The Blue Jays released Chad Green yesterday after the veteran right-hander cleared waivers, according to a team announcement. Green is now eligible to sign with any of the league’s 30 clubs. and had been designated for assignment by the Jays just prior to the trade deadline.
A veteran of ten MLB seasons, the 34-year-old righty has struggled badly in 45 appearances for the Jays this year with a 5.56 ERA and an eye-popping 6.70 FIP across 43 2/3 innings of work. Green’s 6.8% walk rate remains more or less in line with the best seasons of his career, but his strikeout rate has dipped considerably. After punching out 32.4% of his opponents through the end of the 2023 campaign, he struck out batters at just a 21.9% clip last year. That number has dropped even further this season, down to 18.4%. In addition to the lack of whiffs, Green has allowed 14 home runs this year. That’s the most of any reliever in baseball so far this season, and only two relievers (Enyel De Los Santos and Tyler Alexander) allowed more homers than that over the entirety of the 2024 campaign.
It’s an ugly profile overall, and it seems unlikely that any team would be particularly enthused about offering him an immediate spot in their bullpen between the lack of strikeouts and his 16.4% barrel rate allowed. Certain underlying metrics do offer some room for optimism, however. Green’s 4.26 SIERA is only slightly below average, and his K-BB% is in line with quality relief arms like Caleb Ferguson and Taylor Rogers. Perhaps there’s a team out there that sees enough in Green that they’re willing to take a flier on him in the form of a minor league deal. Even with his poor numbers this year, it would certainly be understandable if a team decided to do so.
That’s because Green has a long track record of success in the majors prior to this year. From 2017 to 2022, Green was a dominant late-inning relief arm for the Yankees with a 2.96 ERA, a 33.4% strikeout rate, and a 3.01 FIP. He picked up ten saves in that time while joining arms like Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, and David Robertson at the back of the Yankees’ bullpen. Perhaps a team sees some sort of adjustments they can help Green make in order to get back to being a viable setup man; his heater is still averaging 95.2 mph this year, and while advanced metrics like Stuff+ have signaled a decline in the quality of Green’s offerings in recent years, he still grades at average to slightly above average.
As for the Blue Jays, they’ll be on the hook for what’s left of his $10.5MM salary for the 2025 campaign. If Green gets added to an MLB roster at some point this year, he’ll be paid a prorated portion of the MLB minimum by his new club and that amount will be deducted from what Toronto owes him. With newly-added relievers Louis Varland and Seranthony Dominguez now in the fold, the Jays figure to do just fine without Green in their late-inning mix even if he does manage to turn things around with a new organization.