Blue Jays silently lose recent infield addition in wake of Max Scherzer signing

He was only a member of the Toronto Blue Jays for a few weeks. It was a "blink and you'll miss it" type of tenure for Ben Cowles who has become the unfortunate victim of the numbers game as the Blue Jays needed to make room for a returning future Hall of Famer.

With Max Scherzer agreeing to a one-year deal, the Blue Jays needed to make room on the 40-man roster for the 41-year-old and the result is a return to the Chicago Cubs for the 26-year-old infielder.

Ben Cowles becomes a roster cut casualty as Max Scherzer re-signs with the Blue Jays

The Blue Jays originally picked up Cowles on February 18, claiming him off waivers from the Chicago Cubs. While Cowles has yet to make his big league debut, he was regarded as a player who could push for a bench role. Cowles has enough experience at every spot on the infield (except first) from his time in the minors that it wasn't a stretch to think he could make the team as the back up middle infielder to Andrés Giménez, Ernie Clement and Kazuma Okamoto, as long as his bat came around.

But just over a week into Grapefruit League action, the Blue Jays have decided that they may have some better candidates in house, and so Cowles was let go. He didn't wander in the free agency abyss for long as the Cubs have reclaimed him, giving him another opportunity to get to the majors in 2026.

The move was necessary to get Scherzer on the 40-man roster as he will start to build up his arm ahead of Opening Day. There is no firm plan on where Scherzer will fit in the Blue Jays' pitching plans for 2026, but getting a future Hall of Famer back into the club house was seen as a necessary fit by the Blue Jays' front office. Scherzer will be pitching in his 19th season, and he is just over 30 innings shy of getting to 3,000 innings pitched in his career, while he is only 11 strikeouts away from 3,500.

Going into the season, Scherzer joins Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, José Berrios, Eric Lauer and Cody Ponce as rotation candidates, while Shane Bieber will also be in the mix at some point once he works through his arm fatigue issues. It continues the trend the Blue Jays have set ever since the end of the World Series; raising the floor of the pitching staff. Most of the time spent adding to the roster during the offseason and into Spring Training has been on the pitching side, and the Scherzer move is just the latest example.

Meanwhile, the emergence of some young, impressive infield talent in the early going of spring has made this move an easier pill to swallow. While Cowles brought some intriguing tools with his glove and his speed, the Blue Jays have seen Josh Kasevich, Charles McAdoo and Leo Jiménez get off to good starts in the spring, all of whom would play similar roles to Cowles.