The Toronto Blue Jays claimed infielder Jarrett Hoffpauir off of waivers from the St. Louis Cardinals. Left-handed pitcher Bill Murphy was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for Hoffpauir.

Hoffpauir, 26, is an intriguing pickup. He posted a .291/.357/.486 batting line in 402 plate appearances for Triple-A Memphis, and also held his own in 16 plate appearances with St. Louis. In other words, he's right around the same part of his career Marco Scutaro was when Oakland gave him a chance to play every day.

One wonders if this is a sign that Toronto doesn't plan to bring Scutaro back. For what it's worth, Hoffpauir has played 10 games at shortstop in the minor leagues, while Aaron Hill, Toronto's second baseman, came through the minor leagues as a shortstop.

Murphy, 28, had posted a 7.59 ERA in Triple-A, so this move can't be considered much of a surprise.

You can't argue with the pickup. He has good discipline at the plate, only 28 K's in 358 at bats. Worth a look at in spring training and worse case he is depth in AAA.

I saw the title as "Hoffpauir from Cubs"

Stupid me.

He has more minor league walks in his career then strikeouts and has displayed some pop as well. However, he's only got a handful of starts at SS in his career so I don't think this necessarily means the end of Scutaro in TO. Hoffpauir will likely take a bench spot though.

Does anyone have any idea how his defense is because I'd say that he is likely JMacs replacement

Seems a bit undersized, so I'd be surprised to see much power translate to the MLB, but with his plate discipline and some time at short, he could be a nice guy to have as a backup at 2B and SS. Seems like a guy you could play without worrying about him hurting you too much, but that's just going by the numbers. Nice couple of pickups so far this offseason.

"Does anyone have any idea how his defense is because I'd say that he is likely JMacs replacement"

futureredbirds.com/2007/06/28/prospect-profile-jarrett-hoffpauir/

Looks like a good pickup for a bench bat. Hopefully he's not the starting shortstop though, unless we're tanking the season.

lol jarrett hoffpauir will not be our starting SS.

Isn't scouring the scrap pile JP's MO?

Like i said before,its the same garbage thats been going on around here for far to long.

Like this guy's any better bet than A.Sanchez.

Is this farm sytstem so pour that picking up other teams scraps the only way to fill it out?

"Isn't scouring the scrap pile JP's MO?

Like i said before,its the same garbage thats been going on around here for far to long.

Like this guy's any better bet than A.Sanchez.

Is this farm sytstem so pour that picking up other teams scraps the only way to fill it out?"

Show me one team in all of baseball that doesn't pick up scraps?

F*ck even the Yankees do it.

While it might look like a pickup off the scrap pile I think it gives us some much needed infield depth in the upper minors where we are very very thin. A couple of injuries to our infield at one time next year can cause some significant problems, especially since some of the more highly regarded minor league prospects haven't proven themselves ready to move on from the lower minors.

So what if all teams do it.How many teams didn't sign a major league free agent last year.One?How many teams base their whole offseason around picking up scraps and signing guy's to minor league contracts?

I know you are going to turn this around and say that he really isn't a major league guy... but we did sign Kevin Millar last year... he's a major league player, so you're wrong there.

Also... we had no intention of competing last year... why would we have signed a bunch of mediocre MLB players and stolen AB's/starts from our young players.

ps. Hoffpauir isn't that bad... certainly wouldn't say he's "scrap"

They signed Millar to a minor league contract if i'm not mistaken.

"Also... we had no intention of competing last year... why would we have signed a bunch of mediocre MLB players and stolen AB's/starts from our young players."

Which young players got AB's and starts?Did Thigpen get some starts?How about Dopirak?How many starts did he get?It looked more like Barrett,Chavez and Millar to me.How many starts did Coats get?He was hitting over .320 in Vegas when David Dellucci was aquired and was still passed over.

It was maddening to me that Bautista and Millar got at bats the last six weeks of the year. Once we expanded rosters we should have seen nothing but young kids this side of Hill and Scoots. I really don't know what we were trying to accomplish by playing guys who will have no impact on the future of this ball club.

Frustrating to watch isn't it?

Might be good on the bench.

I recall this same thing happening the last number of years. I think the reasoning behind playing veterans in September was to make JP's win and loss records look better, and give him something to go to management with when pleading to keep his job. Hopefully that trend STOPS with AA at the helm.

As for us basing our offseason on signing scrap guys, the offseason hasn't even started yet. Teams pick up these types of guys all the time, and when they get a look at them and decide whether or not it is worth keeping them, they can easily be dumped off. How else do you catch lightning in a bottle?

I actually dont mind this pickup,it's just frustrating,every time they sign one of these guys,i see it as step backwords.If catching lightning in a bottle is the only way to improve your ballclub,your going to be a terrible team for a loooooong loooooong time.