Blue Jays take a gamble by trading for a potential Anthony Santander replacement

The Toronto Blue Jays have potentially found their Anthony Santander replacement by trading outfielders with the Houston Astros. On Friday morning (Feb. 13) news broke that the Blue Jays were sending outfielder Joey Loperfido back to the Astros in exchange for outfielder Jesús Sánchez.

Loperfido was originally acquired at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Yusei Kikuchi, while Sánchez was picked up at the 2025 trade deadline by the Astros who sent two minor leaguers and right handed pitcher Ryan Gusto to the Miami Marlins. It's a deal where the Blue Jays aren't getting a guy whose numbers jump off the page, but there are some underlying statistics Toronto is gambling on, in picking up Sánchez.

Blue Jays take a gamble by trading for a potential Anthony Santander replacement

The 28-year-old left handed hitting Sánchez will be going into his seventh big league season. He made his debut with the Marlins in 2020, playing in just ten games in the COVID-19 shortened season. He steadily became more of a regular player over the ensuing years and he has been a positive bWAR player since his call up.

Between 2021-2025, Sánchez has produced 5.3 bWAR in 570 games played. He's hit 73 home runs with 236 RBIs and has hit at a .242/.309/.424 clip with a .733 OPS. But what the Blue Jays brass is looking at with Sánchez is his bat speed and his ability to hit right-handed pitching. GM Ross Atkins spoke to the media at Spring Training and said, "He has obviously been incredibly effective against right-handed pitching. He slots in as one of our better options against right-handers on a very regular basis.”

Over his career, Sánchez has hit .253/.324/.450 with a .775 OPS and 64 of his 73 home runs are against right handed pitchers. Last year, his bat speed of 75.9 mph ranks in the 93 percentile and his average exit velocity was 91.3 mph which ranked in the 79th percentile. This feels like a prototypical pet project for hitting coach David Popkins as the bat speed and exit velocity are areas that helped the Blue Jays continuously put the ball in play last season and made them so tough to pitch against.

Another metric tied into this is that Sánchez made some strides at the plate last season in his pitch selection, which unfortunately didn't raise his overall numbers, but these are steps Popkins will hopefully ask Sánchez to keep taking. In 2025 his strikeout rate dropped from being over 26% the previous three years to 22.1%. His walk rate also ticked up from the year before, going from 7.6% in 2024 to 8.5% in 2025. While he only slugged .395, his XSLG was .451.

The gamble the Blue Jays are taking is that Sánchez has yet to really put together this full potential over the course of a full season, while they are giving up a player in Loperfido who seemed like he was on the cusp of potentially being an every day guy who may not have the power potential, but did hit .333/.379/.500 with an .879 OPS in 104 games last season. Loperfido also would have been under contract until 2031, while Sánchez is set to hit the open market in 2028.

But this is the kind of gamble the Blue Jays had to take in the wake of losing Santander. They are adding a player who could be an extremely high upside every day hitter, or at the very least, a guy who puts fear into the hearts of opposing right handed pitchers. And while he doesn't cover the field as well as Loperfido might, or even his new teammates Nathan Lukes and Davis Schneider, Atkins says he likes what he does bring to the outfield compliment in terms of his arm strength, which sits in the 80th percentile.

It's been a whirlwind start to the Spring Training season for the Blue Jays as they have had to deal with a number of injury issues, including the one that sidelined Anthony Santander and saw a former player join a division rival when Chris Bassitt jumped ship to the Baltimore Orioles. The Blue Jays have responded with a move that they are hoping pays off in a big way.