#toronto-blue-jays

#toronto-blue-jays

The following season, Lukes had a cup of tea in the big leagues, playing 29 games where he had just 31 plate appearances. He hit below the Mendoza line, and failed to hit his first big league home run. With the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, Lukes slashed .366/.423/.530 with five home runs in 222 plate appearances that season. Lukes spent the majority of the 2024 season with the Bisons, slashing .335/.403/.463 with seven home runs in 243 plate appearances.

Only one reliever on the current 40-man roster does, and has the potential to reach 100mph with their fastball and 90mph+ with their offspeed pitches: Louis Varland . Varland was brought over at the 2025 trade deadline from the Minnesota Twins amidst his best season in the Major Leagues to date. His 2.02 ERA through 49 innings demonstrated that a shift to the bullpen was much needed for the 27-year-old right-hander.

The Toronto Blue Jays had a successful 2025 season, except for one glaring weakness. They finished in the top five offensively in MLB for runs, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, and OPS. Their one offensive weakness was home runs, where they finished tied for 11th in MLB with 191. The apparent reason for the lack of long balls was Anthony Santander's struggles.

The 2025 draft wasn't the first time the Jays selected Bucknam in the draft. In the 2021 draft, the only Canadian team selected the right-handed pitcher from the Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford, British Columbia. However, Bucknam elected to honour his commitment to Louisiana State University. Aside from pitching a summer in the MLB Draft League, Bucknam didn't pitch all that much in 2022. Instead, he made his college debut with LSU in 2023.

I think it's the Blue Jays, with what they have done (this offseason) bringing in (Kazuma) Okamoto was great, but they matched up incredibly well against the Dodgers. You look at them in the World Series and statistically they were the better team, even though they couldn't pull it off in Game 7.

Speed is definitely a major component of his game as Cook has earned a scouting scale of 80 for his speed grade ahead of the 2025 MLB Draft. The Blue Jays would select the promising outfield prospect in the third round that year, No. 81 overall. But more importantly, he wants to show Toronto that his game isn't just about speed and that he could be a complete player. As per The Athletic, Cook would love to be "more like Byron Buxton" when he fully develops and matures, but that of course is still quite a ways away.

His 2023 season wasn't as kind, as Varland had a 4.63 ERA and 5.02 FIP in 68 innings pitched, making 10 starts in 17 games. Varland's 2024 season was dismal, authoring a 7.61 ERA and 5.54 FIP in 49.2 innings pitched. Finally, the Twins made the decision to make Varland a full-time reliever, something that paid off well for the right-handed pitcher.

Every minuscule detail of the logo was meticulously planned and tweaked. From the exact shade of blue to the balance between the bird, baseball, and maple leaf, the design feels intentional in a way few expansion teams manage to pull off. The pleasant colour scheme paired with a slightly cartoonish blue jay gave the logo warmth and approachability, without sacrificing legitimacy or seriousness.

Rogers is atypical of a modern reliever in many ways. He doesn't throw hard, averaging 83.5 m.p.h. with his sinker and 74.1 m.p.h. with his slider last season. Both were the slowest of their kind in MLB. Because he doesn't have electric stuff by way of velocity or movement, he doesn't strike batters out. Rogers' 16.1% strikeout rate ranked in the eighth percentile. And of course, the strangest aspect of all is his minus-61-degree arm angle, the lowest in baseball by far. (Hoby Milner's minus-4-degree slot is the second lowest, and the only other to come in at a negative angle.)

That shot came in early August, 2023. In his first plate appearance, he went deep over the Green Monster, kick-starting one of the most spectacular MLB debuts in history. In that series alone, Schneider hit a home run in each of the three games, totalling nine hits in 15 plate appearances. Over his first month, Schneider was slashing .397/.514/.845 with six home runs in 72 plate appearances, before cooling off.

The 25-year-old was an All-Star in 2024 when he hit 20 home runs and stole 31 bases, and would be a more appropriate offensive replacement for Bichette than incumbent Andrés Giménez. Many believe the Blue Jays could be done with their offseason additions after inking pitchers Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, and Tyler Rogers, plus Japanese infielder Kazuma Okamoto. Fans would be fine with that if they signed either Tucker or Bichette.

or in the hitting department with Kazuma Okamoto. Not to mention the Blue Jays will have their prized offseason signing from last year officially back in Anthony Santander to boost their lineup as well. However, with these new additions along with players coming back from almost season-long injuries, it has inadvertently created a roster crunch for Toronto ahead of the 2026 MLB season.

With Seranthony Dominguez now off the market (and Bo Bichette long gone), Isiah Kiner-Falefa is arguably the best Toronto Blue Jays' player from the 2025 roster who remains lingering in free agency. Kiner-Falefa is among the most versatile utility players in the league, and now that players like Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Ha-Seong Kim, and Alex Bregman have all signed, he's one the best infielders still available.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is glistening as the face of the Toronto Blue Jays while making that 14-year $500 million contract extension look like a great move thus far. After a postseason that exemplified both his reputation and the Blue Jays' October identity all together, Vladdy Jr. has firmly re-established himself among baseball's elite. MLB Network ranked Guerrero No. 10 on its Top 100 Players Right Now list, placing him one spot behind Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Along with former Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta is now a member of the New York Mets. The Mets went on a frenzy last week signing and traded for players to bolster their roster, including getting one of the prized starting rotation options on the trade market. The Mets sent back the Brewers a 22-year-old prospect named Jett Williams, and 25-year-old right handed pitcher Brandon Sproat who made his MLB debut in 2025.

Signed a minor league deal shortly after the end of the 2024 Winter Meetings, Lauer's signing was a fairly insignificant one at the time. Sure, he had shown promise in the past, as he was drafted 25th overall in 2016 and even had a 3.47 ERA from 2021 until 2022. However, Lauer's final season in the big leagues before joining the Jays saw him post a 6.56 ERA with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2023, and he eventually pitched in the minor leagues and Korea in 2024.

It's time one of the all-time greats of the Toronto Blue Jays franchise got his flowers. Carlos Delgado is a Hall of Famer, no doubt about it. But for whatever reason the voters just keep making the same mistakes and not bestowing said honor on Delgado. However, after Tuesday night's Hall of Fame vote, perhaps there is now finally a pathway and a willingness to right this wrong.

Springer rebounded from a rough 2024 season to post a .959 OPS and hit 32 home runs, to go with a .399 on-base percentage, 27 doubles in 140 games. He also scored 106 runs, the most Springer has scored in a season since his All-Star season in 2018 with Houston. He also had some big moments during the season, including a grand slam against the New York Yankees in a pivotal Canada Day win. The Blue Jays swept that four-game series and never let go of first place in the AL East.

When news of the trade broke, it was met with surprise and criticism, but made sense given Cleveland's unwillingness to pay Giménez's ascending salary. He earned a seven-year, $106.5 million extension following a 2022 breakout season that featured a starting spot in the All-Star Game, a career-high 17 home runs, and a sixth-place finish in the AL MVP voting. After the 27-year-old's offensive production dropped off over the next two

It may take a little while for the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans to recover a bit after failing to land Kyle Tucker and bringing back Bo Bichette. After all, many believed that the Blue Jays could have capped off their impressive offseason with one more big splash. Adding Tucker or reuniting with Bichette would have added a difference maker back into the Toronto lineup heading into 2026, making them clear World Series favorites as a result.

If the Blue Jays were to sign either Zac Gallen or Framber Valdez, the latter they've been linked with recently, they'd lose two additional picks due to those two players declining qualifying offers. But with their starting rotation all but settled, it just doesn't seem likely. Dylan Cease was added earlier this off-season and because the Jays signed him, they've lost a couple of picks.