Ranking each of the players named in The Athletic's top 13 Blue Jays free agent fits

In a recent article posted by The Athletic (subscription required), they took an in-depth look at 13 position players currently in free agency, outside of Shohei Ohtani, that could be a potential fit with the Toronto Blue Jays. They predicted that the team’s priorities will strictly lie in the positions for third base, outfield, and designated hitter due to the departures of Matt Chapman, Kevin Kiermaier, and Brandon Belt respectively from the team.

Here, we rank the potential compatibility of these 13 aforementioned free agents by The Athletic with the ballclub heading into the 2024 MLB season.

#13 SS/2B Tim Anderson

Tim Anderson is a proven eight-year MLB veteran whose main strengths include hitting for a high average and providing some speed on the basepaths over the years. However, he mysteriously suffered a severe power drop-off in 2023 that saw him put up some horrific offensive numbers, including just a single home run and 25 RBI in over 123 games played. He also set career lows in batting average (.245) and OPS (.582) in the process.

Based on his career track record, the 2023 season for Anderson appears to be an extreme outlier that he surely should be able to bounce back from this upcoming season. However, given his primary playing position is shortstop, that position is currently occupied by Bo Bichette, who will be part of the Jays’ organization for the foreseeable future and beyond. He did express recently that he is open to playing at second base in addition to shortstop, but with the Jays likely to go with an internal option for that position, Anderson would not be a good fit for the Jays.