Blue Jays: Who is going to be the 25th man on the Opening Day roster?

Richard Urena

Yesterday I wrote about how Freddy Galvis’ signing had an effect on the other shortstop options, and there might not be anyone who feels it as directly as Richard Urena.

Sure, you could argue that Gurriel Jr. is bound to see less starts at short now that Galvis is in the fold, but there’s no way it’s going to cost him his spot on the roster. That’s probably not going to be the case for Urena, who had the inside track on the utility man job as recently as last weekend.

That said, it’s possible that the Blue Jays could still carry Urena to open the season, especially if they want to have another infielder around until Vlad Guerrero Jr arrives. They’ll have Drury, Travis, Gurriel Jr., and Galvis, but that only leaves them with one back-up infielder. Granted they went without a shortstop all together at times in 2018, but it never hurts to have an extra capable gloveman around.

Although Urena performed very well in Toronto last season, his stats show that he could benefit from some extra seasoning in Triple-A. History tells us that the Blue Jays are going to need extra infielders to help them get through a 162 game season anyway, and they’ve already called upon Urena in each of the last two seasons, so chances are he’ll be in line for a similar spot on the depth charts this year.

Is it possible that he breaks camp as the 25th man? Like I said, it’s possible the Jays keep him around until Vlad Jr arrives, but I think they go in another direction and call him up if an injury occurs to another infielder.