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Released today, via eric smith's twitter

Randy Ruiz has signed a contract with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of the Japan Pacific League

http://twitter.com/Eric__Smith

he probably wanted out and found a better situation for himself down there

Huge shocker....

Japan is a good destination for him...they tend to love their rotund, swing-from-the-heels types, and he's going to get paid more over there than he ever would here. Plus, no steroid testing!

Jeremy Reed was recalled to take his place.

Can't say I didn't see this move coming...next up...OVERBAY

There was just no room here for him. Good luck in Japan.

Didn't mind Ruiz, but he's 32 and not part of the future here.

Bon chance.

He should've got more ABs last year, but he just didn't fit anywhere this year.

YESSSSSS.

rarefind wrote:YESSSSSS.

+1

Although as a funny aside, I was using Ruiz on my MLB 10: The Show Jays season and he hit .270 with 35HR and 85 Rbis...the best part was in the offseason I lowballed him and resigned him for 1 year/1 mill.
If only he hit 35/85 in real life....

I really liked this guy and thought the should have been given more of a chance. Best of luck to him and I hope he does well.

Well he never really got the chance this year thanks to Mr.Oferbay. I'd rather see Dopirak up instead of Reed. Who's our backup 1B? Bumtista?

Dopirak is sucking pretty badly in Las Vegas: .228/.250/.346 in 140 plate appearances. Lubanski might have been an option, but unlike Reed, he isn't on the 40-man.

And it wasn't Overbay who stole Ruiz's at-bats, it was Lind, Snider and Bautista. Ruiz simply isn't a first baseman, which is a good part of the reason that he's no longer with the Jays...we just didn't have room for a guy who can't play in the field.

Garmfay wrote:Bumtista?

Bumtista? The guy with the .877 OPS?

-MetA4- wrote:

Garmfay wrote:Bumtista?

Bumtista? The guy with the .877 OPS?

I think that he means the guy who is sixth in the AL in RBIs.


RBI is still a useless stat, but it illustrates the point here. /statnerding

Schadenfreude wrote:

-MetA4- wrote:

Garmfay wrote:Bumtista?

Bumtista? The guy with the .877 OPS?

I think that he means the guy who is sixth in the AL in RBIs.


RBI is still a useless stat, but it illustrates the point here. /statnerding

As Buck Martinez would say, Bautista is a run producer.

Randle McMurphy wrote:As Buck Martinez would say, Bautista is a run producer.

No, Buck would point to the fact that he can fist the life out of balls inside. I can't say that without immediately wanting to take a bath in hydrochloric acid.

Well I think that this is a shame. As he showed last year, Ruiz can definitely hit, and I honestly can't comprehend why there isn't a spot for him on a major league roster, especially since Snider went down. The team easily could have put Lind in LF to give him a real shot.

Japan will offer him a more secure career though, which is probably what he needs at this point.

youngLion wrote:As he showed last year, Ruiz can definitely hit

Ruiz didn't prove a single thing.

He was a late season call-up that benefited from lack of pitcher familiarity; which is what often happens when a new hitter gets called up. Ruiz is a free swinger with next to no plate discipline, last year he was a career minor-leaguer who got called up and took advantage of pitchers not knowing his game. Combine that with him enduring a hot-streak and you have a small sample of him looking like an all-star when it was obvious his approach was never going to be sustainable. He remained on the active roster and teams had a chance to figure him out this offseason; basically you just nibble around the strike zone and he'll flail away trying to hit everything out of the park...then once you inevitably get him into a bad count you just throw some breaking ball a foot outside the strike zone in any direction and he'll swing at it. I dont see how this is confusing, his approach is terrible. Even last year when he "hit" he had a whopping 35 strikeouts in 33 games, with only 10 walks...so you can see that even then he was basically just hacking at everything and just happened to run into a lot of hittable pitches.

I mean the fact that he ran to Japan should be proof enough. The guy just isn't any more than a situational bench player at the best, which is why he got so few "chances" to make the big leagues...and also why his best option was Japan. Had we released him and he was free to sign with another MLB team he would have been in the same situation he was here in Toronto.

I don't really get the Ruiz thing. He puts up a 1.000+ OPS last year in a decent sampling of AB's even though Cito obviously didn't like the guy and then sure enough Cito sits his butt this season, even against LHP early, while Overbay puts up some of the worst numbers for any starter in MLB.

His release looks like it's primarily due to his agent finding a job in Japan but I'm still convinced that he never got the fair shake he deserved this season. Heck, he only got 1 AB in the first 9 games of the season.

Anyways, I wish him luck.