Why the Blue Jays cut bait with Alek Manoah and why another team may give the former Cy Young candidate a shot

Three years ago, Alek Manoah was the third-place finisher in the AL Cy Young voting. Now he's on his way out of the Toronto Blue Jays organization. Prior to Tuesday's loss (BOS 4, TOR 1), the Blue Jays designated Manoah for assignment and removed him from the 40-man roster. That move opened a 40-man spot for Anthony Santander, who was activated off the 60-day injured list.

"These are always tough decisions," GM Ross Atkins explained (via MLB.com). "This just came down to a roster crunch and us feeling like (it was) the best decision for us to hold depth, and support this staff as we push forward into very important weeks. We chose others over him, obviously, so this was a very tough, very difficult decision. They always are."

Manoah, 27, threw 196 ⅔ innings with a 2.24 ERA in 2022, earning him an All-Star Game selection as well as Cy Young and MVP votes. He struggled badly in 2023 though (5.87 ERA), and made only five starts in 2024 before his elbow gave out and he had Tommy John surgery. Manoah has not pitched in the majors this season. He has a 3.96 ERA in 10 minor-league starts.

On Sept. 11, Manoah completed his minor-league rehab assignment, and the Blue Jays activated him off the injured list and optioned him to Triple-A. The Triple-A regular season ended Sunday (Toronto's affiliate did not qualify for the postseason), so there are no more minor-league games left for Manoah to pitch. The Blue Jays opted to cut him when they needed roster space.

It's a relatively swift fall from grace for a pitcher who was among baseball's best young arms three years ago, and someone who the Blue Jays tabbed to start Game 1 of the 2022 Wild Card Series. Why did they cut ties with Manoah? What's next for him? And is he salvageable at this point? Let's dig into that all now.

Why the Blue Jays moved on

Simply put, the Blue Jays feel Manoah is no longer in position to help at the MLB level. Atkins said it himself: "We chose others over him." Toronto could have moved righty Jake Bloss, who had season-ending elbow surgery in May, to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot for Santander, allowing them to keep Manoah. They opted not to do that.

Although the Triple-A season ended Sunday, the Blue Jays could have sent Manoah to their spring training complex in Florida to be part of their "stay ready" group. Those are the extra players every postseason teams keeps on standby in case there's an injury or a roster move that needs to be made in October. Toronto does not think Manoah is even an emergency postseason option.

Manoah would have remained under team control through 2027 and the Blue Jays could have optioned him to Triple-A next year to see how he bounces back as he gets further away from elbow reconstruction. He made $2.2 million this year and is projected to make a similar salary next year. That is a relative pittance for a major-league team. They still decided it wasn't worth it.

After three seasons of injury and poor performance, the Blue Jays determined Manoah was no longer able to help them at the MLB level, so they moved on. They did that even with Chris Bassitt, Shane Bieber, and Max Scherzer all scheduled to become free agents after this season. To Toronto, at this point Manoah is not even worth stashing in Triple-A in 2026.

What's next for Manoah

When a player is designated for assignment, his team has seven days to trade him, place him on waivers, or release him. A trade is not possible. 40-man roster players can not be traded between the July 31 trade deadline and the end of the World Series. Manoah will go on waivers within the next week. He might already be on waivers now. (Waivers are a 48-hour process.)

Once Manoah goes on waivers, one of two things will happen:

1. He will go unclaimed. If this happens, Manoah has enough service time to elect free agency, which most players in his situation do. He will forfeit the remainder of his contract to become a free agent, though that's only about $60,000 this late in the season. It might be worth it to Manoah to forego that to get a head start on looking for a new team.

2. He will get claimed. The waiver priority order is the reverse order of the standings, so the Colorado Rockies (43-119) get the first crack, then the Chicago White Sox (58-99), so on and so forth. The team that claims Manoah assumes his contract (that remaining $60,000 or so) and also gets control of him as an arbitration-eligible player through 2027. They could keep him and option him to Triple-A next year, which Toronto declined to do.

A team could claim Manoah, try work out a discounted contract, then non-tender him in November if nothing comes together. The maximum pay cut for a team-controlled player is 20%, so Manoah's minimum salary for 2026 is $1.76 million. If Manaoh rejects that, the team could non-tender him, and he becomes a free agent with no strings attached. The only cost to the claiming team would be the $60,000 in remaining salary this year. Some teams could see that as a worthwhile roll of the dice.

My hunch is a team will claim Manoah given his pedigree, team control, affordable salary, and ability to be sent to Triple-A in 2026. One way or the other though, his time with the Blue Jays is all but over. Either Manoah will get claimed on waivers, or he will elect free agency after clearing waivers. The chances he remains with Toronto are not 0%, but they are very, very small.

Is he salvageable?

The Blue Jays clearly don't believe so and the early returns following Tommy John surgery aren't encouraging. His 2.97 ERA in seven Triple-A starts looks great, though the underlying numbers are concerning. For starters, the ERA doesn't capture nine (!) unearned runs in his 38 ⅔ innings, plus there were a lot of walks (23) and a few too many home runs (6).

Triple-A Statcast data tells us Manoah missed fewer bats than the average Triple-A pitcher and gave up more hard-hit balls in the air than the average Triple-A pitcher, which is a bad combination. His fastball averaged 91.3 mph and backed up in September. In his last three starts, Manoah did not throw a single pitch over 93 mph. Analytical models also grade his slider poorly.

The shiny Triple-A ERA hides an inability to miss bats, limit hard contact, avoid walks, or show even average fastball velocity. The fact of the matter is Manaoh has not been healthy and effective at the same time since 2022. The 2025 version looks like the 2023 version who left everyone wondering what was wrong, not the 2022 version who nearly won a Cy Young.

It is not uncommon for a pitcher to need a long runway to get back to being himself after Tommy John surgery. I'm confident a team will sign Manoah and see what he looks like next year, after a normal offseason and a proper spring training. Right now though, there aren't many reasons to think he can be a qualify big leaguer. The under-the-hood numbers say he's a Triple-A depth guy.