Braves cut Rowdy Tellez, but a Blue Jays reunion won't solve Toronto's problems

The Atlanta Braves have cut ties with Rowdy Tellez. The 31-year-old first baseman was only up for seven games with the major league club. He was added to the roster to cover an injury, but with shortstop Jim Jarvis added back to the roster there was no more room for Tellez.

It's been a tough couple of years for Tellez, who's biggest strength is his power, but he hasn't had much of that to offer over the last two seasons. After hitting a career high 35 home runs with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2022, he's hit a combined 44 home runs over the last three seasons (2026 included) while playing for five different teams.

He's posted a .403 SLG and .692 OPS in 355 game and 993 at-bats over that span with a 23.8 strikeout percentage. These aren't numbers that jump out as someone who could come in and help out a major league club's offence - even one as anemic as the Blue Jays' is right now.

Additionally, he's a left-handed hitter who is limited to first base and DH duties and the Blue Jays have too many other players who play those spots already on the roster, so finding playing time for the former 30th round draft pick (2013) would be tough to find.

Blue Jays biggest upgrades need to come internally

The Blue Jays have one hitter who has hit double digit home runs to this point of the season and that's Kazuma Okamoto. The Japanese star, who was just named the AL Rookie of the month for June, has been the most effective power hitter on the team this season with his 19 home runs accompanying a .323 OBP. It's everybody else around him that needs to start pulling their weight.

George Springer, Daulton Varsho, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Addison Barger have 19 home runs combined. Those were the top four home run hitters for the Blue Jays a year ago. Maybe it's not fair to lump Barger in with this group considering his only played nine games due to injury, but it illustrates the massive drop off from the power core that helped the Blue Jays to the AL Championship last year.

Adding someone who can inject some power into this lineup would be a huge boost, but it doesn't take away from the fact that the current crop of Blue Jays needs to also start doing something differently about their approach. They enter this weekend's series against the Seattle Mariners with a 41-46 record and 3.5 games back of the Mariners for the final Wild Card spot.

If there was ever a time to kick up the voltage it would be now. They wasted a good opportunity to climb the rankings over this past home stand. They welcomed in three teams who were all under .500 (Astros, Rangers, Mets) and only managed to go 3-7, while at the same time, the New York Yankees lost eight in a row - meaning the Blue Jays completely failed to gain any meaningful ground on their division rivals.

Both the Blue Jays and the Yankees are chasing the Tampa Bay Rays now, who themselves have won eight in a row. With a 51-33 record they could be on the cusp of putting the AL East out of reach, at least as far as the Blue Jays are concerned.

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