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Blue Jays Sign Connor Overton To Minor League Deal

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The Blue Jays and righty Connor Overton are in agreement on a minor league contract, per the transaction log at MLB.com. The KHG Sports client spent spring training with the Mets and pitched well (5 1/3 innings, two runs six hits, one walk, three strikeouts) but didn’t make the club and was released in late March. He’ll now head back to the Blue Jays organization, where he made his MLB debut in 2021. He’ll head straight to Triple-A Buffalo.

The 31-year-old Overton has seen big league time in parts of three seasons, suiting up for the Jays, Pirates and Reds. He’s pitched 59 1/3 major league frames and carries a 4.85 ERA in that time. Overton has fanned 15.7% of his opponents, issued walks at a 9.4% clip and kept 38.7% of his opponents’ batted balls on the ground.

All of those rate stats check in worse than the respective MLB averages, but Overton has a strong track record in Triple-A. He’s pitched in parts of five seasons at the top minor league level, totaling 116 1/3 innings with a 3.87 ERA, a 21.4% strikeout rate, a 5.3% walk rate and a 44.8% ground-ball rate.

The Jays are currently operating with four starters: Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios and Bowden Francis. Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer signed a one-year deal over the winter but has been sidelined by a nerve issue in his thumb that has caused other problems in his right arm. Toronto has turned to lefty Easton Lucas for four starts — two of which were excellent (combined 10 1/3 shutout innings) and two of which were disastrous (combined 14 runs in 6 2/3 frames). They recently called up 27-year-old righty Paxton Schultz for his MLB debut, wherein he tossed 4 1/3 scoreless innings of long relief.

Schultz could step into the vacant fifth spot in the rotation, and Toronto also has righty Jake Bloss in Triple-A. He’s had a tough start to his 2025 season, but Bloss ranked on the back end of multiple top-100 prospect rankings last year and was a key piece in the return the Jays received when trading Yusei Kikuchi to the Astros.

The Blue Jays’ depth beyond Schultz, Bloss and Lucas is fairly thin, due in large part to injuries. Alek Manoah is still on the mend from UCL surgery and won’t be an option until late this season. Left-hander Ricky Tiedemann was widely considered one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball before undergoing Tommy John surgery last July. Righty T.J. Brock had Tommy John surgery in January. Southpaw Adam Macko suffered a meniscus tear early in spring training and underwent surgery in late February. Tiedemann, Macko and Brock were considered three of Toronto’s best and near-MLB-ready pitching prospects. Veteran Eric Lauer is in Triple-A Buffalo on a minor league deal but has had a rocky start to his season as well.

Given all that uncertainty, it’s not all that surprising to see the Jays turn to a familiar face to provide some further depth for the staff. Overton won’t be an immediate option, but if he pitches well in his first few turns with the Bisons, he could find himself in the mix for a big league look late next month or early this summer.

Jacob Barnes Elects Free Agency

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Reliever Jacob Barnes elected free agency after being outrighted by the Blue Jays, relays Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. Toronto designated the veteran righty for assignment over the weekend.

Barnes broke camp after signing a minor league contract in February. He made six appearances, allowing nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits and a trio of walks through eight innings. He struck out five. Barnes allowed multiple earned runs in each of his first two outings. He followed up with three consecutive scoreless appearances but surrendered five runs in an inning against Seattle on Saturday. That wound up costing him his roster spot.

A veteran of parts of 10 MLB seasons, Barnes has bounced all around the league. This was his second stint in Toronto, as he’d also made 10 appearances for the Jays in 2021. He has pitched at the MLB level with nine teams overall. Barnes kicked off his career with three and a half seasons in the middle innings for the Brewers. He hasn’t spent multiple consecutive seasons with the same team since 2019, instead moving around as a journeyman depth arm.

Barnes did spend all of last season with the same team. He agreed to a minor league deal with the Nationals and made their big league roster in mid-April. He held his middle relief spot from then on, working to a 4.36 ERA through 66 innings. He struck out just under 20% of opposing hitters against a solid 7.2% walk rate. He should catch on somewhere via minor league contract in the coming days.

Latest On Blue Jays Rotation

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The Blue Jays optioned fifth starter Easton Lucas to Triple-A Buffalo before Monday’s loss in Houston. They recalled reliever Josh Walker in his place, thus leaving them with a four-man rotation.

An off day on Thursday allows them to skip the fifth starter this time. Chris Bassitt and Bowden Francis will follow Kevin Gausman, who pitched tonight, in the Houston series. José Berríos will take Friday’s series opener against the Yankees, while Gausman and Bassitt will be back on regular rest to finish the weekend in the Bronx.

Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet relays word from manager John Schneider that the Jays will return to a five-man rotation after that. An off day next Monday would have allowed them to stick with a four-man staff into the end of next week, but that’s apparently not the plan. An optioned pitcher must stay in the minors for at least 15 days unless they’re being recalled as the corresponding move for an injured list placement. Barring injury, Lucas won’t be back for at least a couple weeks.

The 28-year-old Lucas entered this season with 14 career MLB appearances. All of those had come in relief. He was pushed into the starting five with Max Scherzer battling renewed thumb discomfort that sent him to the injured list. Lucas fired 10 1/3 scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts over his first two big league starts. He was bombed in each of his next two outings, however. The Braves put up eight runs (including a trio of homers) in his third appearance. He couldn’t get out of the second inning during Sunday’s start against the Mariners, who put up six runs. The overall result is a 7.41 earned run average through 17 innings.

Scherzer doesn’t seem especially close to a return. The future Hall of Famer provided a mildly positive update on Monday, saying a second cortisone shot has allowed him to better grip the ball (via Hazel Mae). Scherzer was able to throw off flat ground during pregame warm-ups at Daikin Park, but he doesn’t appear to be nearing a rehab stint.

It leaves the Jays in a difficult spot once they go back to a five-man rotation. The decision to turn to Lucas in the first place pointed to the team’s lack of depth beyond their Opening Day starting five. Jake Bloss, acquired in last summer’s Yusei Kikuchi trade, has three major league starts to his name. He has been hit hard over his first four Triple-A starts this year, allowing a 7.31 ERA with a below-average 17.5% strikeout rate. Aside from Lucas, prospect Adam Macko — who underwent meniscus surgery in February and hasn’t pitched this year — is the only other starter on the 40-man roster. Lefty Eric Lauer, who owns a 5.68 ERA through his first four Triple-A starts, is their most experienced non-roster depth option.

Blue Jays Place Nick Sandlin On Injured List, Select Paxton Schultz

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The Blue Jays announced a handful of roster moves this morning, headlined by the club’s decision to place right-hander Nick Sandlin on the 15-day injured list due to a right lat strain. Toronto has recalled right-hander Dillon Tate to replace Sandlin on the roster, and also selected the contract of right-hander Paxton Schultz. Right-hander Jacob Barnes was designated for assignment to make room for Schultz on both the 40-man and active rosters.

Sandlin, 28, came to Toronto as part of the trade that brought in Andres Gimenez and saw Spencer Horwitz depart the club. He had plenty of success over the years in Cleveland as a middle reliever despite shaky peripherals, pitching to a 3.27 ERA (126 ERA+) in spite of a 4.41 FIP and an 11.4% walk rate. In the early going this year, Sandlin has managed to tighten things up with a 2.25 ERA and 2.77 FIP across his first ten appearances with the Blue Jays. It’s a significant loss for the Blue Jays’ bullpen, as both Sandlin and fellow newcomer Jeff Hoffman have both been key cogs in Toronto’s early success this year.

Fortunately, there are some signals that this could be a fairly short absence. John Schneider told reporters this morning (including Keegan Matheson of MLB.com) that the lat issue Sandlin is currently dealing with is one that’s been nagging him for a while, and that they’ve decided to be “proactive” about it rather than risk it becoming a larger issue down the road. While Sandlin will be shut down for at least a few days, it seems possible that he could return relatively quickly if the strain improves during that layoff. In any case, he’ll be down for at least the next two weeks.

Replacing him on the roster for the time being is Tate, who the Jays claimed off waivers from the Orioles back in September. He was non-tendered by Toronto over the offseason but re-signed with them on a big league deal back in March. He’s yet to appear in the majors for the club this year but has generally been a cromulent middle reliever over the years, with a 3.89 ERA and a near-matching 3.88 FIP since the start of the 2021 season. He’ll be joined as a option for the middle innings by Schultz, a 14th-round pick by the Brewers back in 2019 who has spent the majority of his professional career as a starting pitcher in the Blue Jays organization. Toronto brass moved him to the bullpen last year, and despite previous middling results he’s looked quite good in 8 2/3 frames of multi-inning relief work this season with a 2.08 ERA and a 27.2% strikeout rate with Triple-A Buffalo.

Schultz’s addition to the roster is made possible by the departure of Barnes, a veteran currently in his tenth major league season. Signed to a minor league deal back in February, Barnes impressed during camp enough to get called upon to make the Jays’ Opening Day roster but has struggled in eight innings of work with the club this year, surrendering nine runs (eight earned) on ten hits and three walks while striking out five. The Jays will have one week to either trade Barnes or pass him through waivers, at which point he’ll have the opportunity to either accept an outright assignment from the club or elect free agency in search of greener pastures. The right-hander posted a 4.36 ERA in 66 innings for the Nationals last year and has a career 4.79 ERA over his decade of work in the majors.

Blue Jays Notes: Burnes, Bregman, Scherzer, Varsho, Swanson, Burr

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The Blue Jays were one of the kings of the rumor mill this winter, seemingly linked to just about every notable name on the free agent market.  Corbin Burnes was one of those targets, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale sheds some light on the Jays’ pursuit in his notes column today while also countering his own past reporting on the matter.

Back in December, Nightengale wrote that the Jays and Giants offered Burnes more than the six-year, $210MM he received from the Diamondbacks.  Burnes himself described Arizona’s offer as “by far the best offer that we had,” as Nightengale’s latest report notes that the “Giants’ pursuit of Burnes stopped before it really got started.”  As for Toronto, Nightengale now writes that the Jays’ offer “was not only low, but was 75% deferred.”

While the exact dollar figures aren’t known, it seems possible that the Blue Jays might have technically offered more than $210MM, yet the heavy amount of deferred money involved lowered the contract’s current value to below what Burnes got from the D’Backs.  It should be noted that Burnes’ Arizona deal also involves $64MM in deferrals, and the fact that Burnes can opt out of his deal after the 2026 also impacts the financial structure.

Alex Bregman was another name reportedly on the Blue Jays’ target list, yet Nightengale writes that “they didn’t make a single offer to Bregman, let alone engage with him.”  The Jays entered the offseason without a clear answer at second or third base, so it made sense on paper that Toronto would at least check in on Bregman as a solution to the need at the hot corner.  Instead, the Jays acquired Andres Gimenez to become the new everyday second baseman, and stuck with internal options (i.e. Will Wagner, Ernie Clement) to split time at third base.

One free agent Toronto did sign was Max Scherzer, who inked a one-year, $15.5MM contract.  Unfortunately, the longtime star’s Jays debut ended after just three innings due to continued issues with his right thumb, leading to a trip to the 15-day injured list.  The righty received a cortisone shot just under two weeks ago, and Jays manager John Schneider told Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and other reporters that a fresh set of imaging tests taken Friday didn’t reveal any damage.

While this represents some good news, both the team and Scherzer remain in day-to-day mode as they try to figure out the injury that has now bothered Scherzer for the better part of a year.  Scherzer is playing catch and throwing off of flat ground for now, but has yet to bump up his throwing program to prepare for a return to action.

Moving onto some more injury updates, Daulton Varsho will start playing in full extended Spring Training games this coming week.  Varsho underwent rotator cuff surgery last September and began the season on the 10-day injured list as he continued his rehab work.  Throwing remains the final step in the process, as Varsho has yet to start making full throws from the outfield, but presumably he’ll check that box before returning to proper game action.

Despite his semi-injured status, Varsho still got a good deal of work in during the Jays’ actual Spring Training, as he had 37 plate appearances as a designated hitter.  The fact that Varsho has been able to partake in other baseball activities beyond throwing could mean that it might not take him long to get fully ramped up for his eventual return to the Blue Jays’ active roster.  He’ll still surely need a Triple-A rehab assignment, but it appears as though Varsho is on pace to meet his expected timeline of an IL activation before the end of April.

Erik Swanson is also on the road to recovery after a median nerve entrapment in his right arm led to a season-opening stint on the IL.  Swanson will face live hitters this week and is expected to then start a minor league rehab assignment.  Ryan Burr threw a bullpen session yesterday, in the latest step of his rehab after he also started the year on the 15-day IL due to shoulder fatigue.

Atkins: Jays Still Hope To Extend Bichette

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The Jays have one cornerstone in place long-term, having finalized their 14-year deal with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and general manager Ross Atkins said in the wake of that deal’s announcement that his club is still hopeful of signing Guerrero’s longtime teammate, shortstop Bo Bichette, to a long-term deal as well (via Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae).

“The interest is definitely there,” said Atkins. “…It’s also our vision for [Guerrero and Bichette] to continue to play together. We will do everything in our power to see if we can line up.”

Bichette has voiced a desire to remain in Toronto long-term. He said last year that his “ultimate goal” in his baseball career is “to play with Vladdy forever, to win a championship with him and to do that with this organization.” Bichette acknowledged just a few days ago that there were currently no extension efforts in the works, but those comments came before Guerrero’s deal had been formally announced and mere hours after an agreement had reportedly been reached.

It stands to reason that the Jays’ primary focus has been on keeping Guerrero, who finished sixth in AL MVP voting last year on the heels of a fourth straight All-Star campaign. Both Guerrero and Bichette were set to become free agents following the 2025 season. With Guerrero standing as the focal point of the team’s long-term direction, the Jays may not have wanted to commit one way or another regarding Bichette until their first baseman’s status had been resolved.

Bichette, of course, is difficult to value at the moment. The 27-year-old is a two-time All-Star who’s garnered down-ballot MVP votes in three seasons and looked like an organizational pillar alongside Guerrero for much of his early career. From the time of his 2019 debut as a 21-year-old through the conclusion of the 2023 season, Bichette posted a collective .299/.340/.487 batting line — 26% better than league-average by measure of wRC+.

The 2024 season threw his outlook into disarray. Bichette floundered through the season’s first several months, posting an anemic .237/.286/.342 batting line before landing on the injured list due to a calf strain. He returned after a minimal stint but was back on the shelf with a strain in that same calf just three weeks later.

Bichette may not have been full strength at any point between the two calf strains, as his offense in the interim was even worse than it was prior to his original IL placement (.143/.218/.204 in 55 plate appearances). This time, Bichette missed two months of action, returned to go 2-for-5 in his first game back … and promptly suffered a broken finger during pregame fielding drills. That injury required surgery, ending his season with a career-worst .225/.277/.322 batting line.

Bichette’s name floated around the rumor mill both in the run-up to the trade deadline and again in the offseason, but Atkins was vocal about his unwillingness to discuss a deal. The GM stated in June that trading either Guerrero or Bichette “doesn’t make any sense for us,” and within days of the offseason commencing Atkins repeated that the concept of trading Bichette was “an easy no” for the Blue Jays.

That thinking surely hasn’t changed after Bichette enjoyed a monster spring training (.373/.411/.667, four homers in 56 plate appearances) and has started out with a strong .291/.344/.364 performance in the regular season. He’s yet to homer, but Bichette is making plenty of hard contact (90.6 mph average exit velocity, 48% hard-hit rate) and elevating the ball at even higher levels than he his in his career to date. If he keeps doing so, the big flies are sure to follow.

A big surge early in the season would presumably make a deal easier to strike. On the heels of last year’s disastrous results, the team may have had questions about whether 2024 was an anomaly or the beginning of a worrying trend. Bichette himself would presumably have been reluctant to sell himself short, considering his lengthy track record and proximity to free agency. If Bichette continues to look like himself and make last year appear to be an outlier, it’ll raise his price tag but also give the Jays more certainty that they’re making a sound investment.

Bichette doesn’t carry the earning power Guerrero did on the back of a colossal 2024 showing, but he’d be in line for a strong nine-figure deal as a free agent if he can get back to his 2020-23 form. He’ll hit the market ahead of his age-28 season, making him one of the youngest and highest-upside plays on the 2025-26 free agent market.

From a payroll vantage point, the Jays should have room to extend Bichette even after signing Guerrero. Toronto will see Max Scherzer, Chris Bassitt and Chad Green reach free agency at season’s end. RosterResource pegs them with about $186MM committed to next year’s books — a stark decline of about $64.5MM over their 2024 payroll. That doesn’t include arbitration raises, but Daulton Varsho is the only Blue Jay in line to command a notable salary in 2026. He’ll earn a raise over this year’s $8.2MM mark.

MLBTR Podcast: Vlad’s Massive Deal, Extensions for Merrill and Marte, And Quinn Priester Traded

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

Check out our past episodes!

  • Garrett Crochet’s Extension, Problems In Atlanta, And Other Early-Season Storylines – listen here
  • What We Learned From The Offseason – listen here
  • The Rays’ Stadium Deal Is Dead, Rangers’ Rotation Issues, And More! – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images

Blue Jays Extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. isn’t going anywhere. The Blue Jays have formally announced a 14-year contract extension for their superstar first baseman, one that guarantees the four-time All-Star a whopping $500MM from 2026-39. He’d previously been slated to become a free agent following the 2025 season. The contract does not contain any deferred money or opt-out opportunities but does provide Guerrero with a full no-trade clause, setting the stage for him to spend his entire career in Toronto. Guerrero is represented by PRIME.

Notably, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the $500MM will come in the form of a whopping $325MM signing bonus, paid out in annual installments over his contract’s 14-year term, with the remaining $175MM constituting his salary. That doesn’t change the luxury-tax picture for the Blue Jays, but it does provide tax benefits to Guerrero. Signing bonuses are taxed based on a player’s official residence, and although Guerrero plays his home games in Toronto, he’s legally a Florida resident, where there’s no state income tax. Further, Rosenthal rightly points out that signing bonuses are paid out even in the event of a potential labor stoppage, whereas player salaries could be withheld or prorated. Effectively, the mammoth signing bonus provides Guerrero an avenue and safety net to take home as much of that mammoth guarantee as possible.

It’s the second-largest deal in MLB history by measure of net present value, trailing only Juan Soto’s 15-year, $765MM contract with the Mets. While Shohei Ohtani’s deal with the Dodgers was originally reported as a historic 10-year, $700MM deal, the overwhelming slate of deferred money — $68MM annually — knocked the contract’s present-day value down to between $438MM and $461MM. Guerrero’s $35.714MM average annual value is technically the 12th-largest AAV in baseball history, although once factoring in deferrals in the contracts of Alex Bregman and Blake Snell, Guerrero could sneak into the top 10 with that hefty mark.

Guerrero rather famously set a deadline of the start of spring training that came and went without a deal. He left the door cracked for an agreement, however, stating that while he no longer planned to participate in back-and-forth negotiations, he’d listen to any offers the team presented and leave any contract talk to his agents. In the aftermath of that soft deadline, specifics regarding Guerrero’s asking price and a new, stronger offer from the Blue Jays came to light.

It’s not entirely uncommon for contract talks to continue beyond self-imposed deadlines if the sides are close enough, with Garrett Crochet standing as a notable recent example of a player who set a deadline (in his case, Opening Day) for extension talks before ultimately signing after said deadline had passed. Jackson Merrill, Ketel Marte, Brandon Pfaadt, and Kristian Campbell are among the other players to have signed extensions since the season began who presumably opened negotiations with their clubs during spring training.

Both previous talks between the sides and reports regarding the latest framework have centered around a 14-year pact. That’s a reflection of Guerrero’s youth, as he only just turned 26 years old last month. It’s a somewhat similar situation to that of Soto, who hit free agency right around his 26th birthday. Given his youth and talent, he was able to parlay a frenzied free agency into a record-shattering 15-year deal worth $765MM.

Prior to Soto moving the goalposts, the reported $500MM value of the deal Guerrero and the Jays are discussing would have been a record-breaking deal. As already noted, Ohtani’s ten-year deal is valued quite differently when weighing for deferred money; the MLBPA pegs his net-present annual value at $43.78MM, while the league itself posits a $46.06MM number. Ballparking the guarantee around $450MM was still a record at the time, with Mookie Betts and his $365MM holding the previous top guarantee. Ohtani’s overall guarantee and AAV both fell to a distant second with the Soto deal, and now Guerrero can now lay claim to passing him as well, given the lack of deferred money in his half-billion-dollar guarantee.

Guerrero’s track record isn’t quite as elite as that of Soto, who is in a class all his own as an offensive talent with a career wRC+ (158) in the same ballpark as Guerrero’s peak seasons. Even so, his numbers are excellent and he’s only a year older. When Guerrero is at his best, he’s the closest comparison to Soto in the game in terms of age and overall offensive ability.

For the Jays, Guerrero has been the face of the franchise for a long time. After the club’s postseason appearances in 2015 and 2016, they entered a quick rebuild period that saw them post losing records for the next three years. As such, many fans rested their hopes on an emerging core headlined by young prospects like Guerrero and Bo Bichette.

Guerrero’s initial major league work was good but not great, though it came at an age when most prospects are still playing in college or in the minors. He hit .269/.336/.442 over the 2019 and 2020 seasons for a 107 wRC+, indicating he was 7% better than league average at the plate. To be holding his own in the big leagues during his age-20 and -21 seasons was still a notable accomplishment, even if he wasn’t immediately playing at All-Star levels.

Any doubts about Guerrero’s ability to reach the ceiling he flashed as a prospect were quelled in 2021, as he hit 48 home runs, drew walks at a 12.3% clip and only struck out 15.8% of the time. His .311/.401/.601 batting line led to a wRC+ of 166. He would have won the American League Most Valuable Player award that year, if not for an absurd two-way season from Ohtani. Instead, he finished runner-up.

Guerrero couldn’t quite carry that MVP-caliber offensive output over into his next two seasons. He hit a combined .269/.341/.462 in 2022 and 2023 for a 125 wRC+. While that’s still strong production, it’s obviously a drop from his 2021 campaign, and 2023 in particular cast him as closer to pedestrian than superstar as he posted a 118 wRC+ with just 1.3 fWAR. Fortunately, Guerrero helped to quell his doubters when he cranked things back up last year, slashing .323/.396/.544 for a 165 wRC+ and finishing sixth in a crowded AL MVP field.

Taken in totality, the four years beginning with Guerrero’s 2021 breakout saw him produce a .293/.370/.517 batting line with a 10.2% walk rate and just a 15.2% strikeout rate. That’s 45% better than league-average after weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment, by measure of wRC+. And, as Guerrero’s minuscule strikeout rate indicates, he’s hardly just a one-dimensional slugger. He has some of the game’s best contact skills and pitch recognition, and he consistently delivers elite rankings in batted-ball metrics like exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate.

That’s not to say that there is no risk. Despite a 2022 Gold Glove Award, Guerrero’s defense is generally viewed as questionable and he’s not a burner on the basepaths. On any kind of massive deal like this, the signing club probably knows it won’t look pristine all the way to the final season, as the Tigers and Angels could tell you about their deals for Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols. The Jays will be hoping that they get piles of value from Guerrero’s prime years, both in terms of on-field and off-field value, in order to ease the pain of his eventual decline phase.

Certainly, it would have been cheaper to extend Guerrero earlier in his career, as players generally gain earning power as they get closer to free agency. However, Guerrero’s oscillating results perhaps gave the Jays pause about making a significant commitment to him. From Guerrero’s perspective, he was an incredibly talented prospect who received a hefty signing bonus and quickly put himself on track to reach free agency at such a young age. That gave him ample incentive to bet on himself, which presumably made finding a price amenable to both sides rather challenging.

The stars have aligned recently. Guerrero’s 2024 season seemed to prove that 2021 wasn’t a fluke. Meanwhile, the Jays have attempted to secure mega deals with other players and fallen short. They were heavily tied to Ohtani, Soto, Roki Sasaki and plenty of other players who would have been headline-grabbing acquisitions, but none on those pursuits panned out. Prior to today’s extension of Guerrero, the largest deal in franchise history was George Springer’s $150MM guarantee on a six-year pact, which is now more than four years old. With president/CEO Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins both nearing the ends of their respective contracts and the Jays disappointing in 2024, it has been suggested they are under pressure for a big public relations victory.

The inability to close deals with marquee free agents like Soto, Ohtani and Corbin Burnes (among others) left the Jays with plenty of future payroll space to commit to Guerrero. Bichette, Chris Bassitt, Max Scherzer and Chad Green are all free agents at season’s end. After 2026, Springer, Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho are slated to hit the open market. José Berríos is under contract through 2028, but has an opt-out after 2026. Anthony Santander will have an opt-out chance after 2027. Andrés Giménez and Alejandro Kirk could be the two players making notable money still on the team by 2028 if those opt-out clauses are exercised, and Guerrero is the only player on the books beyond 2030.

The Guerrero extension takes the projected top free agent off next year’s market, leaving Kyle Tucker as the clear top bat available. Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami will reportedly be posted ahead of his age-26 season, adding an interesting and likely very expensive wild card to the position-player market.

On the pitching side, Dylan Cease, Zac Gallen and Michael King will be some of the most attractive names. That will be a tough development for fans of other clubs but it could be a huge benefit to those other free agents, especially Tucker, who will become the uncontested best free agent hitter available in a market that looks increasingly starved for impact offense without Guerrero at the top.

Dominican journalist Mike Rodriguez first broke the news that the two sides were closing in on a deal worth at least $500MM. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale added that it was over a term of 14 years. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet first reported that an agreement was in place and that there were no deferrals, while his colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith added that the contract did not contain opt-out language. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Guerrero’s no-trade clause.

Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images.

Octavio Dotel Dies In Roof Collapse Tragedy

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Former major leaguer Octavio Dotel has died in a tragic accident, Major League Baseball confirmed. The news was first reported by multiple outlets in the Dominican Republic, including Diario Libre. The roof of the Jet Set club in Santo Domingo collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning. As of Tuesday night, at least 98 people have lost their lives while nearly 200 more were injured, according to The Associated Press. Dotel was 51 years old.

Exact details of the tragic situation are difficult to pin down, but it appears hundreds of people were in the venue for a concert when the collapse happened. Dozens of people have been pulled out alive but many have died and the figures are likely to change. Dotel was reportedly trapped for about 11 hours before being rescued and initially survived, but was declared dead after being taken to a hospital.

Dotel was well known to baseball fans because he pitched in the majors for over a decade and bounced around to various teams. He made his major league debut with the Mets in 1999, working in a swing role. He was traded to the Astros ahead of the 2000 season and continued to work both out of the rotation and the bullpen for a while.

He eventually moved into a primary relief role and had more success. Though his earned run average was over 5.00 in both 1999 and 2000, he posted a 2.66 ERA in 2001. He tossed 105 innings over 61 appearances, only four of those being starts.

He continued working as a solid reliever for years after that, bouncing to the Athletics, Yankees, Royals, Braves, White Sox, Pirates, Dodgers, Rockies, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Tigers. He finished his career with a 3.78 ERA in 758 games. He recorded 109 saves and 127 holds. He won the World Series with the Cardinals in 2011. He was a part of a combined no-hitter with the Astros in 2003. He retired in 2014.

We at MLB Trade Rumors send our deepest condolences to Dotel’s family, friends and fans, as well as the hundreds of others who have been impacted by this awful event.

Photo courtesy of Kelley L Cox, Imagn Images

Poll: Will Bo Bichette Stay In Toronto?

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The big news around baseball this week is superstar slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sticking in Toronto on a $500MM extension that will keep him with the Blue Jays for the next 14 years. While the deal is primarily notable because of Guerrero himself being one of the brightest young stars in the game whose free agency had long been anticipated by fans around the league, it’s also the most firm statement yet from the Blue Jays that they fully intend to continue attempting to compete even amid an increasingly difficult AL East division.

Entering Spring Training, the club had a number of key players set to come off the books within the next few seasons. That’s still the case for the majority of those players, with important pieces like Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, George Springer, and Daulton Varsho poised to hit the open market within the next two seasons. With that being said, the club’s offseason additions of Andres Gimenez and Anthony Santander combine with their recent extensions for Guerrero and Alejandro Kirk to give the club a talented nucleus of position players to build a new iteration of the club around with pre-arb and early arbitration players like Ernie Clement, Bowden Francis, and Will Wagner helping to further build out that foundation.

With nearly two full seasons until Gausman, Springer, and Varsho depart for free agency, it’s not entirely clear what the Jays’ needs will look like by the time that comes around. Toronto’s impending losses of Bassitt, Scherzer, and Green come November will surely need to be addressed, but most teams need pitching every winter and replacing those players should be fairly straightforward. With Guerrero signed, that leaves the most pertinent question facing Toronto at this point as what to do with shortstop Bo Bichette. The 27-year-old was a consensus top-15 prospect in the sport when he came up to the majors back in 2019 and has spent most of his career paired with Guerrero as one of the club’s two up-and-coming stars.

While Bichette has never had the MVP-caliber campaigns Guerrero posted during the 2021 and ’24 seasons, the hype surrounding him has largely been justified by his body of work in the majors. In 46 games down the stretch in 2019 after a mid-season call-up, Bichette made a big impression by slashing .311/.358/.571 with a 143 wRC+ and 11 homers in just 212 plate appearances. A 29-game stint with Toronto during the shortened 2020 season saw him come down to Earth just a bit as he posted a 120 wRC+, but that level of production proved to be very sustainable for Bichette as his first full three seasons saw him slash .298/.339/.476 with a 125 wRC+ and 13.6 fWAR.

From 2021 to ’23, Bichette was sandwiched between Yordan Alvarez and Sean Murphy on the fWAR leaderboard, good for 22nd in baseball, and his 125 wRC+ allowed him to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with top infielders like Trea Turner and Alex Bregman. Between those strong numbers and his relative youth, Bichette seemed certain to be ticketed for a large payday with the only question being whether it would come in Toronto or elsewhere. Unfortunately, the 2024 season threw all of that completely off the rails. Not only was Bichette limited to just 81 games last year due to multiple calf strains and surgery on his middle finger, but he also struggled badly in the games he was healthy enough to partake in. In 336 trips to the plate last year, Bichette slashed just .225/.277/.322 (71 wRC+).

A look under the hood reveals that Bichette’s strikeout and walk rates were both as good as they’d ever been last year, but he was completely sapped of his power. He hit just four home runs after regularly flashing 25-to-30 homer power in previous years. His .303 xwOBA suggested that he was getting somewhat unlucky in terms of batted ball luck, and that likely contributed to a career-worst .269 BABIP. While a batting average closer to his xBA of .255 would have surely helped his overall production look a bit more robust, the expected numbers aren’t all that kind in the power department. His xSLG was just .375, which while better than his actual production last season, would’ve been well below average if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. That’s in large part thanks to a massive drop-off in barrel rate. Bichette barreled up just 4.4% of his batted balls last year, less than half of his career norm across the rest of his career.

A mediocre defender at shortstop even in his best years, Bichette’s value is so tied to his bat that last season’s struggles made it difficult to imagine him finding the star-level contract in free agency without a big bounceback in the 2025 campaign. Despite both Bichette himself and the Blue Jays as a whole failing to meet expectations last year, Toronto opted not to trade him ahead of his final year under team control, betting on him to regain his form this season. There’s still a long way to go in this season, but the early returns are looking good on that decision. Bichette’s .277/.333/.362 (103 wRC+) slash line entering play today is still pedestrian but nonetheless a big improvement over last year, and more importantly he’s resumed hitting the ball with authority (7.3% barrel rate, 46.3% Hard-Hit rate) in a way that mostly aligns with his career norms.

While it’s certainly good news for both Bichette and the Blue Jays that the shortstop appears to be back to posting quality offensive numbers, what that means for his future is uncertain. There’s some similarities to Cody Bellinger in Bichette’s profile as a free agent, as the two players share All-Star caliber upside as bat-first options at a premium defensive position that could make them very attractive in free agency, but pair that upside with worrisome injury-riddled campaigns where they looked like below-replacement level talents. During the 2023-24 offseason, Bellinger was limited to a short-term deal by the market, though his three-year, $80MM pact with the Cubs afforded him a healthy AAV and multiple opt-out opportunities. Bellinger was marketing his age-28 season that winter just like Bichette would be come November, though a distinct lack of high-end positional talent in free agency this winter (outside of star outfielder Kyle Tucker) could allow Bichette to find a stronger market.

Still, that market uncertainty could be part of why the Jays have not broached the possibility of an extension with their shortstop. Bichette told reporters back in February that the sides hadn’t had talks, and he reiterated to Hazel Mae of Sportsnet yesterday that “nothing’s on the table”  for him from the Blue Jays in terms of an extension. Bichette has made it clear he’d like to remain in Toronto, citing a desire to play for a single organization throughout his entire career and continue his partnership with Guerrero. If Bichette proves himself healthy and effective again this year, that could make plenty of sense for a Blue Jays club that will need more offensive firepower than it got last year even after adding Santander to the mix. On the other hand, the Blue Jays already have a luxury tax payroll of $200MM for 2026 (per RosterResource) before even considering arbitration-level contracts for players like Varsho and Clement.

That could make adding another big salary to the books difficult for the Blue Jays to stomach, and the club has seemingly set itself up to better stomach the loss of Bichette by trading for Gimenez. The 26-year-old has played the vast majority of his big league games at second base, but he has shortstop experience and is regarded as perhaps the best defensive second baseman in the entire sport, suggesting he should have little trouble sliding over to the left side of the infield. Given Bichette’s aforementioned mediocre defense at short, Gimenez could actually prove to be an upgrade at the position in terms of his glove.

That would then mean needing to replace Gimenez at second base and Bichette’s bat in the lineup, however. A big season from Wagner this year could make that possible to do internally. Other internal options who could help out include Davis Schneider, Addison Barger, Orelvis Martinez and Leo Jimenez. In terms of external options, this coming offseason has infielders like Gleyber Torres, Ha-Seong Kim, Alex Bregman and Trevor Story as possibilities, depending on some opt-out decisions.

How do MLBTR readers think the situation in Toronto will play out? Will Bichette be allowed to hit free agency? And, if so, will he be playing in Toronto or elsewhere come Opening Day 2026? Have your say in the poll below:

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