Blue Jays announce flurry of roster moves to officially kickstart the offseason

Only a few days into the 2024-25 offseason, the Toronto Blue Jays have already made their first significant mistake of the winter and also announced a boatload of roster moves to get the offseason started with a bang.

On Monday, the Blue Jays took to social media to announce a large slate of roster moves ranging from injured list activations to a new player joining the club via waivers to one leaving via waivers and a few being removed from the roster. Keeping up? Let's break it all down.

Here's the list of moves the club announced:

• Alek Manoah, Jordan Romano, Will Wagner, Daulton Varsho have all been activated from the 60-day injured list.
• Michael Petersen has been claimed off of waivers from the Marlins.
• Luis De Los Santos has been lost on waivers to the Mets.
• Genesis Cabrera and Luis Frias cleared waivers and became free agents.
• Emmanuel Ramirez has been designated for assignment.

The activations from the injured list were something we touched on recently when wondering how the Blue Jays were going to handle their over-capacity 40-man roster. We've got our answer(s), and then some. Each of the players coming off the shelf are expected to play integral roles on next year's roster and are in little to no danger of losing their spot on the team.

Petersen, 30, is an English right-hander who stands at 6-foot-7 on the mound. He made the first 16 appearances of his big-league career this season as a member of both the Dodgers and Marlins. In total, he posted a 5.95 ERA through 19.2 innings of work, striking out 14 and walking 11.

In 35 appearances for the Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate this year, Petersen posted a 1.64 ERA with 44 strikeouts and just eight walks in 33 innings. He even earned 10 saves during this stint. Those numbers are likely why the Blue Jays had interest, so perhaps there's hope beyond what the big league numbers showed.

De Los Santos finally broke into the big leagues after grinding through the Blue Jays' minor league system since 2016. His first promotion was hard earned, but now he's going to hit the reset button and try and return to the game's highest level with the Mets. The 26-year-old hit .172 with a par of doubles and one RBI through his first 13 games in The Show this season. His loss will help alleviate the Blue Jays' infield logjam for 2025, but there's still work to be done in that regard.

Cabrera is easily the most surprising loss here, as he led the Blue Jays with 69 relief appearances in 2024. The 28-year-old had a 3.59 ERA through 62.2 innings this past season, but his 5.13 FIP is a bit concerning and it suggests that a fairly large regression was in store for him next year. He hits the open market and immediately becomes one of the better southpaw relievers available.

Frias and Ramirez both joined the Blue Jays via waivers during the regular season but neither played much of a role at the big-league level. The former made four appearances for the Jays and surrendered eight earned runs on as many hits. He'll end his tenure in Toronto with a 21.60 ERA. The latter made 15 appearances for the Marlins this year but didn't get any in The Show with the Blue Jays.