Although the Toronto Blue Jays have been prominent in early off-season rumours, they have yet to make a move that gives a strong indication of how aggressive they’ll be in the market.
A World Series run is a strong platform to make free-agent pitches from, and team president Mark Shapiro has indicated he doesn’t see support from ownership decreasing for 2026, so it seems fair to expect some notable moves.
Nailing down exactly what those will be in advance is a tall task, but among the many imperfect tools for predicting the future, past behaviour might be the best. The Blue Jays may not reunite with players they’ve acquired and had success with in the past, but adding players with similar traits to those they’ve prized before seems likely.
Sifting through the current crop of free agents, a few stand out as players with notable similarities to past signings by the current front office.
SP Dylan Cease
Similar past signing: Robbie Ray (2021)
Shared traits: When Ray signed a one-year, $8-million contract with Toronto before his Cy Young season, he was at a different point than Cease is today, as the right-hander projects to earn a contract between $130 million and $189 million by FanGraphs and MLBTradeRumors’ public estimates.
Cease is not a reclamation project for whoever acquires him, although his ERA has lived north of 4.50 in two of the last three seasons, and he’ll be compensated to do a better job suppressing runs in his new home.
The comparison between Cease and Ray relates to their high-K, high-BB style, and their career numbers (which, to be fair, include Ray’s work post-Toronto) are extremely similar.
|
Pitcher |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
ERA |
fWAR |
|
Cease |
10.91 |
3.81 |
3.88 |
21.0 |
|
Ray |
10.83 |
3.80 |
3.94 |
19.3 |
By signing Ray (after trading for him the previous season), the Blue Jays showed some level of comfort with starters who miss bats at an elite level at the expense of control and pitch efficiency.
The question here is whether that’s a type of pitcher Toronto is happy to dabble with when the stakes are relatively low or if the team is willing to make a sizeable commitment.
Does he make sense for the 2026 Blue Jays?: Cease would significantly improve the Blue Jays starting pitching situation in 2026 and beyond.
The right-hander is also still a month shy of his 30th birthday and could be a pillar of the rotation for years to come, which is likely appealing to a team that could lose Kevin Gausman and Eric Lauer to free agency after next season, with José Berríos having an opt-out as well.
One characteristic the Blue Jays have consistently prized in starting pitchers is durability, and Cease hasn’t missed a start since breaking through as a full-time major leaguer in 2020. He’s started more games than any pitcher this decade (174), ranking ninth in innings pitched (942.1).
There’s a case to be made for Toronto pursuing any of the top free-agent starters, but Cease might fit the best for a team with medium-term rotation uncertainty as the youngest and most durable of the group.
Similar past signing: George Springer (2021)
Shared traits: There’s a positional difference here, and the shape of Bregman’s value doesn’t mirror Springer’s, but the overall package has similarities that go beyond their history with the Houston Astros.
Both are respected veterans who earn high marks for their clubhouse impact and have extensive playoff experience, but on the more quantitative side, they offered similar impact in their years heading into free agency.
|
Player |
fWAR in 4 seasons before FA |
MLB Rank |
|
Springer |
15.6 |
15th |
|
Bregman |
17.5 |
19th |
Like Springer, Bregman hits the market as a star, but not a superstar at this point in his career, with age and durability concerns for whoever signs him. His value is more tied to his defence than Springer’s, and gloves often age worse than bats, but his wRC+ has never dipped below 114.
Springer was a more exciting proposition in 2021 than Bregman is now, but not by a massive margin. Public estimates from MLBTR (six years, $160 million) and FanGraphs (five years, $155 million) have him earning a similar deal to the one his former teammate found in Toronto.
Does he make sense for the 2026 Blue Jays?: The Blue Jays have two viable third basemen in Ernie Clement and Addison Barger, but the former could go to second with the latter heading to right field if Toronto signs Bregman.
The Blue Jays would probably rather make their marquee position player acquisition a left-handed hitter for lineup balance purposes, but Bregman is a good enough batter that he would unequivocally upgrade the lineup.
Stylistically, his low strikeout rate (13.4 per cent for his career, 14.3 in 2025) fits with the Blue Jays, and like Toronto’s most successful hitters, he doesn’t sacrifice much power to keep the ball in play. Adding Bregman would mean letting Bo Bichette go, barring other notable moves, but it would give the team a stellar defensive infield without losing too much offence.
Although the Blue Jays showed an interest last off-season, it would be somewhat surprising to see them make a massive investment in a right-handed hitting infielder other than Bichette.
SP Merrill Kelly
Similar past signing: Chris Bassitt (2023)
Shared traits: At 37, Kelly is older than Bassitt today, let alone when he signed with the Blue Jays back in 2023.
Still, he fits the Bassitt profile of an experienced soft-tosser who keeps runs off the board thanks to a diverse repertoire that keeps hitters guessing.
In the four seasons before reaching free agency, Bassitt gave his teams 546 innings of 3.31 ERA ball (123 ERA+) while Kelly has maintained an ERA of 3.47 (120 ERA+) over 635.2 frames in his last four campaigns.
The former Arizona Diamondbacks mainstay averaged 91.8 m.p.h. on his fastball in 2025, but he supplemented it with five other pitches he threw at least seven per cent of the time and didn’t use any individual offering at a rate higher than 26.5 per cent.
Does he make sense for the 2026 Blue Jays?: Toronto might be aiming higher in its search for rotation upgrades, but the club could do significantly worse than Kelly.
Age and lack of velocity will keep the right-hander’s price down, but there isn’t anything in his 2025 numbers that suggests he’s about to fall off a cliff. Even with an injury-marred 2024, Kelly ranks 21st in the majors in innings pitched since 2022, with his aforementioned 3.47 ERA also 21st among starters with 400-plus IP — 0.01 better than Kevin Gausman.
Kelly makes sense for Toronto in the sense that no team has five starters with better recent production than the right-hander.
At the same time, the Blue Jays rotation currently contains a few high-variance pitchers in Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber and, arguably, Berríos. That could have the team looking for more certainty than any 37-year-old can provide.
Similar past signing: Jeff Hoffman (2025)
Shared traits: Suárez and Hoffman aren’t particularly similar from a repertoire standpoint. The former brutalizes opponents with an unending barrage of hard stuff, while the latter’s best offerings are his slider and splitter.
They do have some similarities in their career arcs, though. Hoffman had an uneven start to his career, posting a 5.68 ERA from 2016 to 2022, and bouncing between starting and relief roles — primarily with the Colorado Rockies. The Blue Jays signed him because he had two stellar seasons before free agency in his thirties, where he was among the best relievers in baseball, putting his earlier struggles behind him.
Suárez spent his early career in Japan, not reaching the majors until his age-31 season. While he gave the San Diego Padres some solid innings in 2022 and 2023, it wasn’t until the last two seasons that he established himself as an elite reliever.
Hoffman produced 85.4 per cent of his career fWAR in his two seasons before free agency (3.5), ranking fifth among all relievers in those seasons. Suárez earned 80 per cent of his career fWAR in the last two years (2.9), and his fWAR is 12th among RP in that time.
Because of relievers’ well-documented volatility, targeting guys with a more limited track record of success adds a layer of risk, even if they’ve been exceptional lately. The jury is still out on the Hoffman contract, and pursuing Suárez would involve making a similar gamble.
Does he make sense for the 2026 Blue Jays?: Every team could use a reliever of Suárez’s calibre, but between the Blue Jays’ willingness to open their wallets to Hoffman, their bullpen issues in the playoffs, and Seranthony Domínguez hitting free agency, the fit in Toronto is better than most.
The Blue Jays also aren’t committed to leaving Hoffman in a traditional closer role, and Suárez has thrived in that spot, piling up 76 saves in the last two seasons.
Another thing Suárez brings that complements the Blue Jays’ current bullpen is raw heat. The midseason additions of Domínguez and Louis Varland power up the unit last season, but the average velocity of Toronto’s relievers (93.9 m.p.h.) ranked 23rd in the majors during the regular season.
Varland is sticking around, but the 98.6 m.p.h. heater Suárez brings would certainly help ensure the Blue Jays relief corps isn’t short on pure power.
