Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Luke Maile

Luke Maile has been with the Blue Jays for two seasons now. One was incredibly terrible (at least with the bat) and one was pretty ok..

In 2017 he hit .146/.176/.231. For comparison’s sake, the Cardinals’ pitchers hit .148/.167/.232 last year.

Last year he hit more like a catcher, .248/.333/.366. The average AL catcher he .227/.292/.366 last year, so Luke was a fair bit better than the average catcher.

He’s a good defensive catcher. Maile was 5th in baseball at 8.5 runs better than the average catcher at framing. He threw out 30% of base stealers, slightly better than league average (28%).

ZiPS figures him to hit .201/.267/.310 this year. I would think he would have to hit better than that to keep his job.

The Jays have an interesting choice this spring, have Maile as the backup to Danny Jansen or go with Reese McGuire.

Maile would give Jansen a built in mentor, give the Jays young pitchers a veteran to throw to and talk to and, well, give us a know quantity.

Or they could go with two rookies, and have Jansen and McGuire be a 1a and 1b catching tandem. It would give Reese some major league experience, it is likely McGuire will be our backup catcher after this year. If our backup catcher gets into 60+games again this year, that would get Reese a good amount of MLB at bats. Luke Maile still has an option, he could start the year in Buffalo and come up if there was a need.

I wonder, as we work our way through spring, if there will be teams looking for a backup catcher. Maile might be a trade target for someone.

Last year Luke set a new career high in Plate Appearances at 231. I’m thinking he’ll get less playing time this year. Let’s set the over/under at 200.