After Three Seasons Behind the Plate, a Blue Jays Veteran Makes His Move to Free Agency.yv

Moving on to offseason roster construction is painful duty for the Toronto Blue Jays, but it’s a duty nonetheless.

After narrowly missing out on their first World Series win since 1993, the Blue Jays got a bit of a late start on figuring out their organizational depth chart for next year. Players come and got at rapid rates at this time of year, especially the minor-leaguers, and the Blue Jays saw a number of notable departures.

One of those departures was a three-year major league catcher who never quite got his chance to make an impact for the Blue Jays, and now might never.

On Thursday, catcher René Pinto elected free agency, according to the transactions log on his official roster page. He was only in the Blue Jays organization for two months, as he was signed to a minor-league contract on Sept. 1 after being let go by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

All of Pinto’s big-league experience came with the Tampa Bay Rays from 2022 to 2024. He’s a lifetime .231 hitter with a .667 OPS — not terrible numbers for a catcher by any means, but grades out poorly on defense, particularly when it comes to blocking.

It still appeared for a while that Pinto would be a part of the picture in Tampa Bay for a while, but he got waived at the end of last season, was claimed by the Baltimore Orioles, then was DFA’d two months later without ever playing a game in the Baltimore organization. Arizona also DFA’d him in March, when he didn’t make the opening day roster.

In other words, Pinto has gotten used to bouncing around. And after just eight games in the Blue Jays organization, it might be time to pack up his gear bag and switch clubhouses once more.