Jonathan Villar declines a one-year, $6 million contract + incentives

Who doesn’t love late night rumours? Per Hector Gomez, the Jays offered 30-year-old utility infielder Jonathan Villar a one year, $6 million dollar contract.

SOURCE: Jonathar Villar turned down a $6.5 million, one-year deal offer, plus $1.0 million incentives from the #BlueJays. https://t.co/c8z8UYvd31
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) March 13, 2022

My thoughts? Good, he isn’t good.
March 12th edit:
Unfortunately, my editor told me I have to actually write this article, so let’s go into why it’s good that Villar declined this contract.
His first tenure didn’t go great:
This isn’t the first time the Jays have had an interest in the infielder, in fact, they traded prospect Griffin Conine for Villar in 2020. He wasn’t very good. In 79 plate appearances, he slashed .188/.278/.481 without a home run. He also had a rather high K% of 27.8%, but this number is only slightly elevated from his career 26.5% K%. He also stole 7 bases in all of his attempts, but had issues running the bases, being picked off multiple times.
It’s a small sample size, but that’s not all.
He’s a bad teammate:

Looked as though Jonathan Villar picked up his equipment and left the dugout after the #BlueJays pinch hit for him in the top of the seventh pic.twitter.com/P6o8hVmRor
— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) September 29, 2020

The guy picked up his things and walked out of the Jays dugout after being pinched hit. This was in game one of what would be only two games in the 2020 playoffs. My message to Villar: Don’t play like crap and you won’t get pulled.
He didn’t have a great 2021:
Villar slashed .249/.322/.738 in 505 plate appearances in the past season. He added an additional 15 homers, but his K% was still on the high side at 26.1%. His wRC+ totaled 105, slightly above average, but still not the replacement you’d expect at third base.
He also had his lowest succes …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

The Blue Jays have recalled Otto Lopez from Triple-A

There’s a new Large Adult Son in the mix.

According to Hector Gomez, the Blue Jays have recalled infielder Otto Lopez from the Buffalo Bisons…

The Blue Jays call up INF Otto Lopez, per @antoniopuesan.
Born in DR and raised for several years in Montreal after his father’s teaching job took the Lopez family to Canada, Otto signed with the Blue Jays back in 2016 and has quietly put up numbers ever since.@BlueJays pic.twitter.com/y2Sf6mu4Cq
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) August 17, 2021

Lopez was added to the 40-man roster ahead of last winter’s Rule 5 draft. The highest level he had played before the 2020 minor-league season was wiped out was Low-A with the Lansing Lugnuts and then he jumped all the way to Double-A New Hampshire in 2021.
In 69 games with the Fisher Cats, Lopez put together a nice slash line of .330/.397/.457 with 28 walks and 62 strikeouts. He was promoted to Buffalo a couple of weeks ago and has continued to hit, slashing a .282/.404/.410 line over 11 games.
Here’s a scouting report from MLB Pipeline…
Born in Santo Domingo and raised for several years in Montreal after his father’s teaching job took the Lopez family to Canada, …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Vlad Jr. will reportedly be called up on Tuesday

It’s finally happening! According to Hector Gomez, a reporter based out of the Dominican Republic, the Blue Jays will call up Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on Tuesday to make his Major League debut against at home against the San Fransisco Giants.

Vlad, of course, was raised in the Dominican Republic, and Hector Gomez isn’t just some random person. He’s a credible reporter, especially when it comes to Dominican players. I wouldn’t expect this report from him to be false.

SOURCE: The Blue Jays will call up Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He will make his MLB’s debut on Tuesday vs @SFGigantes, at Rogers Centre.#ZDigital #ZDeportes @z101digital @ZDeportes
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) April 19, 2019

We all knew this was going to happen soon, as the date for Vlad’s service time to be manipulated was passed, but we didn’t know how long the Blue Jays would opt to let him embarrass Triple-A pitchers.  Through five games with the Bisons, Vlad has a playing-on-easy-mode line of .412/.500/.824 with two homers and six runs batted in. There’s no doubt that he has nothing left to prove at that level.
I figured yesterday Vlad joining the team in the near future was …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation