"The Jays had designated Martinez for assignment on Saturday when they needed a 40-man roster spot to activate Alek Manoah from the 60-day injured list in a procedural move. Martinez was on optional assignment to Triple-A Buffalo and landed on the minor league injured list with an undisclosed injury last week. Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers. Players on the 40-man roster can't be traded after the deadline. Once the Jays designated Martinez for assignment, they had no choice but to release him."
"That also would have opened a 40-man roster spot but would have required paying him the prorated major league minimum salary for the final two weeks of the regular season. That the Jays preferred to release him rather than pay the roughly $70K to keep him on the IL is a testament to how far his stock has fallen. There's a good chance they intended to run him through outright waivers at the beginning of the offseason."
The Toronto Blue Jays released former top infield prospect Orelvis Martinez after designating him for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot for Alek Manoah. Martinez was on optional assignment to Triple-A Buffalo and landed on the minor league injured list with an undisclosed injury; injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers and players on the 40-man roster cannot be traded after the deadline, leaving release as the only option. Toronto could have used the MLB 60-day injured list but would have owed a prorated minimum of roughly $70K. Martinez appeared in one major league game, missed 80 games after a failed PED test, and has struggled in Triple-A this season, hitting .176/.288/.348 with 13 home runs and a 28.4% strikeout rate through 394 plate appearances.
Read at MLB Trade Rumors
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]