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The Blue Jays have made the Travis Shaw signing official. Shaw gets a 1-year contract for $4 million with some incentives on plate appearances. He’ll get an extra $175,000 for 350 PA and then $125,000 for each 50 PA from there on.
The new news is that they have DFAed Richard Urena to make room on the 40-man roster. I’m sad to see it. Personally I’d rather have Urena than Breyvic Valera (or Jonathan Davis). I mean I don’t see any upside to Valera.
But Urena is out of options.
Urena got into 30 games last year, hit .243/.273/.324 with 2 walks and 23 strikeouts. Over the past 3 seasons, Richard has played in 91 MLB games, hitting .253/.300/.336 with 2 home runs.
Richard has been on our top prospect lists since 2013, topping out at 3rd in 2016, but he dropped to 4th, then 12th the next two year and came off the list when he exceeded rookie limits in 2018.
He’s always been big on potential but the results have’t really been there. But he’s been a favorite of mine since I saw him play in Lansing a few years ago. He stood out as the player to watch on the field (of course Anthony Alford had been promoted from Lansing the week before I got there). He was smooth and fast and, to channel Buck and Pat, he looked like and athlete out there.