Arden Zwelling

As much as it would suck for him to go back to AAA after playing well, I think it's just the smartest thing organizationally.

And I think the Valenzuela will be back up later this year.

If we were making this decision in August...

i think it'd be different but we're not we're making this decision in early june um i think just to like devil's advocate steel man the other side of this is uh sure dfa and tether heineman is a risk but there's no guarantee he's claimed like catchers go on waivers and don't go claimed all the time it's not like anyone's looking at his offensive numbers and saying we got to get this guy in here um

And prior to that, for caught stealing game, even, like, defensively, he hadn't showed his best earlier this year.

So it's a risk, but, like, how much of a risk is it?

I don't know if Heinemann has enough service to reject his outright.

I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head, but he might.

So that might be one factor in there.

I think the devil's advocate to the Valenzuela development argument is, well, if this guy's future is as a backup catcher in the big leagues, why not let him be a backup catcher in the big leagues?

Yeah.

How better to develop for that role than by filling that role?

So, like, that's an argument.

I personally would want Valenzuela getting as much playing time as possible, because I think even if he's his future is as Kirk's backup next year, the year after, like the whole point.

of a backup catcher is that this is somebody who can step in and play full time on a needs based basis and as we saw this year that need arose so you want him to be used to playing regularly and to being in that rhythm like I don't think you want to close that off right now because odds are like if

Kirk and Valenzuela are your tandem next year or the year after and the year after Kirk's probably going to get hurt again he's a catcher catchers get hurt this is just what happens so I would want Valenzuela playing as much as possible right now um

And I also, and this is like a much smaller thing, but when, so say the Blue Jays DFA Heinemann and he gets claimed by somebody, whenever you lose a catcher to another organization, you do then have to consider, depending on what organization it is,

consider changing like everything you do from a game calling signs, like strategic deception standpoint, which again, not a huge factor.

But I do think it's a consideration.

Like there was an instance a few years ago when an individual left the Blue Jays organization, wasn't super stoked about it.