Should Blue Jays be stretching out Gavin Floyd this spring?

The Blue Jays decision to stretch out pitcher Gavin Floyd will provide starting depth, but it seems unlikely that he legitimately enters into the rotation conversation

In speaking with the media on Wednesday, Toronto Blue Jays general manager said that recent signing Gavin Floyd would be stretched out this spring for a chance to compete for a starting role.

The door has been left open to Floyd returning to a bullpen role if he doesn’t earn a job, of course, but the likelihood of him stealing the fifth job in the rotation seems awfully slim. In this situation, the Blue Jays could be better off allowing Floyd to focus full-time on a potential relief role, thus allowing him to max out his arm in hopes of building the 2016 version of Liam Hendriks.

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Looking to the back of the starting rotation, Toronto has a competition pending between Aaron Sanchez, Jesse Chavez, Drew Hutchison, Roberto Hernandez and a handful of minor league signings. Now, Floyd joins the crowd.

If Floyd were on a minor league contract, then by all means, stretching him out would be the logical first step. His guaranteed major league contract does complicate the matter, though, as sliding him down to triple-A Buffalo as starting depth is not a realistic option.

What his one-year, $1 million contract with $1 million in available incentives suggests to me is that there was competition for his services on the open market.

Floyd’s brief sample of relief appearances late in 2015 with the Cleveland Indians does leave the Blue Jays with some room for optimism, but the potential for him to be something more than the mop-up long-man is what earned him the guaranteed deal.

Unless Toronto’s starting rotation is absolutely ravaged by injuries, stretching out Floyd could prove to be an unnecessarily long road to the same destination.