8 Blue Jays players who won't be back in 2025

As both fans and players of the Toronto Blue Jays sit at home watching this year's playoffs, there's a whole lot of reflection going on surrounding this team. There's not a whole lot of positive takeaways from the 2024 regular season and if upper management keeps giving press conferences like the one they had on Wednesday, it'll be a while before there's any hope for a turnaround.

Now that all is said and done for these Blue Jays, it's fair to say that things didn't go as expected for them this year. Armed with an offense that was supposed to consist of George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette all producing at the same time; paired with one of the top starting rotations in baseball - this club was supposed to go somewhere this season.

Ultimately, the only place they went was from out of contention, to sellers at the trade deadline, to the very bottom of the AL East. They spent the vast majority of the second half of the season in last place, failing to ever fully catch up to either the Rays or the Red Sox in the standings.

During the upcoming offseason, there's going to be a lot of changes made, and it'll be interesting to see which route Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins and Co. end up going. There's sure to be a ton of players from this year's roster not returning and being replaced by some new blood, perhaps in the form of multiple free agents.

Let's focus on the players who have already played their last game on the Blue Jays. Their respective time on the roster has come to an end and it's time for their roster spot to be upgraded. It remains to be seen how the Blue Jays go about this, but there are multiple avenues the following players could be moved by; whether it's in the form of a trade or simply a non-tender.

Le's dive in.

Ryan Burr

To his credit, Burr did a solid job of filling whatever role the Blue Jays asked him to fill during his time on the club. He did a fine job, posting a 4.13 ERA across 34 outings (four as an "opener"), striking out 47 batters and walking 12 in 32.2 innings of work.

At the end of the day, Burr is not a needle-mover, which is what the Jays will need if they intend to truly revamp their bullpen for next season. He raised his strikeouts-per-nine from between 7.0-9.0 to 12.9 in a Blue Jays uniform, so he may have turned himself into an attractive trade chip more than anything else.

To be clear, Burr is not the type of player that will demand a significant return in any trade. He's on the wrong side of 30, has little to no big league track record and is prone to a blow-up outing here and there. He showed that a few times during his tenure in Toronto.

A minor trade involving a lottery ticket prospect, or even an eventual DFA to make room for another addition on the 40-man roster feels likely. Again, Burr did a fine job doing what was asked, but he doesn't feel like the type of pitcher that has a spot locked down on the 2025 club.

Genesis Cabrera

Watching Cabrera was a stressful event throughout this entire season. The left-hander made a whopping 69 appearances for the Blue Jays but so few of them were easy and stress-free. His strikeout rate dipped a bit, his walks were elevated and he allowed base hits and home runs more than he had in the recent past.

Cabrera is going to be arbitration-eligible this offseason and could be a casualty of the previously mentioned bullpen purge that's coming up. The soon-to-be 28-year-old has the potential to get things turned around, but if the Blue Jays really want to aggressively get back in the win column next year, there's not going to be a spot for Cabrera.

This is without mentioning the emergence of Brendon Little, who turned himself into one of John Schneider's most oft-used weapons this year. The Blue Jays sent Tim Mayza packing and relied on Cabrera and Little as their two southpaws out of the bullpen, eventually adding Ryan Yarbrough to the mix as well. Should they make the right choice and re-sign Yarbrough, the club could easily go with a Little-Yarbrough tandem next year while going the non-tender route on Cabrera.

Tyler Heineman

The Blue Jays happily continued their complicated multi-year relationship with Heineman this year simply because they needed a body (preferably a familiar one) behind the plate to pair with Alejandro Kirk. Since Heineman hit .276 in 19 games for the Jays just last year, it made sense why the club chose to acquire him for the third time as this year wound down.

True to form, the 33-year-old went 1-for-10 (.100) with a .408 OPS and 25 OPS+. He's never been much of a hitter, so this type of output is more like what's expected from him than the 129 OPS+ he had last season in his brief stint.

Like I said, Heineman is a familiar face who has experience with a lot of the players on the Blue Jays. It makes sense why he'd be in the organization, but he doesn't exactly scream "big leaguer" at this point. He has a very specific set of skills, but they'd best fit in a mentorship role down in Triple-A. The Blue Jays have an obvious need at catcher this offseason, so we're calling it now: Heineman is DFA'd, sent outright to Triple-A and replaced in the big leagues by a better offensive option.

Spencer Horwitz

There are not enough words to properly describe how important 2024 was for Horwitz. Not only did he emerge as one of the best rookies in baseball, but he also picked up a new position on the fly and turned himself into one hell of a trade chip in the process.

Horwitz gained a ton of popularity amongst Blue Jays fans this year as he possesses a unique ability to get on base all. the. time. He is a walk machine, he has strong gap power and can muscle one over the fence with semi-regularity as well. He hit 12 home runs with 19 doubles, 40 RBI and a 125 OPS+ through 97 games this year. That'll play.

Since Guerrero is the long-term figure at first base, Horwitz will be stuck playing second base or DH'ing moving forward. Ask anyone who has watched him play second base at the big league level, he's not cut out to play there full-time. That's not meant to disrespect Horwitz, who played the position at a perfectly decent clip, but he pales in comparison to nearly every other second base-capable option in the organization.

As of right now, it feels like one of Will Wagner or Orelvis Martinez breaks camp in 2025 as the starting second baseman. Horwitz's defensively limited profile and strong bat make him an above-average trade chip, and that aforementioned podcast of Arden Zwelling predicted he'd be flipped to the Oakland A's for Brent Rooker this offseason. Sign us up.

Tommy Nance

There was a period of time where it seemed like Nance and his incredible curveball was going to be one of the only reliable faces in the Blue Jays' bullpen. Through his first six outings and 6.1 innings (yeah, yeah, yeah - small sample size), the right-hander had a 1.42 ERA and batters hit just .143 off of him in that span.

At that point, Blue Jays fans were already giving their stamps of approval to Nance's acquisition. A rough outing on Aug. 22 (two innings, three earned runs) inflated his ERA to 4.32 and he never fully recovered from that. Nance made 14 more appearances down the stretch for the Jays, posting a 5.17 ERA and .250 average against in that stretch.

Much like Burr, Nance is not a bad pitcher, but he belongs much more on the 2024 Blue Jays than the 2025 Blue Jays. While not many do, I have faith that the Jays are going to go out and make multiple top tier upgrades to their 'pen this offseason, so Nance is going to be one of the faces squeezed out of the mix.

Despite the fact that he's 33 already, Nance can be kept around until the conclusion of the 2027 season. That control is valuable, so look for him to be DFA'd at some point, perhaps to make room for some of the Rule 5-eligible prospects, at some point this offseason. He'll be sent outright to Triple-A and will likely remain on hand as high-minors depth, but his time in Toronto is done.

Zach Pop

During Burr and Nance's time on the Blue Jays, there were stretches where they performed like respectable big league-caliber arms. The same cannot be said for Pop, who limped to the finish line this year with easily the worst stats of his career.

Pop, originally acquired at the 2022 trade deadline, was excellent in the second half of that year and not so great last season. A lot of that could be contributed to multipe injuries he battled through, so he had the benefit of the doubt entering the current campaign.

Instead of making good on that, the 27-year-old had essentially a year-long implosion. He made 58 appearances for the Jays, but he finished his season with a 5.59 ERA. 5.53 FIP and 73 ERA+. The fact that both his ERA and FIP were so high and so close together suggests that he was entirely deserving of the inflated ERA numbers he posted. It just wasn't pretty for him at any point this year.

Pop will be arbitration-eligible for the first time in his pro career, and it's likely to end in a non-tender. The Blue Jays can afford to re-up with all of their arb-eligible players, but it's not a matter of being able to afford it; it's a matter of whether or not these players even have a future on the Jays. Most of them do. Pop does not.

Dillon Tate

Based off of full-season numbers alone, Erik Swanson got some consideration for this spot in the list, but his second-half surge likely buys him another year on the Blue Jays. A 2.55 ERA through 27 second-half outings is nothing to scoff at.

Instead, we're going with one of the newest members of the Jays, one that also only got four looks at the big league level before the season came to a close. Tate, 30, spent the first five-plus years of his big league career as a member of the division rival Orioles, so the Jays knew plenty about him when he first came over via waiver claim.

The right-hander appeared in 3.1 innings in the bigs for Toronto, surrendering two earned runs and three walks on four hits (5.40 ERA), striking out four in the process. John Schneider said early on that he liked what he saw from Tate, but ultimately he's another arb-eligible pitcher that the Jays feel likelier to move on from than to re-up on a new deal.

The Blue Jays are likely preparing for a major gutting of their bullpen. Any pitcher not named Little, Green and Romano is in danger of losing their respective roster spots.

With so many pitchers residing at the bottom of the 40-man roster, this spot on the list could've gone to a multitude of them. Nick Robertson, Brandon Eisert, Brett de Geus, Emmanuel Ramirez, Luis Frias and Easton Lucas all have minor league options and are not yet eligible for a raise, so they're going to stick around. Tate, on the other hand, is going to be cut instead of paid.

More Content From Jays Journal: