Jays designate St or en for assignment
Just before Drew St oren made his way out of the Blue Jays club house on Sunday morning, he stopped and had a chat with the team’s closer, Roberto Osuna. The two then embraced and Storen made his way to the exit, not before being stopped by a couple of writers who asked the right-handed reliever if he could talk.
“I’ m going to head out, guys ,” said Storen, who appeared a bit dazed. “It’s probably better that way.”
Storen was likely afraid that — caught up in the moment — he might say something he would regret later.
Minutes earlier the Jays announced that they had designated the 28-year-old Storen for assignment, a day after the RHP gave up three runs on three hits in one inning against the Seattle Mariners. The club now has 10 days to trade him. If he clears waivers he can ask for his release or accept an option to the minors. The Jays recalled right-hander RyanTepera with the Storen move.
The trade for Storen was the first major move orchestrated by the club’ s new management team, president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins. Just over a month after Atkins was named GM, he traded left fielder and lead off man Ben Revere to Washington for the Nationals one-time closer Storen, who had lost his job in 2015 to Jonathan Papelbon. Storen struggled as a set up man. Even though Revere is not having a great year, it still goes down as one of the worst trades in recent Jays history. There was talk in spring training that Storen and Roberto Os una would fight for the Jays’ closer job with the younger Osuna winning out in the end. Storen never adjusted to his role in Toronto, posting subpar numbers, first as the set-up man and then as a middle reliever — posting an ERA 6.21 in 33.1 innings. And though he averaged about one strike out per inning, it was clear that he couldn’t be trusted coming out of the pen.
“A couple of things I would say,” said Atkins, when asked what he thinks went wrong with Storen in Toronto. “I think it’s a better question for him, but one is his role. Gibby (manager John Gibbons) did a great job trying to keep him in his role that he was used to, a later-inning role. He’s actually more accustomed to being a closer, so right out of the gate he was in an unfamiliar territory. Then as guys pitched better than him, he was moved into a roll where he was going to be needed earlier in the game and in more versatile stints. That was uncharted waters for him so that was one aspect of it. And I think another aspects of it, his fastball was just a little bit down .”
Last year with the Nationals, Storen’s fastball averaged 94.0 m.p.h., compared to 91.9 this season. His slider was also one m.p.h. slower this year.
“Absolutely a difficult decision,” added Atkins .“Drew’ s been professional. He’s actually been at times very good for us, the strike outs were there, never walking guys, or at least not too often. He just gave up a lot of hits and it got to the point where we had better alternatives, really. He handled it professionally, never an easy decision obviously.”
Atkins said he acquired Storen with the knowledge that the Indianapolis native may not become the closer in Toronto, that he may have to take another roll. He said it wasn’t an all-or-nothing move.
“We talked about that before we acquired him, we were comfortable taking that risk,” said Atkins.