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Beau Sulser Signs With CPBL’s Rakuten Monkeys

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The Rakuten Monkeys of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League announced that they have signed right-hander Beau Sulser. Yihsuan Wang of Yahoo Taiwan reported a few weeks back that the Sulser was in negotiations with a CPBL team. The righty is represented by Full Circle Sports Management.

Sulser, 31 in May, pitched in the majors in 2022. Splitting his time between the Pirates and Orioles, he tossed 22 1/3 innings over 10 appearances, allowing 3.63 earned runs per nine innings. He struck out 19.2% of batters faced and gave out walks at a 9.1% clip.

His minor league numbers that year were a bit more interesting. Over 56 2/3 Triple-A innings between those two clubs, his 4.13 ERA was pretty middling but his 24.3% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate were both strong numbers.

Going into 2023, he headed to Asia by signing with the KT Wiz of the KBO League in Korea. That move didn’t work out for him, as he posted a 5.62 ERA in 49 2/3 innings, getting released in June. For the latter half of 2023 and then the 2024 season, he was back in North America, bouncing around on minor league deals. Between the Pirates and Blue Jays, he had a 5.63 over that year and a half, throwing 112 minor league innings. His 6.6% walk rate was still good but he only struck out 17.9% of hitters.

Had he stayed in affiliated ball for 2025, Sulser surely would have been limited to another minor league deal and an uphill battle back to the majors. Instead, he’ll head overseas again for a clearer opportunity and likely a guaranteed salary above what he would make while pitching in Triple-A.

Mariners Acquire Will Klein, Designate Tyler Jay For Assignment

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The Mariners have acquired right-hander Will Klein from the Athletics, according to announcements from both clubs. The latter club had designated him for assignment last week. The A’s get international bonus pool space in return, though the exact amount wasn’t specified. The M’s designated left-hander Tyler Jay for assignment as the corresponding move.

Klein, 25, was traded from the Royals to the A’s as part of last summer’s deadline trade that sent Lucas Erceg to Kansas City. Klein has a sliver of major league experience to this point, having tossed 7 1/3 innings between the two clubs last year, allowing nine earned runs.

That means he currently sports an ugly 11.05 earned run average in the bigs, but it’s a tiny sample of work and he averaged 97 miles per hour on his fastball. In general, his pitching on the farm has resulted in heaps of strikeouts and walks. He has thrown 221 1/3 innings across various minor league levels, with a 5.16 ERA, 30.4% strikeout rate and 16.4% walk rate.

Given the poor control, Klein is probably considered something of a project. He still has a couple of options remaining, so the M’s can plug him in as depth while they see if he can rein in his arsenal a bit more.

Jay, 31 in April, was just claimed off waivers from the Brewers earlier this month. He has had a somewhat unique baseball journey, as he was the sixth overall pick in 2015 but various injuries derailed his career. He actually just debuted in the majors last year, almost a decade after being drafted. He tossed 7 2/3 innings between the Mets and Brewers, allowing four earned runs.

It’s hard to glean much from that sample but Jay also tossed 56 2/3 minor league innings last year between those two clubs with a 3.02 ERA. His 20.9% strikeout rate was subpar but he kept walks down to a 5.1% rate and got grounders on 47.3% of balls in play.

The M’s were intrigued enough to grab Jay off waivers but have now bumped him off the roster. He’ll be in DFA limbo for a week at most, waiting to see what comes next, whether that’s a trade or some fate back on the wire. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so any potential trade talks would have to come together in the next five days. He still has options and just a few days of service time, so any acquiring club could perhaps deploy him as a cheap depth arm with roster flexibility.

While it’s not great for the A’s to have already lost one of the three players they got for Erceg, they at least are getting some pool space out of this deal. As mentioned, the exact amount wasn’t reported, but pool space can only be traded in $250K increments. The A’s will get a bump of at least that much, which they can use to add some more talent to their system.

White Sox Designate Ron Marinaccio For Assignment

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The White Sox announced that right-hander Ron Marinaccio has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for left-hander Martín Pérez, whose one-year deal has now been officially announced.

Marinaccio, 29, hasn’t appeared in a big league game for the Sox. He was claimed off waivers from the Yankees with about a week remaining in the 2024 season, but was kept on optional assignment. He has held onto his roster spot for the past four months but has now been nudged off.

The righty was generally a high-strikeout and low-control guy for the Yanks. He tossed 91 1/3 innings over the 2022 and 2023 seasons, allowing 3.05 earned runs per nine. He struck out 29% of batters faced but also gave out walks at a 13.2% clip. In 2024, he got his walk rate down to 10.1% but his strikeout rate also fell to 25.3% as he posted a 3.86 ERA.

Overall, Marinaccio has a 3.22 ERA in 114 2/3 innings, with a 28.2% strikeout rate and 12.6% walk rate. It’s generally been fairly similar in the minors. Over the past four years, Marinaccio has thrown 132 innings on the farm with a 2.86 ERA, 33.5% strikeout rate and 11.5% walk rate.

The control is clearly an issue but Marinaccio is likely to draw interest based on the strikeouts. He also still has an option remaining and barely two years of service time, meaning he still hasn’t qualified for arbitration and can be sent to the minors fairly freely for another year. The Sox will have a week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next for the righty, though the waiver process takes 48 hours, meaning any trade talks would need to come together in the next five days.

White Sox Sign Martín Pérez

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January 21: The deal has now been officially announced by the White Sox.

January 8: The White Sox and left-hander Martín Pérez are in agreement on a deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. It’s a one-year, $5MM deal, per José F. Rivera of ESPN. That comes in the form of a $3.5MM salary and a $1.5MM buyout on a $10MM mutual option for 2026, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The deal is pending a physical for the Octagon client. The Sox have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move once this deal becomes official. Their Josh Rojas deal is also still not official, so the club now needs to open two spots.

Pérez, 34 in April, is a soft-tossing veteran innings eater. He split last year between the Pirates and Padres, making 26 starts and logging 135 frames. He allowed 4.53 earned runs per nine innings, striking out 18.1% of batters faced, issuing walks at an 8.3% clip and getting grounders on 44.4% of balls in play. He averaged 91.3 miles per hour with his four-seam fastball.

Those stats are pretty close to his career numbers. Dating back to his 2012 debut, he has thrown 1,575 2/3 innings with a 4.44 ERA, 16.2% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 48.7% ground ball rate. His fastball velocity was naturally higher when he was younger, but not by much. His highest four-seam velocity in a season was 94.2 mph, back in 2019.

He did end the 2024 season on a high note. He posted a 5.20 ERA with the Bucs before being traded to the Padres at the deadline, then went on to allow 3.46 earned runs per nine after the deal. His 20.3% strikeout rate after the trade was a few ticks higher than the 16.9% rate he had with Pittsburgh. He changed up his pitch mix a bit, throwing more changeups and curveballs with the Friars, while reducing his usage of cutters and sliders.

That’s somewhat encouraging but Pérez has previously flashed better results without sustaining them. He posted a 2.89 ERA over 32 starts for the Rangers in 2022, which prompted Texas to issue him a $19.65MM qualifying offer for 2023. The southpaw accepted that but then his ERA normalized to 4.45 that year. As mentioned, he held pretty steady in 2024, with a 4.53 ERA.

It’s not the most exciting profile but he’s a sensible fit for the South Side of Chicago. The White Sox had a poor rotation last year and it’s in worse shape now. They traded Erick Fedde to the Cardinals and the deadline and then flipped Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox last month. Chris Flexen reached free agency at season’s end. That means that Jonathan Cannon is the only guy still on the roster who made more than ten starts for the Sox last year.

Pérez has made at least 26 appearances in five straight full seasons. in 2024, he went on the injured list due to a left groin muscle strain but was back in less than a month. That was his most significant IL stint since 2018. While no pitcher is guaranteed to stay healthy, Pérez is perhaps one of the safer bets to take the ball when it’s his turn, even if the results are more passable than outstanding.

Given the uncertainty in the club’s rotation, it’s a logical pick up. The Sox also added Bryse Wilson earlier this offseason, another move designed to bolster a group fairly lacking in experience. The final three spots are up for grabs, with Cannon, Davis Martin, Sean Burke, Drew Thorpe, Nick Nastrini, Jairo Iriarte, Jake Eder, Wikelman Gonzalez, Ky Bush and Juan Carela around to battle for opportunities. Prospects Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith aren’t yet on the roster but could push into the mix during the season.

Apart from Pérez and Wilson, no one in that cluster of rotation options has even one year of major league service time. The Sox can use Pérez as a veteran anchor, at least for a few months. If he’s pitching well, he could be flipped to a contending club at the deadline, just as he was last year. That would then open up second-half starts for whichever young pitcher has earned them.

Angels, Jose Quijada Avoid Arbitration

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The Angels announced Tuesday that they’ve signed left-handed reliever Jose Quijada to a one-year contract with a club option for the 2026 season, avoiding arbitration in the process. Quijada, a client of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, will be paid $1.075MM this coming season, per the team. (The Angels are one of just a few major league teams that publicly announce financial details of their transactions.) The 2026 option is valued at $3.75MM.

Quijada had filed for a $1.14MM salary in his second trip through the arb process. He was recovering from Tommy John surgery during his first trip through arbitration and thus landed on an $840K salary that wasn’t too far north of last year’s $740K minimum. The Halos countered with a $975K proposal.

Today’s agreement checks in north of the midpoint between those two sums. Because it includes a club option, it won’t be considered a true “one-year deal” for the Angels or other clubs leaguewide; that’s important with regard to arbitration specifically, as arb negotiations are based on comps for prior one-year deals for players in the same service class. Even if the Angels decline the club option, Quijada would remain under their control for 2026 and would simply be arbitration-eligible once again.

The 29-year-old Quijada finished up his recovery from that 2023 Tommy John procedure in late July. He returned to the Halos and appeared in 22 games in the season’s final nine weeks, logging 19 1/3 innings with a tidy 3.26 ERA. He set down a hearty 28.6% of his opponents on strikes but also issued walks at an alarming 20.2% clip. Command has been a long-running issue for Quijada but not to that extent; in 108 2/3 prior big league innings, he’d walked 13.8% of batters faced.

Even with that problematic command, Quijada comes at an affordable rate and brings some clearly tantalizing traits to the table. He logged a big 14% swinging-strike rate this past season, in part due to an uncanny knack for missing bats within the strike zone. Opponents made contact at just a 78.8% clip on in-zone pitches offered by Quijada — well shy of the 85.2% league average. The lefty’s velocity also strengthened over the course of his return; he averaged 93.5 mph on his heater through his first two weeks off the injured list but sat 94 mph on average thereafter. With a bit more time to continue building up, he may well have returned to the 94.5 mph average he posted in his last full, healthy season in 2022.

With Quijada’s case now resolved, the Angels have cleared up one of three pending cases. Infielder Luis Rengifo filed for a $5.95MM salary. The team countered at $5.8MM. Outfielder Mickey Moniak filed at $2MM to the team’s $1.5MM. You can read more about the reasons for teams and players go to battle over ostensibly trivial sums like this in this 2015 piece I wrote after chatting with several general managers and assistant GMs around the league.

Mariners Outright Samad Taylor

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The Mariners announced Tuesday that infielder/outfielder Samad Taylor, whom they designated for assignment last week, passed through waivers unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Tacoma. He’ll remain with the organization and presumably head to major league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.

Seattle acquired Taylor, now 26, just under one calendar year ago. He’d been designated for assignment by Kansas City, and the M’s scooped him up by trading a player to be named later (eventually announced as Natanael Garabitos) to the Royals in return.

Taylor appeared in only three games for the Mariners this past season, going 2-for-5 in that time. He spent the vast majority of the season in Tacoma, where he posted a .262/.352/.380 slash in 136 games and 599 plate appearances. Taylor’s 11.4% walk rate and hefty 50 stolen bases are both plenty appealing, but he posted bottom-of-the-scale batted-ball metrics: an 86.1 mph average exit velocity and 26.6% hard-hit rate in Tacoma. He also fanned in 26% of his plate appearances.

Defensively, Taylor has played primarily second base in his career, though has has experience at shortstop, third base and all three outfield slots. The Mariners will surely be happy to stash that versatility, blistering speed and patient approach at the plate in the upper minors as non-roster depth.

Pirates Agree To Minor League Deals With DJ Stewart, Ryder Ryan

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The Pirates have agreed to minor league deals with outfielder DJ Stewart and right-hander Ryder Ryan. Stewart’s deal was first reported by Mike Mayer of Metsmerized while Ryan’s was first reported by Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Stewart is represented by Excel Sports Management.

Stewart, 31, spent the past two years with the Mets. He had a nice run for them in 2023, hitting 11 home runs in just 185 plate appearances. He struck out at a 30.3% clip but the power was enough to get him back on the team in 2024. This past year, he was only able to put the ball over the fence five times in 194 trips to the plate. He drew walks at a stellar clip of 16% but hit .177/.325/.297 overall, getting outrighted at season’s end.

When combined with his tenure as an Oriole, Stewart has 1,001 major league plate appearances now. His 12.8% walk rate is strong but he’s also been punched out at a 27.1% clip. Thanks to the free passes and his 42 home runs, he’s been a decent hitter in spite of the strikeouts. His career line of .212/.328/.401 leads to a 102 wRC+, indicating he’s been 2% better than league average on the whole.

Despite the solid overall offense, there are limits to his overall profile. Ideally, he is deployed as a platoon bat. The lefty swinger has a .214/.332/.430 line and 110 wRC+ against righties, compared to a .204/.309/.270 line and 66 wRC+ against southpaws. He’s not a burner on the basepaths and his defense has received poor grades.

Still, he’s a sensible enough flier for the Pirates. They have two outfield spots spoken for between Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz, though one corner is fairly wide open. Guys like Joshua Palacios, Billy Cook, Jack Suwinski and Ji Hwan Bae are on the roster but none of them are guaranteed a regular role and it’s entirely possible that someone like Stewart could outplay them, at least for a strong-side platoon gig. If Stewart gets a spot, he’s out of options but has less than four years of service time, meaning he could be retained beyond this year via arbitration if he still has a roster spot at season’s end.

Ryan, 30 in May, has a fairly limited track record at the major league level. He has 16 appearances, 15 of which came with the Bucs last year. He has allowed 5.40 earned runs per nine innings in his small sample of 21 2/3 career frames. The Pirates outrighted him off the roster in August and he elected free agency at season’s end. Over the past four years, Ryan has thrown 200 1/3 Triple-A innings with a 4.31 ERA, 24.3% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate.

He’ll provide the club with some non-roster bullpen depth. If he gets added to the roster at any point, he still has one option year remaining and could therefore be shuttled to Triple-A and back fairly freely.

Dodgers, Kirby Yates Reportedly Reach “Tentative” Agreement

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10:55am: There’s nothing official in place yet, per reports from Jack Harris of the L.A. Times and Ken Rosenthal and Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic (among others). Harris writes that the two parties are “working toward a deal,” while The Athletic indicates “serious” negotiations are taking place. There could simply be semantics at play. Nightengale’s initial report plainly stated that a physical still needs to take place, so there’s never been firm indication of a final deal yet. A physical for a 38-year-old pitcher with Yates’ injury history isn’t necessarily a layup, but that seems to be the stage they’ve reached. If all goes well, a deal would be announced in the next few days.

9:52am: The Dodgers and reliever Kirby Yates have reached a “tentative” agreement, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The contract is pending completion of a physical. Yates, a client of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, would be the second high-profile bullpen addition for the Dodgers in recent days; they also inked Tanner Scott to a four-year, $72MM deal over the weekend. If the physical goes well and the deal is indeed finalized, L.A. will need to make a corresponding transaction to remove someone from the 40-man roster.

It’s the latest strike in an offseason spending blitz that has seen the Dodgers make free agent plays for Scott, Blake Snell, Teoscar Hernandez, Blake Treinen, Michael Conforto and international stars Hyeseong Kim and Roki Sasaki. Those additions come as Los Angeles looks to become the first repeat World Series champion since the Yankees’ threepeat back in 1998-2000.

Manager Dave Roberts’ bullpen has been completely remade over the past six months, beginning with the deadline acquisition of Michael Kopech. In late July, closer Evan Phillips was struggling at the time of that Kopech acquisition, and much of the bullpen was in a state of flux. Since then, the Dodgers have acquired Kopech, activated Treinen from the injured list (and, this offseason, re-signed him to a two-year deal) and now signed both Scott and Yates in free agency. A late-inning contingent of Scott, Yates, Kopech, Phillips and Treinen is very arguably the most talented quintet of any team in baseball.

It should be noted, however, that Nightengale suggests the Dodgers recently learned of an injury to Kopech that could cost him at least a month of the season. Details on said injury have yet to surface, but that revelation likely played a part in the team’s decision to close an agreement with Yates.

Yates himself isn’t without risk. He’ll turn 38 in March, and he pitched all of 11 major league innings from 2020-22 due to injuries (Tommy John surgery, most notably). The veteran closer returned with a healthy but shaky season for the 2023 Braves, logging a sharp 3.28 ERA in 60 1/3 innings but also walking nearly 15% of his opponents. He improved across the board with the 2024 Rangers, firing 61 2/3 innings of 1.17 ERA ball with a gargantuan 35.9% strikeout rate. His 11.8% walk rate was still noticeably higher than the 8.2% league average but a substantial improvement over his 2023 campaign nonetheless.

Yates ranked second among all free agent relievers in strikeout rate last year, trailing only Aroldis Chapman. He paced all qualified free agent relievers in ERA and ranked seventh or better in SIERA (2.85), K-BB% (24.1) and swinging-strike rate (15.2%). No qualified free agent reliever missed bats within the strike zone as much as Yates; his opponents’ 74.3% contact rate on pitches in the strike zone sat at the top of this year’s free agent class and sat as the third-best mark in all of baseball for pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched, trailing only Josh Hader and Mason Miller.

Dating back to his breakout with the 2018 Padres, Yates has consistently been outstanding when healthy enough to take the hill. He’s pitched 257 innings in that time and boasts a 2.21 ERA, 35.5% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate and 15.2% swinging-strike rate. He’s leaned on a lethal four-seamer and splitter pairing that’s helped him miss bats in droves while piling up 93 saves and 30 holds in 262 appearances on the mound.

The Dodgers are already well into the fourth and final tier of luxury penalization. Any dollars allocated to Yates will come with a 110% tax, as was the case with Scott. RosterResource already projects the team’s luxury tax ledger to sit at a staggering $371MM; the addition of Yates could push their CBT number close to $400MM. The Dodgers were already set to owe around $108MM in overage taxes before the signing of Yates; presuming he gets an eight-figure salary, they’ll very likely owe more than $120MM in taxes alone.

Cubs, Trevor Richards Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Trevor Richards, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. Richards, a client of Apex Baseball, will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.

The 31-year-old Richards has spent the bulk of the past four seasons with the Blue Jays but was traded to the Twins just prior to the 2024 trade deadline. He posted a 4.55 ERA with a 22.4% strikeout rate and a career-high 12.6% walk rate between Toronto and Minnesota this past season and carries a 4.60 earned run average over the past four seasons.

Richards has posted a combined 29.1% strikeout rate in 266 1/3 innings dating back to 2021, showing a clear ability to miss bats. He’s battled command troubles along the way, however, both in terms of finding the strike zone at all (11.3% walk rate, 29 wild pitches) and in terms of precision when he does put the ball over the plate (1.39 HR/9).

Although Richards is right-handed, he’s been far more effective against lefties than against righties, due in large part to his top secondary offering being a plus changeup. Lefty batters have hit just .220/.315/.371 against Richards in his career, while righties have a more productive .248/.320/.433 slash.

The Cubs have worked to add to their bullpen this offseason but thus far have made primarily marginal acquisitions. Chicago bid aggressively on top closer Tanner Scott — a notable departure from president Jed Hoyer’s aversion to multi-year deals for relievers — but were reportedly the runner-up prior to the Dodgers. The Cubs have signed Caleb Thielbar and acquired Eli Morgan from the Guardians. They’ll both be in the Opening Day bullpen. Other offseason pickups include DFA additions Matt Festa (acquired for cash) and Rob Zastryzny (claimed off waivers). Richards joins a group of non-roster signings also featuring Phil Bickford, Ben Heller and Brooks Kriske.

Blue Jays Sign Anthony Santander

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The Blue Jays finally have a big splash, plucking a slugger from a division rival. The Jays officially announced the signing of star outfielder Anthony Santander to a five-year contract. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client is reportedly guaranteed $92.5MM, though heavy deferrals drop the net present value. For luxury tax purposes, the contract reportedly comes with an average annual value around $14MM — suggesting MLB calculates the net present value closer to $70MM. Santander can opt out after the third year, though the club will have the ability to override that by picking up an option for 2030. That has a base value of $15MM and contains a $5MM buyout.

The option and various escalators could tack on another $17.5MM over that sixth season. The deal is frontloaded and contains upwards of $35MM in deferrals, which can push beyond $50MM depending on the opt-out/option result. Toronto designated lefty Brandon Eisert for assignment to create a 40-man roster spot.

Santander, 30, has established himself as one of the better power bats in the league in recent years. That included a huge 44-homer tally in 2024. That was his personal best but it was also his sixth straight season in double digits and third straight with at least 28 long balls.

Earlier in his career, he undercut that power production somewhat with more tepid results in terms of batting average and drawing walks, though he has been better at drawing free passes over the past three years. From 2019 to 2021, he hit 49 homers in 240 games but only had a 5.2% walk rate. That led to a .252/.295/.474 batting line and 100 wRC+, indicating his strengths and weaknesses evened out to league average production on the whole.

For the 2022 to 2024 seasons, Santander improved his walk rate by a few ticks, finishing between 8.4% and 8.7% in each of those. That’s roughly league average, with all MLB hitters walking at an 8.2% clip last year. He added those walks without sacrificing his power, putting the ball over the wall 105 times, which made for a productive combination. He had a combined line of .244/.317/.478 for those three campaigns, which translated to a 124 wRC+.

Apart from those home runs, Santander’s contributions have been fairly limited. As mentioned, the on-base abilities have been subpar overall, though fairly decent in the past three years. He’s not a burner on the basepaths, having only once stolen more than two bases in a season. His outfield defense has generally been graded as a bit below league average. He has a career tally of -3 Defensive Runs Saved in over 5,000 outfield innings, with Outs Above Average having him at -13.

Though he’s not the most well-rounded player, he’s a strong fit for the Blue Jays for multiple reasons. The club’s offense was actually around league average last year, though with far better on-base ability than power production. As a team, the Jays slashed .241/.313/.389 for a 101 wRC+, tied for 13th in the league. Their 8.4% walk rate was actually one of the better marks, tied for seventh among the 30 MLB clubs. But they only hit 156 home runs, with just the Marlins, Rays, Nationals and White Sox below them. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the only guy on the team to reach the 20-homer plateau.

On top of that, Santander is a switch-hitter, with the Jays having been more right-leaning in recent years. Guerrero, Bo Bichette, George Springer and Alejandro Kirk all project for regular roles next year and each is right-handed. Ernie Clement, Davis Schneider, Leo Jiménez and Orelvis Martínez are also righties who could earn spots on the team. The Jays do have a few lefties, with Daulton Varsho, Andrés Giménez, Will Wagner and Joey Loperfido among them, though there are question marks there. Varsho and Giménez have been more glove-first players while Wagner and Loperfido are still lacking in big league experience. Santander’s splits have been fairly close to neutral in his career. He has hit .252/.320/.467 for a 116 wRC+ against lefties, .243/.302/.470 for a 111 wRC+ against righties.

The defensive hit from rostering Santander is also perhaps not a huge deal for Toronto. The Jays, as a team, led the league with 102 DRS last year. Their 26 OAA tally was fourth in the league. Sacrificing a bit of defensive value for the big power bat they need is a sensible tradeoff for them. They also don’t have a regular designated hitter and can perhaps keep Santander in that slot with some regularity. Justin Turner took most of the club’s DH plate appearances in 2024 before being traded to the Mariners at the deadline.

Beyond the on-field fit, the Jays have clearly been looking for a big offseason W for quite some time. The past year-plus has seen them make strong pursuits of marquee players, such as Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Roki Sasaki, Max Fried and Corbin Burnes, but with the Jays coming up just short in all of those.

After missing on Ohtani last winter, the Jays pivoted to modest moves, re-signing Kevin Kiermaier as well as adding Turner, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Yariel Rodríguez. No one in that group got a guarantee larger than $32MM. The 2024 season then went on to be a massive disappointment, with the Jays engineering a midseason selloff and finishing at 74-88. They seemed to come into this winter looking to mollify a disgruntled fan base but the near misses on Soto, Sasaki, Fried and Burnes only appeared to make things worse. Whether Santander is a true star is subjective, though this signing will be Toronto’s biggest since they signed Kevin Gausman three years ago.

One silver lining of the 2024 season falling apart for the Jays was that their midseason selling dipped them below the competitive balance tax, which lowered their penalties for signing a player who rejected a qualifying offer. That is the case here, as the Orioles extended a QO to Santander, which he naturally rejected. Had the Jays paid the tax in 2024, they would have forfeited $1MM of international bonus pool space by signing Santander, in addition to surrendering their second- and fifth-best picks in the draft. By ducking under the tax, the penalty is just $500K of 2026 pool space and only their second-best pick. Since Santander is guaranteed more than $50MM on this deal, the O’s will receive a compensation pick after the first round of this summer’s draft.

Coming into the offseason, MLBTR predicted that Santander could secure a four-year, $80MM pact. He seemed to have plenty of interest, with the Jays connected to him early on. Clubs like the Red Sox, Tigers, Yankees and Angels were also rumored to be interested at various times. Santander and his reps reportedly tried to parlay that interest into a five-year deal and/or a $100MM guarantee in December, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. But he lingered unsigned into the new year and reportedly had some openness to considering a shorter pact.

In the end, he has gotten his five years, though at a lesser average annual value than he was seeking. The sticker price of $92.5MM over five years leads to an $18.5MM AAV, but the deferrals reduce that by a decent amount. The opt-out gives him a chance at some more future earnings, though the Jays could pick up the option and effectively make it $110MM over six years.

Using the pre-deferral $18.5MM AAV, RosterResource projects the club for a $237MM payroll and $263MM CBT calculation for this year. The club opened with a payroll of $225MM last year, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, so they’re already beyond that. President Mark Shapiro previously suggested that he didn’t expect the club’s spending to drastically change compared to last year, perhaps suggesting there’s not much room left in the budget now. Though Scott Mitchell of TSN suggests that signing Pete Alonso is still a possibility for the Jays even after getting Santander, seemingly indicating otherwise. The club also reportedly has some interest in starting pitching upgrades and has been working to bolster the bullpen all winter. The CBT number is already beyond this year’s $261MM second tier, though the club will be a “first-time” payor on account of ducking under last year.

Perhaps the Jays will make some more additions, such as bringing in Alonso. Such a move would force him and Guerrero to share first base and the DH slot, thus pushing Santander into being an everyday outfielder. If that comes to pass, he would surely be in one corner with Springer in the other. Varsho will be the club’s regular center fielder once he’s healthy. Guys like Loperfido, Nathan Lukes, Myles Straw, Jonatan Clase and Alan Roden will either be options for depth roles or bench jobs. If Santander is able to serve as the DH more regularly, that could perhaps open more outfield playing time for those others.

For the clubs that missed on Santander, the outfield market is fairly thinned out. In addition to Santander, guys like Soto, Teoscar Hernández, Michael Conforto and Tyler O’Neill have come off the board. Jurickson Profar now stands alone as the top unsigned option, so perhaps his market will now pick up. Guys like Randal Grichuk, Harrison Bader, Mark Canha and others are also available.

Jon Morosi of MLB Network first reported that Santander and the Jays were in agreement, pending a physical. Ben Nicholson Smith and Shi Davidi of Sportsnet later reported that the physical was complete. Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 first reported the five-year length, the opt-out/club option override, the signing bonus, the $92.5MM guarantee and the possibility to get to $110MM. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that the opt-out is after 2027. Nicholson-Smith reported the frontloaded nature, as well as the approximate $14MM CBT value. Alexander reported that more than $35MM was deferred.

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