Former Diamondbacks Closer Lands With Blue Jays After DFA

Arizona Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald was designated for assignment on Monday. Two days later, he's already found a new home.

Manager Torey Lovullo called the DFA decision "agonizing" and "brutal." But according to Steve Gilbert of MLB.com, the Toronto Blue Jays have already claimed Sewald just two days after his DFA.

Sewald will join a banged-up Toronto staff that already has a ninth-inning solution in Louis Varland, so his days of being a primary closer have likely come to an end for the time being.

Paul Sewald claimed by Blue Jays

Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Paul Sewald (38) pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals at Chase Field in Phoenix, on July 18, 2026. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Sewald had a very strange year with the Diamondbacks. He ended his tenure in Arizona with a 6.23 ERA and -0.85 average WAR.

And yet, he also converted nearly 89% of his saves this season, going 24-for-27 in conversions. The Diamondbacks won two of the games in which Sewald blew a save.

But it was clear, after two blown saves in three opportunities, that the veteran right-hander was beginning to lose some of the deceptive aspects that made him effective in spite of his 90-92 MPH fastball. Teams were starting to hit him quite hard, and he's already given up a career-most 12 homers this year.

Manager Torey Lovullo attempted to get Sewald back on track by removing him from the closer role and re-inserting him into low leverage, but that did not exactly produce results, either. Sewald was tagged for five earned runs without recording an out in his first low-leverage look.

Since then, he made two more appearances for Arizona — a scoreless inning in a blowout loss, and the final out of a 10-1 game turned 10-4 thanks to a rough outing by Kevin Ginkel.

As it stands, the Diamondbacks' closer situation will be a committee approach, with the likes of Ginkel, Brandyn Garcia, Juan Morillo or Jonathan Loaisiga most likely to take on the majority of the save situations.

That has worked well so far, and does provide a little more flexibility, though Arizona's historically-shaky bullpen has always seemed to perform better when Sewald was locking down saves in the ninth inning — even dating back to Sewald's acquisition from the Mariners in 2023 in which he helped guide the Diamondbacks to the World Series.

Despite the poor run prevention, Sewald's peripherals do provide a positive look for a pitching-needy team. After all, he's struck out 10.15 batters per nine innings while walking just 2.08 per nine. That's the lowest walk rate he's had since 2019, when he pitched less than 20 innings for the New York Mets.

And so, Arizona's long-time closer moves on.

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