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Power-hitting infielder was a part of Toronto Blue Jays’ return in Danny Jansen swap with Boston Red Sox
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Published Aug 01, 2024 • 4 minute read
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Vancouver Canadians newcomer Cutter Coffey. Photo by Mark Steffens /prv
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Cutter Coffey’s path to becoming a Vancouver Canadian started Saturday night in the visiting team dugout in Hickory, N.C.
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The 20-year-old shortstop/third baseman was getting a rare night off with the Greenville Drive that game, watching his teammates take on the host Hickory Crawdads in a high-A South Atlantic League contest taking place some 4,600 kilometres east of Vancouver.
It’s easy to assume now that Coffey — who had 14 home runs and 46 runs batted in through 61 games with Greenville — wasn’t being held out of the starting lineup by coincidence. A Greenville coach pulled him aside during the contest to inform him that the parent club Boston Red Sox had traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays and that he was being assigned to their high-A farm team in Vancouver.
The Blue Jays went into the rebuild mode before Tuesday’s Major League Baseball trade deadline, shipping out eight veterans in separate deals in the days leading up to the cutoff. Coffey was part of a three-player return that Toronto received for catcher Danny Jansen, 29.
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Opening pitch Saturday in Hickory was 5 p.m. EDT. By then, speculation from various sources had started on social media platform X that the Blue Jays and Red Sox were closing in on a deal for Jansen, although what was coming back to Toronto hadn’t been suggested yet.
One hour and 45 minutes into the game, the Drive X feed posted “trade news hitting the admin on this fine Saturday evening.” The Blue Jays announced the deal 15 minutes after that, and the Drive X feed was thanking Coffey for his time there 15 minutes later.
Coffey stuck around and watched the game. He went back to Greenville the next day to pack up his belongings. He was in Vancouver on Monday, ready to start the C’s series at Nat Bailey Stadium this week against the Tri-City Dust Devils.
He didn’t see the trade coming. He admits it was stressful. As it happens, he had family coming from California to Hickory to see him play, and they were able to pivot and help him pack up and head back west.
“The group here has been very good, very welcoming,” the 6-foot-1, 190-pound, right-handed hitting Coffey said of his new Vancouver teammates after batting practice on Wednesday at the Nat. “I’m excited to get to play with them.”
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The Blue Jays brought in 14 players in those eight trades, and left-handed reliever Ryan Yarborough, 32, is the lone one with any sort of extensive big-league tenure. Coffey and catcher Jacob Sharp, 22, who came over from the Seattle Mariners as part of the swap for righty reliever Yimi Garcia, 33, have been assigned to Vancouver. Other trade pickups could follow to the Nat.
The trades certainly have had a ripple effect throughout the organization. As of Thursday morning, the C’s were listing 20 transactions on their web page in the past week.
Going into action in the Northwest League on Thursday, Vancouver was in second spot in the second half, with a 19-13 record. The Spokane Indians were tops with their 23-9 mark. Spokane, who are a Colorado Rockies’ farm team, won the first half, so if they win the second half as well, then the team with the next-best combined record will join them in the best-of-five league championship series. Vancouver had that spot to start Thursday, with their 49-46 record. The Hillsboro Hops, who are an Arizona Diamondbacks farm team, were one game back at 49-48.
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The regular season wraps Sept. 8. Vancouver are the reigning league champions.
Coffey’s bound to get a chance to play a major role in any sort of playoff push here this time around. He was a second-round pick, No. 41 overall, by Boston in the 2022 MLB draft out of Liberty High in Bakersfield, Calif., and he opted to forgo a scholarship to the University of Texas to play pro then.
He says that he did speak to some with Blue Jays scouts before the draft. Toronto’s next pick after Coffey was selected was No. 60, when they chose shortstop Josh Kasevich out of the University of Oregon. Kasevich, 23, played in Vancouver last season and is with the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats this season.
Coffey’s draft scouting report on mlb.com tagged him as “a bit inconsistent,” but also stated that he has “shown the ability to make loud contact with some excellent raw power to tap into.” As it happens, Coffey is just a .217 hitter over three seasons in the minors — he was at .238 with Greenville this season — but he has also shown capable of producing runs in bunches. He had a six-game homer streak this year with Greenville, a stretch where he hit .458 (11-for-24) with seven homers and 17 RBI.
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“I’ll give it my all every night,” Coffey said when asked about what the Nat fan faithful can expect. “I’m not going to say I’ll give them a couple of hits every night. But I will give it everything I’ve got.”
sewen@postmedia.com
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