Aaron Sanchez, Blue Jays handling roster move the right way

The Toronto Blue Jays’ optioning of starter Aaron Sanchez to single-A Dunedin came as a shock on Sunday, but the way in which both sides have handled the unique move is admirable. Sanchez especially.

Moving a Cy Young candidate to the lower minors to manage his innings isn’t exactly common practice, but in hindsight, the move is logical from a purely baseball-minded and transactional standpoint. With Sanchez’s next start being skipped regardless, and the pending returns of Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista about to put a squeeze on the front office, playing with a 24-man roster for 10 days made little sense.

So in lieu of a short stint on the disabled list with some form of (ahem) soreness, Sanchez heads to Dunedin. General manager Ross Atkins praised the 24-year-old following the move.

“I’m really impressed with Aaron, being in the hunt for a Cy Young, being in the middle of a pennant race, and his willingness to do this is a testament to how he was raised and the kind of person he is,” Atkins told Shi Davidi. “He’s taking a hit.”

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Much of that hit comes financially, where Sanchez will move from his annual MLB salary of $517,800 to a bare-bones minor league paycheque. Richard Griffin calculated that the change of scenery will cost Sanchez about $27,400 USD, though the Blue Jays do have the ability as an organization — and perhaps the duty — to pay Sanchez back that difference in some way.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to winning ballgames and if I’m just going to be sitting here knowing that they’re going to skip my start, why don’t we bring somebody up to help continue to win ballgames,” Sanchez told Davidi, who added that the front office would not have made the move if Sanchez did not agree to it. “That’s the stand we took. Obviously it’s not ideal but it’s something that was discussed and it just so happened to be after (Saturday) night’s start. There’s no hard feelings, hopefully we continue winning.”

Sanchez is no longer the quiet, skinny kid with potential. He’s bulked up, stepped to the forefront as a leader, and legitimized himself as one of the best young starters in all of baseball. This transition is something that really became obvious late last season, and was perhaps first really highlighted when Sanchez was suspended three games for hitting Alcides Escobar. Suddenly, he had some bite.

“If I wanted to send a message I would’ve sent a message to their big guys,” Sanchez said at the time. “I think it was kind of crap, but we’ll move on. We got a ‘W.”‘

That’s the new Aaron Sanchez. No longer a potential cornerstone of tomorrow’s team, but a legitimate ace on this one.

The circumstances around this roster move could have gone very poorly with the wrong player or wrong front office. Both sides have danced the dance as well as they could, though, and the young Sanchez deserves a great deal of respect for his selflessness and cooperation.