How one more hitter would impact Blue Jays lineup

After coming up short in the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes and watching Bo Bichette become a New York Met, the Toronto Blue Jays have fewer roads to a major offensive upgrade than they did one week ago. 

The trade market — even without Ketel Marte — could present surprising opportunities. Still, the chances of a dramatic addition have lessened with two of the biggest free-agent bats no longer available, not to mention Cody Bellinger reportedly re-upping with the New York Yankees.

That isn’t necessarily a dire outcome for the Blue Jays. With Bichette’s departure, in particular, many fans see a team in need of one more bat, but Toronto still has the group that progressed through the ALDS and ALCS. The Blue Jays also added Kazuma Okamoto and have reasonable hope that Anthony Santander can bounce back. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. probably has more to offer in the regular season than he did in 2025, too, and Daulton Varsho should stay on the field for more than half of 2026. 

Negative regression for hitters like George Springer and Alejandro Kirk is possible, but if Opening Day was tomorrow, the Blue Jays wouldn’t be rolling out a lineup with massive holes in it. A defence-first player or two unlikely to provide an offensive spark? Sure, but no one unqualified to start for a contending team.

The quality of the current group gives rise to the idea that pursuing a hitter of Tucker or Bichette’s quality made sense, but the threshold for making an upgrade is high, and it’s tough to find someone worth adding who doesn’t sideline a current player of a similar quality.

Ross Atkins alluded to this type of thinking in a comment on where the team stood after the Okamoto signing.

Although there is truth to this idea, the Blue Jays have assembled a positionally versatile group of position players that allows for a creative distribution of playing time. The hitters on the roster are not nine starters at set positions and four bench players. They are 13 players who can be deployed in a number of ways.

With a willingness to shift the pieces around, there’s still room to add a bat to the group without relegating any current starter to a bench role or completely wiping out a bench player’s playing time.

If you’ll indulge a little John Schneider roleplay (and some somewhat sizeable tables), mapping out a few fictional 10-game stretches shows there’s still room for another hitter of note on the 2026 Blue Jays.

Here are the parameters of the exercise:

• The proposed addition won’t play the following positions: C (Kirk is virtually impossible to upgrade on, and can’t move elsewhere), 1B (Vladdy and Okamoto have it covered), DH (Springer and Santander have it covered), CF (even if they were a centre fielder first, Varsho’s defence would move them to a corner) or SS (offensively additive shortstops are general unavailable stars).

• The following players need to start at least 80 per cent of the time without ever sitting consecutive games: Springer, Kirk, Varsho, Okamoto, Santander, Addison Barger, Ernie Clement, Andrés Giménez and the new addition.

• Guerrero plays every day: The Blue Jays’ franchise player has logged 156 games or more in each of the last five seasons and is expected to be the team’s offensive centrepiece.

• The following players need at least 20 per cent starting time: Davis Schneider, Myles Straw and Tyler Heineman. This may sound light, but Schneider and Straw will also draw in as substitutes frequently outside of their starts. Last season, Straw made only 67 starts but played in 133 games.

• The incoming player would replace Nathan Lukes: Lukes had a solid 2025, but he also has a minor-league option and doesn’t currently project to start or play a defensive position of need.

• Springer is a full-time DH: This might be overly cautious, but the veteran is entering his age-36 season and thrived in that role last season, so we’ll keep it for now.

• The Blue Jays will face two left-handed starters in this 10-game stretch: This number varies on a week-to-week basis, but it’s fair to expect a couple of southpaws.

OK, let’s mix and match some lineups:

If Blue Jays add outfielder

There are times in this alignment where the new player takes left while Santander is in right, which could be flipped, but this keeps everyone at position they’re comfortable at throughout. 

If you were willing to break the parameters of the exercise, you could make a case for giving Springer nine of the 10 games and bumping Santander down to seven, but this looks solid overall. 

If Blue Jays add third baseman

This is unequivocally messy. It would help if the third-base addition could play other positions, but considering he’s a fictional construct, we can’t make that assumption.

Okamoto has some positional versatility, but asking him to play more in the outfield than the infield doesn’t seem like a good use of his skills.

If Blue Jays add second baseman

This might be the best fit because it organically gets Springer back to additional playing time and utilizes Clement’s ability to move around the diamond without having him start more than some of the bigger offensive threats. Giving Okamoto the odd outfield start while using him primarily at third also feels like the sweet spot.

Putting together a lineup over a week and a half is more complicated than this exercise as matchups, nagging injuries, player unavailability and underperformance come in to play. 

Another oversimplification comes from the implied platoons above. Varsho and Giménez won’t be sitting against every lefty as their defence is too valuable, but that was the most logical way to distribute the playing time in a specific 10-game stretch.

The purpose here is to show that even in a world where all Blue Jays hitters are available and performing well enough to justify near-everyday at-bats — an extremely unlikely scenario — there is still a way to cycle 10 of them through the lineup. 

Last season, most Blue Jays starting position players were healthy and effective. Eight of them appeared in 130 or more games. Even then, Toronto used 24 position players over the course of 2025. In the vast majority of situations, finding good players to slot into your lineup is far more difficult than finding lineup slots for your good players.

The Blue Jays don’t necessarily need another bat to ensure their lineup delivers at a high level, but they could undoubtedly accommodate one.

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