DUNEDIN, Fla. — A running joke around the Toronto Blue Jays after Yimi Garcia was traded to the Seattle Mariners during last summer’s deadline selloff was that the veteran reliever wanted to stay so badly, he’d be back once he hit free agency.
Lo and behold, 140 days later with a $15-million, two-year deal in his back pocket, the veteran reliever indeed was, as a central part of a bullpen makeover that at that point also featured Nick Sandlin and eventually included All-Star Jeff Hoffman.
Although the 34-year-old said there were “a lot of teams calling for me” once he hit the open market, “the Blue Jays were my first priority. I had a good feeling I will be back here when I got traded. I like it here. I had a good meeting when I left with Ross (Atkins). I like how they treat people, your family and the players. It's a little bit different than other teams.”
His return sets up a unique dynamic at the Blue Jays’ camp, with Garcia and the two players he was traded for, outfield prospect Jonatan Clase and high-A catcher Jacob Sharp, all sharing the same spring clubhouse.
“We talked about it — it feels a little bit strange,” a grinning Clase said through interpreter Hector Lebron. "There was the trade and now we're all together here. Yimi, I'm glad he's here. He's a great human being. We've been talking a lot. It's all good.”
Added Sharp: “It is interesting — I did not expect that at all. But it's fun and it's a great experience for me to see these guys.”
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Free agents immediately re-signing with a team that traded them the previous season isn’t very common, but it’s not unheard of, either.
The Blue Jays, for instance, were on the other end of such a scenario with Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, who returned to the Oakland Athletics as a free agent five months after they traded him at the 1993 trade deadline for then-prospects Steve Karsay and Jose Herrera.
In December 2016, the New York Yankees re-signed Aroldis Chapman to an $86-million, five-year deal — at the time the largest contract ever for a reliever — after sending him to the Chicago Cubs the previous July for Gleyber Torres and three others.
A small handful of other examples: Harold Baines (Baltimore-Cleveland-Baltimore in 1999-2000); Sidney Ponson (Baltimore-San Francisco-Baltimore in 2003-04); Jason Hammel (Cubs-Oakland-Cubs in 2014-15); and Kelly Johnson (Atlanta-Mets-Atlanta in 2015-16).
As a team that expected to be a buyer, rather than a seller, at last year’s deadline and intent on competing the next season, the Blue Jays seemed like a good candidate to try re-signing some of the players they sent away. Several people around the club also thought Yusei Kikuchi might return and Garcia admitted that, “I was wondering the same thing.”
Kikuchi signed a $63-million, three-year deal with the Angels instead, so it’s only Garcia back in a familiar spot, now teammates with the players he was just traded for.
“That is a little bit weird,” Garcia said. “But there is good reason they got those guys, because they have a lot of talent. This is part of the game. You know when you're going into free agency (after the season) and the team doesn't have the success it's supposed to have, (a trade) can happen at any moment.”
While Sharp, 23, will be working to push himself up the organization’s catching depth chart, Clase, 22, is one of the Blue Jays’ young players competing to have a more immediate impact.
A switch-hitting outfielder who can tear up the basepaths and hit for some power, he was assigned to triple-A Buffalo after the trade before appearing in seven big-league games as the season ended, collecting seven hits, including his first big-league home run.
Afterward, he went to play winterball in his native Dominican Republic but appeared in only five games, his experience truncated when he tweaked a hamstring running the bases.
“I decided to stop to avoid it getting worse,” Clase said, adding that he’s “about 100 per cent” now and doing pretty much everything as he normally would, with a touch of caution. “I’m feeling very good right now. But I'm not going to push it.”
The pace of Daulton Varsho’s recovery from shoulder surgery — the main issue is building up his throwing, but he’s otherwise full-go right now — could open a pathway to the Opening Day roster for someone such as Clase, Joey Loperfido, Steward Berroa or Myles Straw.
Breaking camp “is definitely a goal that I have,” said Clase, who acknowledged that “there are a lot of new faces, a lot of competition, too. Hopefully, I stay healthy. I know I'm very capable to do a lot of things and hopefully make the team.”
Garcia, of course, doesn’t need to worry about that.
He’ll be back in high-leverage for the Blue Jays, part of their closing mix again with Hoffman and Chad Green. Manager John Schneider has already told the entire bullpen “here's around where you're going to be” in terms of use, but that also “can be a little bit interchangeable, based on where we are in the lineup.”
“We know that we have at least three guys that can pitch the ninth inning. I know the ninth inning is a little bit different,” he added. “But they all know that on any given day, some days it depends on who you're playing, someone may come in a little bit early to get out of a big spot in the sixth inning and then they may be closing the next day. They're all on board with it and the season usually has a way of straightening that out on its own.”
As always Garcia, as affable and soft-spoken off the field as he is ferocious on the mound, is down for whatever the Blue Jays ask. He was a monster in 29 games with the Blue Jays, striking out 42 in 30 innings while giving up only nine runs, but hit the injured list with right elbow neuritis June 17, returned to make two appearances before he was traded, and then grinded through 10 outings with Seattle, allowing six runs, before his elbow pain returned.
He felt it on the mound during an Aug. 19 outing against the Dodgers, and four days later he was on the injured list, his season over.
"When I went to Seattle I was good, but with pitching, you never know what can happen — something can happen at any moment,” said Garcia. “The same thing I had in Toronto is the same thing that happened in Seattle. But now I am 100 per cent.”
The Blue Jays are counting on that, excited to have both the bounty Garcia fetched — and Garcia, too.
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