Sosa vs. Schneider: Who Should the Blue Jays Send Packing?

To state the obvious, the Toronto Blue Jays have had several players underperform at the plate this season. With a record five games below .500 and below-average showings from George Springer, Jesus Sanchez, and Andres Gimenez, there are plenty of things that need to get turned around for this team before it’s too late.

Another one of the players that desperately needs to get going is fan favorite Davis Schneider. His struggles (along with the multitude of injuries) have been so pronounced that Toronto made the move to acquire Lenyn Sosa on April 13.

Unfortunately, the latter hasn’t proved to be an upgrade over the former.

With the team slowly getting healthier and others heating up at the plate, the numbers crunch will likely result in a roster move sooner rather than later. Each of Addison Barger and Nathan Lukes will be rejoining the team in short order, and that’ll leave Toronto with a choice for their final bench bat: Sosa or Schneider?

Option 1: Demoting Schneider

It might not be a popular move, but there’s a real case for Schneider being the odd man out. Of the 320 players who have had 70 or more plate appearances this season, Schneider ranks 318th with a .140 batting average.

He’s almost exclusively been facing lefties as well, and has mustered a meagre .143 average against them, with 14 strikeouts in 40 plate appearances. On the bright side, he is still getting on base, evidenced by his ridiculous .140/.329/.246 line, but it’s rarely via a hit. To put that line into perspective, over 73 plate appearances, Schneider has eight hits this season (one of which was off a position player) and 16 walks.

Another downfall has been his K%. Schneider has always been prone to strikeouts, but this season has taken that to another level. Last season, he struck out 26.4% of the time; this season, albeit in a much smaller sample size, he’s at 32.9%.

His tools away from the plate also aren’t game-changing. He’s a perfectly average left fielder and second baseman (being worth 1 Out Above Average this season), and has slightly below league-average speed on the base paths (40th percentile).

There’s also one major factor that might make this decision for the Blue Jays: Schneider still has a minor-league option remaining. This was the route Toronto went with last season, as Schneider was sent down to Buffalo after a cold start that saw him register just one hit in his first 21 plate appearances. After his eventual promotion back up to the big leagues, he promptly hit .249/.364/.468 across 72 games.

It would make thousands of fans upset (myself included), but it might make the most logistical sense, especially with Lukes and Barger nearing a return.

We’ll always have that homer off of Blake Snell.

Option 2: So Long, Sosa

Sosa is currently doing something that very few players across MLB history have achieved. The man has an on-base percentage lower than his average. No, that’s not a good thing.

There are very few players who have less aesthetically pleasing at-bats than Sosa. We knew this was what was to be expected when Toronto traded for him, but if you couldn’t tell, I’m admittedly not the largest fan of his approach at the plate. Across his 91 plate appearances this season (58 of which have come with the Blue Jays), Sosa has drawn 0 walks. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

In fact, across those 91 plate appearances (including his time with the White Sox), he’s gotten to a three-ball count only five times. In three of those appearances, he struck out. This has resulted in Sosa essentially becoming the anti-Schneider, with a very difficult-to-achieve .213/.211/.315 line.

In case you were curious, he has the fourth-highest Chase% in baseball and, obviously, the lowest walk percentage. This has been an issue that’s plagued Sosa throughout his career. He had the eighth-highest Chase% last year, and Michael Harris II was the only player with a lower BB%.

This means that Schneider, who has 11 fewer hits (and 18 fewer plate appearances) than Sosa, also has an on-base percentage that’s .118 higher. Sosa has also somehow managed to put up -0.6 WAR across his limited action, pretty much evenly split between his time in Chicago and Toronto.

Similar to Schneider, Sosa is spectacularly unspectacular in the field (although he does grade out worse) and is pretty much limited to being a mediocre first baseman and weak second baseman. His sprint speed is marginally better than Schneider’s, but with his defence being as bad as it is, it doesn’t justify him staying in games late.

Toronto might be hesitant to cut Sosa loose so soon (especially because they traded away something for him), but it really wasn’t anything substantial. Jordan Rich, the player Chicago acquired for Sosa, was Toronto’s 17th-round pick in 2025 and is hitting .143 in rookie ball to open his year.

Sosa has no options remaining, but with his lack of productivity, he quite honestly could make it through waivers. That, or the Blue Jays could potentially find a trade partner after a DFA, but an assignment to Triple-A feels more likely.

Option 3: Ejector Seat

As Triple H once said, “there’s always a Plan B”; or, I guess, in this sense, a Plan C. Neither Schneider nor Sosa has been spectacular, so what’s stopping Toronto from DFA’ing Sosa and sending down Schneider? Yohendrick Pinango has earned a spot on the roster, and there are multiple names in the minors who’re on the cusp of a call-up, like Charles McAdoo and Josh Kasevich.

It’s far too early to hit the panic button, but there isn’t much harm (aside from the disappointment of having one less moustache on the roster) in getting some fresh faces into the lineup to kickstart the offence.

Give Schneider some time to work on his approach, Sosa a new start somewhere he can have constant at-bats, and the fans someone else to yell at when they fail to cash in a runner in scoring position.