Blue Jays Targeting High-Leverage Relievers

The Blue Jays are targeting high-leverage relievers, reports Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. Free agent Edwin Díaz appears to be one possibility, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Rosenthal frames the Jays as the main threat to poach Díaz from the Mets. Rosenthal reports that the Jays recently met with Díaz’s representatives from Wasserman, though he also notes that may not mean anything since everyone meets with everyone at this time of year. Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat reports that the Jays were interested in Ryan Helsley ahead of the deadline. He is now a free agent and could be a target as well. The Jays were also connected to Pete Fairbanks earlier this week.

The Jays have seemingly been casting a wide net early in the offseason, having been connected to all kinds of different pursuits. The bullpen is one thing on their list and it’s a sensible one. The Jays had a middling relief group in 2025. Toronto relievers had a collective 3.98 earned run average, which was 16th out of the 30 big league clubs. Closer Jeff Hoffman had a 4.37 ERA for the year. He dominated through most of the playoffs but then surrendered the big Miguel Rojas home run when the Jays were two outs away from a title.

Last week, general manager Ross Atkins said that Hoffman would be open to moving to a different role if the Jays found another closer. It seems the Jays are indeed considering that. Díaz is one of the best closers in the game today. He already has 253 saves under his belt. He just wrapped up a season in which he had 1.63 ERA, 38% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate and 48.4% ground ball rate.

He has been with the Mets since 2019 and it might be assumed by some that he will end up back in Queens. He was approaching free agency three years ago but signed a five-year, $102MM deal to stay with the Mets just days before he was set to hit the open market. That deal contained an opt-out after three years, which Díaz triggered. He is now a free agent for the first time.

The Mets could certainly re-sign him but it doesn’t seem to be a fait accompli. Díaz himself said this week he has been talking with the Mets but put the odds of a return at 50/50, per Laura Albanese of Newsday. “If they came with the best deal for me, I’d enjoy to stay with them,” Díaz said, “but at the end of the day, I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

Díaz is still quite a good reliever but he is three years older than when he signed his previous deal. MLBTR predicted him to secure a four-year, $82MM pact this time around, a similar average annual value but on a shorter commitment since he’ll turn 32 years old in a few months. Díaz appears to be setting his sights a bit higher than that. Earlier this week, reporting from Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic indicated he is looking for roughly the same kind of deal he got last time. Bob Nightengale of USA Today echoed that this week, reporting that Díaz is looking for at least $100MM over five years.

That would be a notable expenditure for any club. As shown in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, the $102MM guarantee from the previous Díaz deal is still the record for a reliever. The $20.4MM AAV is also top of the list, apart from swingman Nick Martinez accepting a $21.1MM qualifying offer from the Reds a year ago.

Whether the Jays would be willing to do that remains to be seen. They’ve never given a reliever more than the three years and $33MM they gave to Hoffman a year ago. They might have to triple that to land Díaz. Perhaps getting so close to a World Series will push them there, both because the bullpen let the last game slip away and because they presumably raked in a bunch of extra money from the deep playoff run.

RosterResource projects the Jays for a $235MM payroll next year, more than $20MM shy of their year-end figure in 2025. It’s unknown how high they are willing to go in the wake of their 2025 run. Presumably, there is a limit somewhere and they will have to balance their desire for Díaz against pursuits of Bo Bichette, Kyle Tucker, starting pitching and so on. Díaz also rejected a qualifying offer. Since the Jays paid the competitive balance tax in 2025, signing a player tied to a QO means they would have to forfeit two draft picks and international bonus pool space.

The Mets have been operating with very few payroll limits in recent years but David Stearns has shown a measured approach to building his pitching staff since taking the president of baseball operations job. Despite having Steve Cohen’s seemingly boundless resources, he hasn’t given a pitcher a deal longer than three years yet. The bullpen has mostly been built with one-year deals. A.J. Minter got two years with an opt-out in the middle, though his lack of health in 2025 means he will be coming back for that second year.

Some may speculate that Cohen would just override Stearns and bring back Díaz as a fan favorite. Rosenthal downplays this notion is his column, linked above, referring back to the 50/50 comments from Díaz.

Turning back to the Jays, they could also shop in a different aisle. As mentioned, they have been connected to Fairbanks, who will be far cheaper than Díaz. That’s also true of Helsley, who has a strong track record but is coming off a poor platform season.

From 2022 to 2024, Helsley tossed 167 2/3 innings with a 1.83 ERA, 34.6% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. In 2025, his ERA jumped to 4.50 as his strikeout rate fell to 25%. He was especially bad after getting traded from the Cardinals to the Mets at the deadline, with a 7.20 ERA after that swap.

That obviously puts a big dent in his earning power but he should still get interest as a bounceback candidate. Plenty of clubs would be happy to try him on a one-year deal with the hope that 2025 was a blip. He might also have enough juice for two years with an opt-out. MLBTR went the latter route, predicting him for a two-year, $24MM guarantee.

There’s no denying the trend lines aren’t good. Helsley’s strikeout rate has gone from 39.3% in 2022 to 35.6%, 29.7% and 25% in the most recent seasons. But he still averaged 99.3 miles per hour on his fastball this year, a tiny drop from his peak of 99.7 mph in in 2023. He may have been tipping his pitches and he also surrendered a fairly high .342 batting average on balls in play. His 14.5% home run to fly ball ratio was far worse than previous seasons. Part of that was him getting hit harder than before but some teams may feel he could be back to his old self with a tweak or two.

If the Jays circle back to Helsley, that would be a far different addition than Díaz. Díaz is about as rock-solid as a closer gets these days and would immediately supplant Hoffman as the top guy in the bullpen. Helsley would be a lower-cost flier and would surely start lower in the pecking order before having to earn his way up. How the Jays play it will presumably depend on the other market factors and how things play out with the other things on their to-do list.

Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images