Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Lourdes Gurriel

Off topic, but I’m really enjoying seeing the pictures of spring training in my twitter feed. If you aren’t following @frankgunnphoto you really should. Lots of great pics.

The Blue Jays signed Lourdes Gurriel to a seven-year $22 million contract in the winter before the 2017 season.

Lourdes played all the infield spots and left field in the Cuban National Series. Gurriel had great batting stats in Cuba. In 2016, he hit .344/.407/.560 with 10 home runs, 21 walks and 23 strikeouts in 59 games.

Last year my question was “will we see him in Toronto this year” and I said “I’d imagine we will, as long as he isn’t awful”. Well, maybe awful might be overstating it, but he wasn’t good, hitting .229/.268/.339 splitting time between Dunedin and New Hampshire last year. Actually, awful wouldn’t be overstating it. He did do much better in the AFL, .291/.309/.494, but that was in just 81 PA.

He dropped from 6th to 18th in our Top 40 prospect list, and 18th may have still been too high.

This year the question seems to be:

What is the plan for Lourdes?

The Jays seemed to be looking at him to be a super-utility player. Someone in the Ben Zobrist mode. After picking up Aledmys Diaz and Yangervis Solarte, it appears that role has been taken. Of course, with Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis, it is likely there will be will be roster spots open at times.

Right now, what he has to do is have a better season and re-establish him as a prospect. I’d imagine they will have him start the season at Buffalo and have him sink or swim. Make him prove that he deserves a spot, if there is an injury on the MLB team. We can let one poor season slide.

If he has 2 poor seasons, well, there are a number of guys who will be overtaking him on the climb to the majors.

I am really curious to see how he does this year. A good year and he’d be back on the map, a bad year and it is hard to imagine he’d stay on the 40-man, other than he has a contract.

The team is paying him for the next 6 years:

18:$1M, 19:$1.5M, 20:$2.5M, 21:$3.5M, 22:$4.5M,23:$5.4M

So he is going to be some where in the organization for awhile.