Local reliever, former Mariner defects to the enemy by signing with Blue Jays

A name that Seattle Mariners fans might remember has resurfaced on the MLB newswire, as former M's reliever Austin Voth has joined the Toronto Blue Jays on a minor league deal.

This officially happened last Wednesday, though we'll tip our hat to Zac Hereth of Seattle Sports for noticing it before we did. Voth was subsequently assigned to the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, for whom he pitched on Sunday.

The 33-year-old was born in Redmond and played college ball at the University of Washington, from where he was a fifth-round draft pick of the Washington Nationals in 2013.

Austin Voth will try to get his MLB career back on track with Blue Jays

Voth has seven major league seasons under his belt, the most successful of which was with the Mariners in 2024. He made a career-high 68 appearances and pitched to a respectable 3.69 ERA, with 61 strikeouts over 61.0 innings.

The right-hander was useful for giving hitters different looks out of the pen. He had a four-pitch mix that mostly relied on his cutter, with his sweeper, four-seamer and curveball also getting play about 20 percent of the time. He was effective against righty batters, holding them to a .193 average.

Even at the end of 2024, though, Voth was short of a replacement-level reliever to the tune of -0.2 rWAR. The next step of his journey took him to Japan to pitch for the Chiba Lotte Marines.

The Mariners figured to miss him once he left, but Voth also had a special reason for going to Japan. He reinvented himself as a starter, making 22 starts and pitching 125 innings. That's a solid average of 5.7 innings per start, though he only struck out 92 batters and finished with a 1.256 WHIP.

Even so, the Blue Jays need all the starting depth they can get. Their injured list has five prominent starters on it, including 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber, two-time All-Star José Berríos and 2025 breakout sensation Trey Yesavage. As Cody Ponce is also facing an extended absence after spraining his ACL on Monday, Toronto might actually need Voth before long.

The Mariners don't play the Blue Jays until July, so it's possible that Toronto's rotation will be too healthy for Seattle to have a reunion of sorts with Voth. But if they do see him, he shouldn't expect Mariners hitters to take it easy on him.

That's just not how competition works, and least of all when there's a revenge component at play.