Sanchez on board with temporary move to Dunedin
All season long, Toronto Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins has talked about staying creative in the management of Aaron Sanchez’s workload, and the latest twist in the tale is nothing if not imaginative.
The Jays announced Sunday that Sanchez, a legitimate Cy Young candidate based on his 2016 body of work, and probably the team’s best pitcher, has been optioned to Class A Dunedin.
Sanchez will remain there until his next scheduled start for the Jays in Baltimore on Aug. 31.
Sanchez is all in on the plan, agreeing wholeheartedly to it, despite the fact it’s going to cost him in the area of $28,000 US.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to winning ball games and if I’m just going to be sitting here knowing that they’re going to skip my start, why don’t we bring somebody up to help continue to win ball games?” said Sanchez. “That’s the stand we took. Obviously, it’s not ideal but it’s something that was discussed and it just so happened to be after last night’s start. There’s no hard feelings, hopefully we continue winning. This is an important part of our season and if adding someone to the roster gives us the best chance to win that night, then so be it.”
Atkins said that without Sanchez being on board, the team would never have made the move.
“It won’t affect his service time but it will certainly affect his salary,” said Atkins. “It’s a great story. It’s Aaron saying, ‘Hey, what’s best for the team? Is this going to help us win?’ He had to be open to it for us to do it. There’s no way we would have done it if he hadn’t said: ‘If that works for the team, then it works for me.’ ”
Based on Sanchez’s salary of $517,800, paid over a major-league season of 180 days, he will lose about $28,766 in major-league salary. If he is compensated at the highest AAA rate, he will earn $900 during the period he is in Dunedin. While we’re talking imagination here, it doesn’t take much of it to guess that the ball club will have Sanchez’s back, compensating him in some form, whether now or in the future.
Left-handed reliever Aaron Loup was recalled to fill Sanchez’s spot on the roster. Sanchez is unlikely to pitch at all for Dunedin, but will continue to work as if he is on a regular pitching rotation.
“I’m going to continue doing everything that I would do on a normal five days, bullpens included,” Sanchez said. “Games, we haven’t discussed. … I’m going to continue what I’ve done here, I still have to get ready, it’s not like my season is over, so it’s normal work when I go down there, nothing changes for me.”