DUNEDIN, Fla. — The Toronto Blue Jays began cementing some of their expiring core into place, reaching agreement with Alejandro Kirk on a $58-million, five-year extension that kicks in next season and runs through 2030, according to an industry source.
Kirk, 26, would have been eligible to hit the open market after the 2026 season, part of the large cohort of players, headlined by pending free agents Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, who are coming due over the next two falls.
With the deal, first reported by Robert Murray of FanSided, Kirk is now the first Blue Jays player signed into the next decade. Both Anthony Santander and Andres Gimenez have guarantees through 2029 with club options for 2030.
Securing Kirk, a Gold Glove finalist last year who rates among the top pitch framers in the game, is especially important for the Blue Jays given the challenges of developing top catching talent and their lack of an impact prospect at the position coming through the farm system.
As recently as three years ago they had an enviable surplus behind the plate, but after trading Gabriel Moreno to Arizona for Daulton Varsho ahead of the 2023 season and dealing Danny Jansen last summer before his free agency, they were very much Kirk or bust.
Kirk’s defensive work alone should cover the $11.6 million average-annual value of the extension and if his bat rebounds to a production level similar his all-star and Silver Slugger season of 2022, when he batted .285/.372/.415, the Blue Jays will be thrilled with the deal.
This off-season, he worked out regularly at the club’s Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Fla., toward that goal. On Thursday during a wide-ranging discussion with media, club president and CEO Mark Shapiro called him “probably No. 2 of guys I’m most excited to see play this year,” behind only a revitalized Bo Bichette. “I just feel like he’s going to have a really good year.”
“Kirky’s got elite mental attributes. Elite,” Shapiro added later in praising the catcher. “Slows the game down as well as anybody I’ve seen. Reminds me of other great players I’ve seen. There’s almost nobody I can imagine I want to catch a bastard slider in the ninth inning with the tying run on third base, or be up at the plate, because he’s just going to be (steady). And he is as good as he gets in receiving and is a really good thrower, as well. We know he can hit — he won a Silver Slugger already. We just need to get him back to that hitting. I think he’s done the things necessary to prepare for that.”
Kirk will be paired with Tyler Heineman, who was told Saturday morning he’d made the club, behind the plate to open the season and the Blue Jays envision a heavy workload for him this year, beyond the 775 and 766 innings he’s logged the previous two years.
