After missing out on Roki Sasaki, the Blue Jays “remain involved in” the starting pitching market, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith writes. While Toronto has been more primarily linked to hitters this winter, the Jays have also been actively considering several starters, including such notable names as Sasaki, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell, Luis Severino, Nick Pivetta, and Jack Flaherty.
Of that group, only Pivetta and Flaherty remained unsigned, as all of the other names signed with other teams. The near-misses on Sasaki and Burnes in particular have only added to what has been a frustrating 14 months for the Blue Jays, who have continually come up on short on several high-profile free agent pursuits in the last two offseasons.
The Jays’ current starting five consists of Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Bowden Francis, and Yariel Rodriguez. This group (and Yusei Kikuchi, who traded to the Astros at the deadline) combined to post roughly middle-of-the-pack numbers in comparison to other rotations around the league, and the starting staff was in many ways Toronto’s most consistent strength given the club’s lackluster lineup and bullpen. Alek Manoah also pitched reasonably well in five starts before undergoing Tommy John surgery, and he is aiming to be back in the rotation by August. Adding another starter, of course, would only deepen and help solidify this group. Bringing a new starter into the rotation would push Rodriguez into relief duty, thus addressing another need by bringing another quality arm into the bullpen mix.
The question remains, however, whether the Blue Jays are looking to supplement this group with more of a frontline type of pitcher like Flaherty, or if they’re looking at more of a back-end hurler for what is technically a fifth starter’s role on paper. The former would require another significant investment in a starting pitcher, on the heels of Berrios’ hefty extension, big free agent deals for Gausman and Bassitt, plus the $32MM Toronto spent to sign Rodriguez a year ago.
Between their big offers to Burnes and Juan Soto, the Jays front office clearly has some money available to spend, even though Toronto already has around $218MM on the books for 2025 and a luxury-tax number of $245MM (estimates courtesy of RosterResource). What remains unclear is whether or not GM Ross Atkins was given the green light to stretch the budget in general, or just for special cases like Soto or…
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