Blue Jays' starter depth should erase any need for a mid-season emergency signing

The Toronto Blue Jays entered the 2025 season with what they thought was a formidable starting rotation. However, one injury and some inconsistent performances prompted the Blue Jays to make several mid-season moves just to scrounge together enough arms to make it through a five-day rotation.

With the way this offseason has gone a lot will have to go wrong for the Blue Jays to need to find someone last minute in order to make a start.

Blue Jays' starter depth should erase any need for a mid-season emergency signing

Toronto's starting five last year when spring training ended included Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, José Berrios, Max Scherzer and Bowden Francis. The knock on the rotation going into the year was that it was perhaps a little bit on the older side, with Francis being the youngest at 28, but he had an impressively strong finish in 2024.

The other positive for this rotation was that these are all guys who are innings eaters and can go deep into games. Unfortunately, there wasn't much depth behind these starting five and after Scherzer got hurt just three innings into his start, the cracks started to show. Easton Lucas was given a chance to fill in and after two very good starts in which he gave up a combined four hits and no runs in 10.1 innings pitched, his production tanked as he allowed 14 earned runs in 6.2 innings over his next two outings.

Lucas was sent down to the minor leagues and only made two more appearances with Toronto the rest of the season while Toronto started to use Yariel Rodriguez and José Ureña in some spot starts. Paxton Shultz and Braydon Fisher were also used in very brief starters/opener roles while they searched for a competent replacement for Scherzer. The other issue became Francis not being able to replicate his performance from the year before.

In 14 games, Francis pitched to a 6.05 ERA giving up 43 earned runs in 64 innings pitched, giving up 19 home runs and producing a 1.531 WHIP in the process. Francis made his final start of the season on June 14. The Blue Jays tried Spencer Turnbull in his place for a brief period.

Turnbull signed as a free agent on May 5 and after a few outings in the minor leagues the Blue Jays brought him up to make his season debut on June 11. He pitched out of the bullpen that day, throwing two innings of two hit ball in a win against St. Louis. He made another appearance out of the bullpen in Philadelphia and then got the start on June 20 against Chicago. The White Sox touched him up for four runs in two innings and he was released a week later.

But around this same time, Eric Lauer stepped into a starters role and may have saved the Blue Jays season. His contributions have been well documented, but the 30-year-old lefty did a fantastic job of locking down a spot for the majority of the summer. Between June 11 and August 16, Lauer pitched 62 innings and racked up 63 strikeouts while pitching to a 3.05 ERA.

Scherzer also returned on June 25 and was very effective right up until the end of August. That's when it seemed like the Blue Jays almost had too much pitching after they picked up Bieber at the trade deadline, and called up Trey Yesavage from the minor leagues.

But having "too much good pitching" should never be considered a bad thing and that's the mindset the Blue Jays have going into 2026. Once again, Gausman and Berrios will figure to be on the roster come Opening Day. But the Blue Jays are also starting the season with Yesavage and Bieber in the rotation. They've also added Dylan Cease, a top of the rotation option as well as Cody Ponce, who can play as a swing-man type role, while Lauer is also back.

The '26 version of the Blue Jays rotation is much deeper than it was to begin in 2025 and it will take quite a bit to go wrong for Toronto to need to sign a Turnbull or use a Fisher as an opener.