Blue Jays: Four players who may be off the 40-man roster come spring

Anthony Castro

Designated by the Detroit Tigers this past offseason, he would eventually settle in with the Blue Jays to start the year after spending the majority of his professional career in the Tigers minor league system.

Castro would make his Blue Jays debut on April 14th and would pitch well, failing to surrender an earned run until his seventh outing in mid-May. Similar to some other names on this list, Castro was optioned between the minor leagues and the active roster numerous times this season.

This may have had an impact on his performance towards the end of the campaign, as the right-hander would start to struggle in mid-June and eventually finished the year with a 4.74 ERA through 25 games with 32 strikeouts and a 1.26 WHIP. The Venezuelan product also missed some time in July on the IL, which may have also been a reason for the rough outings towards the end of the season.

While it looked like the right-hander was a diamond in the rough type of pickup this offseason, he slowly started to lose the fan’s confidence when he started to struggle and was not the same type of pitcher that we saw earlier in the year.

He does have one minor league option left which could be a benefit to having him on the 40-man roster but considering the Blue Jays have a few internal prospects looking for spots in the bullpen like Kirby Snead, Tayler Saucedo, Bryan Baker, and Hobie Harris (not on the 40-man roster), Castro’s time on the Jays roster could be over if the front office feels that they have enough depth within the farm system and need the spot.