Happy Birthday Luke Maile

Feb 6, 2023 - 4:32 PM

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Luke Maile turns 31 today.

Luke was our backup catcher for three seasons. The Jays picked him off waivers from the Rays in April of 2017.

He had an abysmal 2017 season with the bat, hitting .146/.176/.231 with 2 home runs in 136 PA. Luke’s wRC+ was a 1. Matt wrote about where his season fit with the worst hitting seasons of the 21st century and then compared it to the worst seasons of the modern era.

It wasn’t just Maile in 2017. At the end of the season, Matt also wrote about how the backup catchers, led by Maile, were the worst performing group in Blue Jays' history.

Luke hit a much better .248/.333/.366 with 3 home runs in 231 PA in 2018. That was enough to get Minor Leaguer to campaign for Luke to get voted onto the AL all-star team (surprisingly enough, he was unsuccessful), despite this video.

In 2019, with Russell Martin traded to the Dodgers, Luke became backup to Danny Jansen, and his bat regressed to 2017 levels, hitting .151/.205/.235 with 2 home runs in 129 PA.

Maile’s glove made him a major leaguer. In addition, he has a good arm, ranked well at framing and was pretty athletic behind the plate.

He did have the odd good moment at the plate for us, getting a walk-off single in the 19th inning against the Royals on April 17, 2018, and hitting two home runs, including a walk-off in the 12th against the Red Sox on May 11, 2018.

Maile played 15 games for the Brewers in 2021 and 76 games for the Guardians in 2022. He signed with the Reds back in November.

Happy Birthday, Luke.

David Paulino turns 29 today.

Paulino came to us as part of the Roberto Osuna trade to the Astros in 2013 (along with Ken Giles). He was a reasonable prospect (#51 on Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list in 2017, but he pitched just 6.2 innings with the Jays. He got into a game with the Phillies in 2021. He wasn’t in anyone’s organization in 2022.

Chad Girodo turns 32 today.

Chad was a 9th-round pick in 2013 and made it to the games Jays for a few games in 2016.