Better Know Your Blue Jays 40-man: Zach Pop

Zach Pop is a 26-year-old, right-handed reliever from Brampton, Ontario. He came to the Jays on August 2nd, in trade from the Marlins, along with Anthony Bass and Edward Duran, for Jordan Groshans. Groshans hit .262/.308/.311 in 65 at-bats for the Marlins.

The Jays drafted Pop in the 23rd round of the 2014 draft, but didn’t sign him. The Dodgers picked him in the 7th round of the 2017 draft.

Zach got into 17 games with the Jays (1.89 ERA) and 18 games with the Marlins (3.60) ERA. In total, he’s played in 85 games in the MLB, and has a 3.56 ERA. Batters have hit .261/.331/.357 against him in that time. He’s had similar numbers against LHB (.687 OPS) and RHB (.688).

He has two option years left, so he’s likely to be taking the shuttle Buffalo/Toronto shuttle a few times this year.

Zach, like a large percentage of pitchers in the majors, has had Tommy John (back in 2019), but other than that, he doesn’t have much injury history. He’s a big guy, 6’4”, 220 pounds and throws kind of sidearmish (Not a word? Ok, he throws from a lower than 3/4s arm slot). Last year, he threw a four-seam fastball 77% of the time (averaging 96.5 MPH) and a slide the rest of the time.

He doesn’t walk many (2.5% walk rate last year) and doesn’t give up many home runs (just 5 in his 93 innings of MLB work. But he doesn’t get a lot of strikeouts either (15.9% strikeout rate last year). So he gives up a fair bit of contact, but he keeps the ball in the park.

Unlike last season, the Jays seem to have many good relievers, so guys like Pop, who have options, might have to wait around in Buffalo for his chance at the majors.

Steamer figures him to get into 46 games, for 46 innings, with a 3.97 ERA. I don’t know if Steamer considers the other players on a team when it makes projections.