Toronto Blue Jays: Getting Rowdy for the Organization’s Future First Baseman

Rowdy Tellez is swinging a hot bat in his rookie season, making it almost set in stone that he will be the man on the right side of the infield for the foreseeable future on the Toronto Blue Jays. With Tellez having poised to become more of the full time 1B, could we see Justin Smoak traded this season?

Rowdy Tellez entered the 2019 season as a question mark to make the Toronto Blue Jays active roster after spring training.

Being a September call up last year, Tellez impressed in 2018 during his short stint, slashing .314/.329/.614 in just 23 games. He would also go on to smack four HR with 14 RBI, while also setting two MLB records within his first 5 games in regards to his extra base hits.

This past spring training, Rowdy again impressed at the plate and slashed .280/.308/.600 with five homers in just 20 games.

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While he was impressive during the spring, the team already employed Kendrys Morales and Justin Smoak on the roster, and the team really did not need a third 1B/DH player on the team.

Then the Blue Jays management somehow found a suitor for Morales (and paid over $10 million for the Oakland Athletics to take him) before the season began and a spot for Tellez was formed.

Since his call up, Tellez has seen more time as the DH (23 games) than he has at 1B (16 games).

At first, he was only being used against right-handed pitchers due to being a left handed hitter, but has been seeing more time against left-handed pitchers as the season has gone on, and has been producing.

While his stats may not seem impressive at first (slash line of .242/.299/.424), it is his play at the plate that is really impressive.

Tellez is impressive at standing in the box and adapting to the game as it goes on. His 91.1 AVG exit velocity off the bat proves he can hit the ball hard but has struckout over 29.5% of his at-bats, which is kind of expected for a power type hitter.

For example, let’s look at the game on May 21, 2019 against the Boston Red Sox.

Left Eduardo Rodriguez kept throwing inside on Tellez, and Rowdy responded by dragging out the at bat before flying out to RF.

Rodriguez would again come back inside on Tellez in his next at-bat, but this time he drove it into the second deck over the RF wall and destroyed part of the light up scoreboard. On the first pitch I may add.

He would then follow up during his third at-bat against Rodriguez by drilling another HR to deep centre field for his second home run of the night.

Toronto Blue Jays

Now, with Rowdy Tellez excelling at 1B/DH and the team heading towards a rebuild, it seems likely that fan favourite and pending free agent Justin Smoak may be packing his bags this year.

Smoak has been seeing a bit of a down year with a slash line of .218/.374/.380 but his defence at 1B has been incredible and should be in contention for a gold glove this year (which he should have won last year… just saying, but I am a tad biased).

Since his All-Star season in 2017, Smoak has just not produced the same batting average or slash line over the past two seasons and has seen a dip in both his HR’s and his RBI’s.

His walk rate is still high which is good, but Smoak was brought in to be the switch hitting power 1B who could put runs on the board.

With Tellez starting to hit both the left and right hand pitchers, Jays fans may see another veteran pack their bag for another team this season.

Although he is a fan favourite, with Smoak being a free agent at the end of the year, the thought was that he would most likely not be returning to the team after his contract expires.

All part of the rebuild. Let the kids play.