Easton Lucas is a 28-year-old, left-handed pitcher. The Jays picked him up off waivers from the Tigers in August of last year.
In 2023, he played six games with the A’s. In 2024, he played in the majors with the A’s, Tigers, and Jays. He’s also spent time in the Marlins (who drafted him in the 14th round of the 2019 draft) and Orioles systems.
He’s thrown 18.1 innings in the majors and has a 9.82 ERA with 13 walks and 17 strikeouts. Batters hit .333/.427/.506 against him at that time.
But, in Triple-A, across three organizations, he had a 2.75 ERA in 38 games, 68.2 innings, 49 hits, 28 walks and 73 strikeouts.
Easton has two option years left, which gives him a fair bit of value to the Jays, and we aren’t swimming in lefty pitchers. But then, he hasn’t had any history of success in the majors. And the team will need 40-man roster spots (I haven’t seen who is being DFAed for Max Scherzer).
In his few MLB innings, he threw five pitches:
- Four Seamer: 53.7% of the game, averaging 94.2 mph (a couple of ticks up from what he has done in the past).
- Cutter: 21.1% (which got hit hard, .412 BA and .647 Slugging.
- Slider: 19.1%.
- Changeup: 5.7%
- Sinker: 0.4%
Lucas could be starter depth or depth for the pen.
I would be surprised if we saw a lot of him in Toronto, but Steamer thinks he’ll pitch in 32 games (all in relief) with a 4.16 ERA in 32 innings. That seems to be at the very high end of what could happen.