{"id":77108,"date":"2024-06-18T13:54:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T17:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=77108"},"modified":"2024-06-18T13:54:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T17:54:40","slug":"blue-jays-sign-james-kaprielian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/06\/18\/blue-jays-sign-james-kaprielian\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Sign Free Agent Right-Hander to Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to terms on a minor league contract with right-hander James Kaprielian<\/a>. According to the team’s transaction log, the 30-year-old will be with Triple-A Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Once of the top pitching prospects in the New York Yankees organization, Kaprielian was traded from New York to Oakland in the 2017 deadline deal for Sonny Gray<\/a>. The former No. 16 overall draft pick spent the next six and a half years in the A’s organization, making his big league debut in the shortened 2020 seaso. He’d appear in four straight seasons with the A’s. The right-hander battled multiple shoulder injuries throughout his career, undergoing a pair of surgeries.<\/p>\n

Oakland passed him through outright waivers in October, and he became a free agent at the end of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blue Jays Sign James Kaprielian to Minor League Deal<\/h2>\n

Kaprielian offered a glimpse of what he could do when he’s healthy in 2021 and 2022. Through 50 appearances (47 starts), he pitched to a 4.15 ERA with 221 strikeouts over 253 \u2153 innings. However, Kaprielian never returned from his AC joint repair in the 2022-23 offseason. In 2023, he allowed 45 runs in 61 innings (6.34 ERA) and walked a career-worst 11.1% of hitters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now almost a year removed from his shoulder surgery last August, Kaprielian gives Toronto much-needed rotation depth. The Blue Jays recently lost right-hander <\/span>Alek Manoah<\/a> to season-ending UCL surgery<\/a>. Toronto lacks an established fifth starter behind <\/span>Kevin Gausman<\/a>, <\/span>Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos<\/a>, <\/span>Chris Bassitt<\/a>, and <\/span>Yusei Kikuchi<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rookie right-hander <\/span>Yariel Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> began a rehab assignment on May 21st after he was sidelined with spine inflammation in April. Rodr\u00edguez owns a 4.11 ERA in four starts before he was put on the 15-day injured list. The 27-year-old will likely return to the Blue Jays rotation this week. <\/span>Bowden Francis<\/a> has made eight appearances (three starts) for Toronto this year and has been struck. Francis has given up six homers and 18 runs in 26 innings (6.23 ERA).<\/span><\/p>\n

If he can stay healthy, Kaprielian <\/span>could be a strong second-half option for Toronto. Since he only has 2.167 years of big league service time, there’s potential for the Blue Jays to have three more years of club control.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo: \u00a9 Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to terms on a minor league contract with right-hander James Kaprielian. According to the team’s transaction log, the 30-year-old will be with Triple-A Buffalo. Once of the top pitching prospects in the New York Yankees organization, Kaprielian was traded from New York to Oakland in the 2017 deadline deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":77117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1071,7],"tags":[2650,28388,4223,1109,1043,1331,41,283,28389,2298],"class_list":["post-77108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mlb","category-bluejays","tag-alek-manoah","tag-bowden-francis","tag-chris-bassitt","tag-james-kaprielian","tag-jose-berrios","tag-kevin-gausman","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-oakland-athletics","tag-yariel-rodriguez","tag-yusei-kikuchi"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}