Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Danny Barnes

Danny Barnes is a 27 year old right-handed reliever (he’s been a reliever throughout his minor league career). He’s listed at 6’1", 195.

He had his first taste of major league baseball last year, and he was pretty decent. 12 games, 13.2 innings, 14 hits, no home runs, 5 walks, 14 strikeouts, with a 3.95 ERA. I liked him. He was called up in August, made 3 appearances (in one he gave up 2 hits, 2 walks and 2 runs in an inning), then was sent down, coming back when rosters expanded.

Danny was a 35th round draft pick back in 2010. He has been slowly moving up the minor league ladder ever since. Teams tend not to rush 35th rounders along. He put up some pretty spectacular ERAs on the way up. Career he has a 2.39 ERA in 320 innings over 7 seasons. Last year, split between New Hampshire and Buffalo, he had a 0.73 ERA.

A lot of made of his better numbers vs LHB than RHB, and it does seem like he was at least as good against lefty hitters as right-handers most seasons of his minor league career.

As a Jay, he was a fastball (91.6 average mph says FanGraphs), slider (82.5), changeup (80.7) pitcher.

Will we see Barnes in Toronto this season?

Oh, I’m pretty sure we’ll see him.

Will he make the team out of spring training?

He has options, so I doubt it. He’ll likely be wearing out the highway from Buffalo to Toronto, unless he has a terrific spring and they decide he really is a pseudo second lefty for the pen. I think he will be among a half-dozen guys who will go up and down as the team needs fresh arms in the pen.

What would you set the over/under for innings pitch at? Let’s guess 25.