Blue Jays sign veteran Rzepczynski

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed veteran left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski to a minor league deal with an invite to major league spring training. Photo: Toronto Blue Jays/Twitter

February 24, 2020

By Jay Blue

Blue Jays from Away

The Toronto Blue Jays have made a move to bolster their left-handed bullpen depth, signing veteran lefty and former Blue Jay Marc Rzepczynski to a minor league deal with an invite to major league spring training.

Rzepczynski, also affectionately known as "Scrabble" for his challenging last name, broke in with the Blue Jays back in 2009 as a 23 year old, starting 11 games in the majors with some solid results. He was used as a starter in 2010 but moved to the bullpen full-time in 2011 when he was traded in the eight-player deal that brought Colby Rasmus to Toronto.

Rzepczynski won the World Series with the Cardinals in 2011, pitching in all three post-season series and hit his stride in the Championship Series and the World Series, giving up just one run in 7 1/3 innings, allowing just three hits and striking out eight.

"Zep" was pitched in the post-season in 2012, working sparingly (only two innings in five games) and was traded again in 2013, going to Cleveland where he would pitch in the playoffs again for the third time in three years. Traded by the Indians to San Diego in 2015, he would be traded again in the offseason to the Oakland A's and again in August to the Washington Nationals, pitching three times in the 2016 NLDS against the Dodgers.

Rzepczynski spent 2017 with Seattle and has been around the league since, pitching in Cleveland again in 2018 and worked for the Diamondbacks' triple-A team in Reno in 2019.

In parts of 10 seasons in the major leagues, Rzepczynski had a 3.89 ERA and 1.44 WHIP over 434 2/3 innings, striking out 409 with 205 walks. Used mostly as a traditional LOOGY (Lefthanded One Out GuY), lefthanders have a career .602 OPS against him while righties have a career .822 OPS.

Signed to a minor-league deal, Rzepczynski fits into the Blue Jays' battle for the bullpen and could be one of one or two lefties who break camp with the Blue Jays. His main competition comes from Thomas Pannone, who is pretty much the only incumbent lefty in the bullpen (since he's being used out of the 'pen this year) but the Jays also have Travis Bergen and Brian Moran, both with some big league experience last year while Kirby Snead is a home-grown lefty who spent most of the year in Buffalo last year.

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