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Jays finally flex financial might, sign familiar pitcher after breakout season

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Jays Journal

Division Series - Philadelphia Phillies v New York Mets - Game 4 / Elsa/GettyImages

Up until now, the Toronto Blue Jays have mostly had an offseason to forget. They took a big swing and missed on Juan Soto and that was the beginning of multiple top free agents seemingly avoiding the Blue Jays like the plague despite money not being an issue.

Not all the news has been strictly bad as Toronto avoided arbitration with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on Thursday, but it did cost them a cool $28.5 million to get that deal done. Right now, this is pretty much the same team that finished last in the AL East in 2024.

That said, there is still some offseason left. Not only have the Blue Jays been connected to top remaining free agents like Alex Bregman, Anthony Santander, and, to a lesser extent, Alex Verdugo, but they just struck a three-year, $33 million deal with one of the better relievers on the market in Jeff Hoffman. Incentives attached to the deal can take the total value up to $39 million, according to MLB.com's Mark Feinsand.

Blue Jays finally make an offseason splash (sort of) with Jeff Hoffman signing

There were rumblings from Jon Morosi early Friday evening that Toronto and Hoffman were working on a multi-year deal. While not the impact bat that Jays fans have been clamoring for, Hoffman is an outstanding get for Toronto's bullpen as he was an All-Star for the Phillies last season and has posted a combined 2.28 ERA in 122 appearances out of Philly's bullpen the last two seasons.

An interesting wrinkle here is that the Blue Jays could choose to employ Hoffman as a starter next season. While it has been a while, Hoffman has made 50 starts in his big league career (mostly with the Rockies) and the rumors earlier in the offseason were that there were multiple that were looking at Hoffman as a starter after free agent pitcher prices spiked. So far, the Blue Jays are saying he is going to be coming out of the bullpen, but the structure of his deal allows for some upside if he starts throwing more than an inning at a time.

There is still a lot of work to do for the Blue Jays. They still need to beef up their offense if they truly want to keep pace with the rest of the AL East and compete for a playoff spot in 2025. However, adding Hoffman gives them a high upside arm that could be employed late in games or even at the start of them. More importantly, he gives Toronto a much needed win this offseason after a string of disappointments.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.