Lourdes Gurriel Jr., once a beloved Blue Jay, has been officially released by the Diamondbacks.

Arizona also sent reliever Derek Law through outright waivers, according to the MLB.com transaction log. Law can elect free agency if he doesn't want to report back to Triple-A Reno for the season's final games.

Neither move came as a surprise, given both players had already been designated for assignment recently.

Gurriel's release was essentially inevitable. He has enough service time to refuse a minor-league assignment while still collecting the rest of his contract, and no team was going to claim him off waivers given the $5 million option buyout attached.

Arizona remains on the hook for that money now that he's been officially cut loose.

Another club could sign him for the prorated league minimum, but he wouldn't be eligible for a postseason roster and would become a free agent after the season regardless. He'll likely wait until the offseason to sort out his next move.

Why his market looks limited after a rough season

Gurriel may be facing minor-league-only offers coming off a genuinely dismal 2026.

He never quite looked right after returning from last fall's ACL surgery, hitting .210 with a .254 OBP and just two home runs across 201 plate appearances.

Two separate IL stints, for a left hamstring strain and a right adductor strain, further disrupted whatever rhythm he might have found.

Law's own stint was brief but not without some positives. He worked nine innings of one-run ball across seven appearances for the big-league club.

Despite that decent run prevention in a small sample, he recorded just five strikeouts and was working with diminished velocity, 89.9 mph on the cutter that serves as his primary pitch.

Arizona pushed him off the roster once Ryne Nelson returned from the injured list Wednesday.

For Gurriel specifically, this closes a chapter that started with real promise in Arizona, including his role in the 2023 NL pennant run, and ends with a difficult, injury-plagued finish.

Whether a team takes a low-cost gamble on him this offseason, betting on further distance from the ACL recovery, remains the real question for a player once viewed as one of the league's more dynamic outfielders.