Less than a year after arriving in Miami, Jonathan Villar is back on the move, this time headed to play for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Confirmed in reports by both Jon Heyman and Ken Rosenthal, Villar will bear the Blue Jays colors for the remainder of the season. It is not yet clear on what the Miami Marlins will be receiving in return. He becomes the second big transaction of the day for Miami. Earlier, the Fish made a move and acquired Arizona Diamondbacks star, Starling Marte.
Villar to Jays
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 31, 2020
Jonathan Villar
From the Blue Jays perspective, they are acquiring quite the versatile piece in Villar. This will be the fifth team for Villar in his eight-year career. Through 29 games with Miami, Villar has hit .272 with 31 total hits including two long balls. He comes to the Toronto Blue Jays organization not too long after infield star Bo Bichette was placed on the IL due to a knee sprain. That knee sprain is supposed to keep 22-year old off the field until mid-September at the latest.
Villar isn’t far off of his strong 2019 campaign where he sported a 107 wRC+ which included 24 home runs. During that time Villar produced career highs in pitches seen (2,843), launch angle (8.2 degrees), and barrel percentage (6.8 percent).
Miami’s Return
From Miami’s perspective, there was plenty in place that set the stage for Villar’s departure. According to Craig Mish, the team thought Villar was reckless at times and didn’t fully buy into what the team was trying to do. He’s in the bottom eight percent of league hitters in terms of expected slugging percentage (.323) and expected weighted on-base percentage (.271). The cherry on top of all of that was the return of Isan Diaz to Miami as noted by Rosenthal.
With the additions of Diaz and Marte plus the subtraction of Villar, the Marlins are looking to accomplish a big feat that hasn’t been experienced by Miami fans since 2003. That was the last time Miami was able to grace the postseason. It just so happened that was also the last time Miami won a World Series title. The Marlins will receive either a player to be named later or international spending money.
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