What Blue Jays fans should expect from José Soriano's tenure in Toronto

The Toronto Blue Jays committed hard to selling at the trade deadline, offloading Kevin Gausman, Adam Macko, Daulton Varsho, and Jeff Hoffman as part of a quasi fire sale. It wasn't a complete teardown, but it did serve as a waving of the white flag on a disappointing 2026 season.

However, they did make one big move that you'd only expect from a contender, snagging José Soriano from the Los Angeles Angels in a stunning blockbuster. The move came with a great cost, as the franchise had to part ways with top prospect Arjun Nimmala in order to secure the 27-year-old right-hander.

And yet, there's real reason to believe that the Blue Jays will emerge as winners from this deal when all is said and done.

José Soriano's raw stuff could be the key to unlocking Blue Jays' rotation in 2027 and 2028

Don't confuse the team's addition of Soriano with a last-ditch attempt to compete this year; this trade was made with 2027 and 2028 in mind, after which point he'll be a free agent. That additional team control partly explains the price they had to pay to land him, but it's his raw talent that the Blue Jays are really betting on.

Soriano was nearly untouchable at the start of the season, allowing a single earned run over his first six starts. He's bee a lot less dominant since (4.64 ERA/4.49 FIP over 85.1 innings), but it's easy to dream on his peripherals and blue-chip tools.

For one thing, he's excellent at inducing ground balls, ranking in the 90th percentile league-wide in that category. He's also one of the better starters in the league at getting hitters to swing and miss, which is a potent combination of skills that favor both strikeout tendencies and harmless contact. They also help mitigate some of the damage caused by his poor command, which has hurt him in quite a few starts this summer.

If the Blue Jays can help him find the strike zone more frequently, they might even be buying low on Soriano. His four-seam fastball is the only one of his five pitches that has failed to generate a positive run value this year, and even that outlier is responsible for a .242 expected batting average from opposing hitters.

His sinker-curveball-splitter combination, in particular, is one of the most dominant combinations of fastball/breaking ball/off-speed offerings in the game right now.

In effect, this is a classic upside play by the Blue Jays, who have been hoping to pair another ace alongside Trey Yesavage and Dylan Cease. It's too early to count Soriano amongst those ranks, but with the rest of 2026 to tinker with his mechanics and arsenal, it's easy to dream on what this three-headed monster could bring to Toronto whenever the 2027 season begins.

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