The Blue Jays have signed left-hander Justin Bruihl to a minor league contract, in accordance with Aram Leighton of Simply Baseball Media. Bruihl elected minor league free company on the finish of the 2024 season, after he had been outrighted off the Pirates’ 40-man roster again in July.
Brendon Little is predicted to be a part of the Opening Day roster and Josh Walker can be competing for a bullpen job, however Easton Lucas and the injured Adam Macko are the one different southpaws on Toronto’s 40-man roster. Bruihl subsequently provides somewhat extra depth in that space, and this signing pretty late in camp may trace that the Jays aren’t fully glad with their choice of left-handers. It might appear unlikely that Bruihl himself may make a late bid to interrupt camp with the crew since he’s solely now transferring from his offseason preparations into a correct Spring Coaching ramp-up, so he’ll in all probability begin the season with Triple-A Buffalo.
Bruihl has appeared in every of the final 4 MLB seasons, topping out at 28 innings with the Dodgers and Rockies in 2023 and with a low of simply 5 2/3 frames with Pittsburgh final season. General, Bruihl has a 4.62 ERA, 15.9% strikeout fee, 46.2% grounder fee, and seven.9% stroll fee throughout his 76 whole innings within the huge leagues.
His 26.55% strikeout fee over 211 1/3 profession minor league innings is much greater than his lackluster Okay% within the majors, however Bruihl hasn’t been in a position to duplicate that bat-missing potential towards big-league hitters. Bruihl might need been the kind of pitcher who would’ve thrived earlier than the three-batter rule was carried out, given his drastic profession splits — left-handed batters had solely a .507 OPS towards Bruihl, whereas right-handed batters have a .918 OPS.
