Blue Jays: Why they haven’t cut Kendrys Morales just yet

Patience can pay off on a proven commodity

For all the time some fans have spent worrying about Teoscar Hernandez’s roster spot on this team (myself included), it’ll ultimately be up to the player if he gets to stick around in Toronto all season. If he’s performing the way he has been since being recalled, there’s simply no way the Blue Jays would send him down.

That said, it’s entirely possible that Hernandez goes through a prolonged struggle at some point this year. If or when that happens, it might make sense to send him to Triple-A for awhile in order to get right regardless of who else is on the roster. They did it with Devon Travis this season, so why not a guy who started the year in Buffalo?

I’m not saying it’s going to happen for sure, but don’t assume that Hernandez is a no-doubt star from this point forward going in his career. I’m really high on the player, but he has his flaws too and he’ll have to continue to make adjustments as a professional in order to sustain his success.

Let’s say for argument’s sake that he struggles badly in the month of June. Does it seem impossible for Morales to pick up the pace, even for a little while? If Hernandez needed a re-set the Blue Jays could use some combination of Kevin Pillar/Curtis Granderson/Grichuk/Pearce with Morales still getting DH at bats. Morales has had slow starts in his career before, and demonstrated a streaky nature in 2017 as well. While I don’t expect him to have worthwhile numbers across the length of the season, I can absolutely see him contributing for a couple weeks, in the right situation.

Dumping the switch-hitter now doesn’t make sense, even if his struggles have been pretty epic. Once the roster crunch forces the front office’s hand then maybe, but it’s possible he’s hitting really well by then. Crazier things have happened.