Leo Jiménez is a 24-year-old (25 on May 17th), right-handed hitting infielder. He was born in Chitre, Panama. The Jays signed him in 2017 (seems like a long time ago) for $825,000 as an international free agent. I’m curious about how much of the money goes to the player and how much of it goes to various people who helped him get noticed by the major league team. We’ve been talking about him for so long, it is hard to believe he isn’t 25 year.
He ‘exceeded his rookie limits in 2024’, but only has 242 major league plate appearances.
Likely the most important bit of information about him is that he is out of options, so he makes the active roster or he could be lost on waivers. And I don’t really see a route to the active roster for him. If he has a terrific spring training, he will make for a difficult decision for the Jays.
As a hitter, he is very selective. Leo, compared to well almost all other hitters, swings at very few pitches. He’s not afraid to take strikes. It is a good skill, unless you fall behind in the count. We have seen the downside of that with Cavan Biggio, but Jiménez is also a good contact hitter, when he does swing, he rarely misses the ball.
That’s a really good combination.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much power there.
Defensively? Most things I’ve read say he is above average at shortstop and second. I haven’t seen enough of him to have an opinion.
Leo missed a lot of time due to injuries last year, which kind of derailed his career some. He played in just 44 games (counting the 18 he played in the majors). I think the chance of him having an everyday MLB job has pretty much disappeared (at least with the Jays), a utility role seems the best hope, and even that will take an injury or two to happen with the Jays. I’d imagine the Jays are likely shopping him around now, or at least will be as spring training progresses to see if they can get more than the waiver fee for him.
Steamer thinks he’ll get into 30 MLB games, hit .237/.320/.361 with 3 home runs.