2 mark but not a dramatic drop. He has scaled up the usage of his splitter while abandoning his changeup and cutting back on his curveball. Nothing has worked this year, but his splitter and slider were both effective offerings last season.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s rotation has been decimated by injuries. Berr\u00edos and\u00a0Cody Ponce<\/a> are done for the year.\u00a0Shane Bieber<\/a> remains weeks away from his season debut.\u00a0Dylan Cease<\/a> and\u00a0Max Scherzer<\/a> are both out of action but on rehab assignments, so they\u2019ll be back soon. Woods Richardson could make a spot start or two in the interim or work out of the bullpen. The Jays are using\u00a0Kevin Gausman<\/a>,\u00a0Trey Yesavage<\/a> and\u00a0Patrick Corbin<\/a> as traditional starters and have Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles<\/a> working mostly in 3-4 inning stints behind an opener.<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson is playing for around the league minimum salary. He\u2019ll qualify for arbitration as a Super Two player this winter if he holds his roster spot. He\u2019s under club control for four seasons beyond this one.<\/p>\n

Mitch Bannon of The Athletic<\/a> first reported the trade. Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays announced they\u2019ve acquired right-hander\u00a0Simeon Woods Richardson from the Twins for cash considerations. Toronto transferred lefty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,203496,31844,82],"class_list":["post-713476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-joe-mantiply","tag-simeon-woods-richardson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713476","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=713476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}