Valenzuela’s breakthrough forces Blue Jays into catcher call

Brandon Valenzuela’s rapid turnaround at the plate and behind the plate has the Blue Jays facing a roster crunch—especially with Alejandro Kirk’s rehab timeline and the looming need to clear space for Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer. The decision won’t just be ab

TORONTO — The three-game Red Sox trip to Toronto wasn’t supposed to be the backdrop for a rookie catcher’s swing makeover. But by late April, Brandon Valenzuela was the one changing—because the staff had run out of patience with a move that was costing him.

In the first 13 big-league games of his tenure, Valenzuela was hitting .147/.171/.235, striking out 14 times in 35 plate appearances. The Blue Jays’ hitting coaches—David Popkins. Lou Iannotti and Cody Atkinson—kept pointing to what they saw in the box: a big leg kick that made him jump at the ball and created head movement that complicated pitch identification and tracking.

They gave him a clear prescription. Drop the leg kick. Timing a big move, they told him, is hard—especially with inconsistent playing time. You’re strong enough, they added, that you don’t need to generate extra force with your body. Valenzuela remembered the general principles plainly: “relax. go for line drives. simplify your body. do it for a few days. don’t move your body a lot.”.

The message landed fast. On April 29, in an 8-1 win over the Red Sox, he did exactly what he was told—moving away from the leg kick and switching to a rock back and forth as the trigger of his swing. He went 2-for-3 with a home run and a walk.

“It clicked right away,” Valenzuela said. “I started seeing the ball better. I feel like I have better ABs and I’m giving the team a chance with my ABs.”

Since then, the numbers have swung with it. Over 30 games, Valenzuela has batted .294/.396/.565 with six homers and 14 RBIs. His plate discipline has sharpened too: 15 walks against 16 strikeouts in 102 plate appearances. Even the receiving side has improved in the view of the staff.

Kevin Gausman, the team’s ace, said Valenzuela’s pitch framing “is getting close to Kirky’s level where you think you’re throwing way more strikes than maybe you are.”

That’s why the Blue Jays’ roster conversation is becoming so difficult—because it isn’t happening in a vacuum. Manager John Schneider said the decision comes as soon as Friday. when Alejandro Kirk—whose rehab assignment moves to triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday—might be ready to return to face the New York Yankees.

From an asset preservation standpoint, optioning Valenzuela and not exposing Tyler Heineman to waivers makes sense. A claim on Heineman would leave the organization’s depth “perilously thin,” with Willie MacIver as the third-string backstop. Heineman. for all the hard truth of roster math. is still a critical piece: he ranks among the major-league leaders in pitch framing. throwing and blocking. and he knows the pitching staff exceptionally well.

Schneider didn’t pretend it was easy. Carrying three catchers is “not ideal,” he said, but he didn’t entirely rule it out. Demoting Valenzuela, the one who has clearly earned time, also won’t be simple.

“Kirky and Heinie worked really last year,” Schneider said over the weekend. Kirk. when he returns. will still need a build-up before he gets to a normal workload of catching five out of every seven games. But even with that runway. Schneider pointed to the real bottleneck behind the decision: “the honesty of it is like. there’s not a whole lot of depth behind Valley. Yeah, there are guys that are on the roster. But it’s. you just look at who’s doing what. are you going to lose a guy if you move a guy. or something like that?”.

The Blue Jays have that same kind of push-and-pull weighing on them elsewhere this week, starting Tuesday. They’ll need to make room for Dylan Cease. who returns from a hamstring strain to start against the Philadelphia Phillies. Then Max Scherzer comes off the injured list on Wednesday, forcing yet another pitching move.

With limited flexibility in terms of optionable arms—lefty Adam Macko is pitching well and will be needed for the Yankees’ left-handed hitters this weekend. while Braydon Fisher and Mason Fluharty aren’t going anywhere—the Blue Jays will have to risk some of the pitching depth they’ve worked hard to reassemble in recent weeks.

That includes Simeon Woods Richardson, after his fastball velocity was up over four strong innings of one-hit ball behind a shaky Patrick Corbin in Monday’s 5-2 loss, and Connor Seabold. Both were recently acquired in trades, are out of options, and are at the end of the bullpen depth chart.

There’s an additional lever in play as well: Shane Bieber is slated to start again for Buffalo on Thursday. and could be in play the following turn if he stays on track and reaches the 75-pitch range. It’s another reason the roster pressure is suddenly real—the kind of positive pressure the Blue Jays had hoped for all season long.

While they sort through all of it, the rebound from Valenzuela keeps making the job tougher in a specific way: he’s improved everywhere he’s been asked.

Gausman’s praise has gone beyond framing. At the plate, Valenzuela has shown power without needing the big leg kick. Underlining it, he has three homers in his previous four starts. After Valenzuela went 3-for-4 with two doubles in Saturday’s 6-4 win over the Orioles. Ernie Clement said “he’s got to be the most improved player in the big-leagues this year. ” adding. “I love the way he’s swinging the bat. It looks like he’s looking to do damage every single swing.”.

Clement continued. pointing to the way the swing sounds in the dugout when it’s working: “Unlike me. he has a lot of thump to the middle of the field. so he has great direction in his swing. When he’s being aggressive and swinging the bat like he has. even when he swings and misses. you hear it in the dugout. everybody’s like. ‘Ooh.’ That’s what you want to hear. Nobody does that when I swing. He’s been awesome.”.

Popkins believes the production is sustainable because the change wasn’t just mechanical—it simplified everything. “When you can do that and limit how much your head’s moving. it kind of helps your decisions a little bit. ” the hitting coach said. He added that Valenzuela’s at-bat quality over the past 30 days has been as good as anyone on the team and that he’s “been doing a great job.”.

Valenzuela joked that after eight minor-league seasons. he’s “tried everything” in the batter’s box—from leg kicks to toe taps to the current rocking back and forth. With the rock. he said. “if my body wants to go forward. it will go forward.” He isn’t thinking about the move anymore—“It’s just like. start early. and whatever happens. happens.”.

Now those gains, both behind the plate and at it, have translated into the most immediate kind of baseball problem: a roster that has to make room for returning players and still protect the pieces that are starting to work.

Brandon Valenzuela Toronto Blue Jays Alejandro Kirk Tyler Heineman John Schneider Kevin Gausman Dylan Cease Max Scherzer Patrick Corbin New York Yankees Philadelphia Phillies MLB roster decisions