BLUE JAYS PLACE VETERAN IF ON IL, RECALL TOP PROSPECT FOR MLB DEBUT
The Blue Jays announced that infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a left knee sprain. Infielder Leo Jimenez has been recalled in a corresponding move and will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.
Kiner-Falefa, 29, was a late scratch from Monday’s game. Manager John Schneider said that the infielder “felt something” that “popped up out of nowhere” during his pregame stretches, per Hazel Mae of Sportsnet. It’s unclear how much time the Jays expect him to miss, but the injury is significant enough that he’ll require an IL stint.
Signed to a two-year deal in the offseason, IKF has been having the best campaign of his career thus far. He has always been a glove-first utility guy but had hit just .261/.314/.346 coming into the year for an 81 wRC+. Although much has gone wrong for the Jays here in 2024, Kiner-Falefa’s deal has been a nice development, as he has hit .292/.338/.420 for a wRC+ of 117. He’s done that while playing the three infield positions to the left of first base and one inning in center field as well. His 2.0 wins above replacement are currently leading the team, according to the calculations at FanGraphs.
It’s a less than ideal development for the Jays, who have fallen back in the American League playoff picture. Although many contenders have been bunched up in the wild-card race for a lot of the year, the Jays have slipped to 38-46, tied with the Tigers and Rangers and eight games out of the last postseason spot. With the trade deadline less than a month away, the club will need a serious hot streak to avoid a summer selloff, which will be harder to do without one of their more productive players of the season. If the summer selloff does end up coming to pass, there would also be an argument for selling high on IKF, but that could perhaps be less likely now, depending on how things develop in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, Jimenez gets his first call to the big leagues. An international signing out of Panama in 2017, he’s long been considered one of the better prospects in the Jays’ system. Baseball America has ranked him one of the top 30 farmhands in the organization since 2019, generally considering him a strong defender at shortstop but with a possibility that he ends up at second base due to his arm.
Offensively, Jimenez is considered more of a line drive hitter than a power threat, but the plate discipline appears to be strong. He has stepped to the plate just under 1,200 times since the start of 2021 with just 22 home runs but a 12.8% walk rate and a 16.4% strikeout rate. He’s slashed a combined .269/.404/.401 in that time for a wRC+ of 127. That includes a line of .271/.416/.431 and 129 wRC+ in 57 Triple-A games this year, with a 13.3% walk rate and 15% strikeout rate.
Jimenez has mostly played shortstop this year but also some second base. The Jays have Bo Bichette at short, but the keystone could be available. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has some sore fingers after being hit by a pitch and missed Monday’s game, so Spencer Horwitz could perhaps move to first until Guerrero is ready to return. That would leave second base open for Jimenez and Davis Schneider, though Schneider has also been playing left field this year.
Although this is his first call to the big leagues, Jimenez was actually added to the 40-man roster back in November 2021 to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. That means he is in his final option year and will be out of options by next season. Given his solid profile, he’ll likely be ticketed for a role on next year’s team. If the 2024 season ends up being a lost year for the Jays, they can at least use the final months of the schedule to audition controllable players like Jimenez, Horwitz, Schneider and Addison Barger as they evaluate how to approach building next year’s roster.
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