5 Blue Jays position battles to watch this spring

The Toronto Blue Jays spent the offseason addressing their areas of need by adding a bullpen arm and power bat along with shoring up a couple of positions around the diamond.

After all of those changes, here's what FanGraphs is projecting the Blue Jays' Opening Day lineup to look like:

George Springer, RF

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B

Anthony Santander, LF

Bo Bichette, SS

Wil Wagner, DH

Alejandro Kirk, C

Andrés Giménez, 2B

Ernie Clement, 3B

Nathan Lukes, CF

While that lineup is better than the one that the Blue Jays had at the end of the year, that doesn't mean the rest of the 26-man roster is set in stone.

With that in mind, here are the five positions battles to watch during spring training.

Fourth outfielder

The candidates: Nathan Lukes, Joey Loperfido and Myles Straw

With Daulton Varsho likely to start the season on the IL, there's an outfield spot up for grabs.

The 30-year-old Lukes looks to have the inside track after he played well in his September call-up last season. Lukes hit .303/.371/.447 with a solid strikeout rate (9.9%) in 91 plate appearances from August 30 to the end of the season. While he has never hit for power (just 46 home runs in nine seasons in the minors), he can play all three positions.

Before the Santander signing, it looked like Loperfido was going to be Toronto's everyday left fielder, there could still be a spot for him on the Blue Jays roster even with Santander.

He'll need can cut down on his strikeout rate, but it'll tough to overlook his pop (13 home runs with a .933 OPS in Triple-A last year).

While Straw is a Gold Glove winner, he hasn't finished with an OPS+ above 90 since he posted a .271/.349/.348 slash line in 2021. Straw, a non-roster invitee, fits into Toronto's plan to build a “defense-first” team, and could be a right-handed complement to either Lukes or Loperfido.