Earlier this week the Blue Jays non-tendered Josh Thole rather than give him a raise to around $2 million via arbitration, but now the veteran catcher has re-signed with Toronto for $800,000.
It’s a move that makes sense, because Thole is a good fit for the Blue Jays in a part-time role that involves catching knuckleballer R.A. Dickey but he’s also not really worth significantly more than the minimum salary. So they dropped him, picked him back up, and in doing so work around the arbitration-fueled raise that was looming.
Thole figures to back up Russell Martin, which should involve catching 40-50 games now that Dioner Navarro is out of the picture. He’s a career .249 hitter with eight homers and a .634 OPS in 428 games.
