Blue Jays call up Neil Wagner, option Marcus Walden

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Toronto Blue Jays announced on Twitter that right-handed reliever Neil Wagner has been called up while another right-hander Marcus Walden has been optioned to Triple-A Buffalo.

Walden did not make an appearance during his brief stint with the Blue Jays and it appears the only reason he was called up was because of a mistake made by the Jays’ front office. Originally the team reported through Twitter that Chad Jenkins would be called up from the Bisons when Jeremy Jeffress was DFA’d but that was against league rules. Once a player has been optioned he must spend at least ten days in the minors before the team can call him back up.

This forced the Blue Jays to promote a player not on the 40-man roster and that player happened to be Walden. He pitched okay during spring training but it was expected once the 10-day window opened up he would be optioned.

Wagner should have made the Blue Jays out of spring training but because the Blue Jays did not want to expose Jeffress to waivers at the time he was forced to start the year at Triple-A. It’s nice that he’s being called up basically as soon as he was available and should add even more depth to an already stacked bullpen.

He throws hard and his fastball is his best pitch while he’s also been working on his slider the past couple of seasons. He also mixes in a changeup every now and then. Last year in 38 innings he struck out 33 batters with a 2.54 K/BB rate and pitched to a 3.79 ERA.