Tuesday Bantering: Roster Cuts, Sports Science

The Blue Jays, in another set of roster cuts, have reassigned Rowdy Tellez to minor league camp, confirming he won’t make the major league team to start the season. One of the most prolific story lines of spring, many hoped that Tellez would, eventually, steal Justin Smoak’s job, but it appears that Smoak has some security at this point, at least for the time being.

John Gibbons confirmed to Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun that Tellez will start the season in triple-A. “He could be a guy that anchors that position in Toronto for a lot of years.” For someone who was picked in the 30th round of the 2013 draft, not bad.

Yesterday, the Blue Jays lost to the Minnesota Twins by a final score of 8-2. Francisco Liriano started the game, striking out 10 in 4.2 innings. He only allowed two runs. Josh Donaldson made his spring debut as a designated hitter, reaching base in two of his three plate appearances. He struck out, walked and reached base on an error.

The Blue Jays play the Orioles today at Ed Smith Stadium with a 1:05 EST start time. Aaron Sanchez, in his third appearance of spring, will make the start, while Baltimore counters with Ubaldo Jimenez (we all remember his last appearance against the Blue Jays). The game won’t be available on Sportsnet or SN590, but can be listened to on MLB.com.

Arden Zwelling from Sportsnet wrote on the Blue Jays high-performance department recently, and it's another great piece from Zwelling. In it, he discusses the steps that Toronto is taking to get ahead of the pack, while comparing it to what players, who have become accustomed to regular workouts, think about the methods. It is definitely worth a read.

The Tampa Bay Rays made their $53.3 million, six year extension of Kevin Kiermaier official yesterday. The deal, which will have repercussions on the Blue Jays in multiple ways (the most glaring of which is Kevin Pillar's contract status), covers all of Kiermaier's arbitration years and two years of free agency.