The Blue Jays came within a game — a few innings, really — of a playoff berth in 2021, but they face the loss of two of their three most valuable players as free agents this winter. Marcus Semien has already signed with the Rangers, leaving the Blue Jays with an extra draft pick but taking away about seven wins of value; Robbie Ray, who also rejected a qualifying offer, appears headed to the Mariners, which would take away at least four more wins of value. That’s a huge loss for any team to bear, so the Jays were aggressive in replacing one of those players, signing Kevin Gausman for five years and $110 million to fill the void left by Ray’s departure.
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Gausman was my No. 2 starter in this year’s free-agent class, just behind Marcus Stroman, and had some argument to be the top guy because he has a higher ceiling than Stroman but a lesser track record of performance; Gausman’s resume as a high-end starter (someone who’d comfortably fit in the top two spots of any rotation) mostly boils down to the last two seasons, since he arrived in San Francisco. This is the pitcher I always thought he could be, as did the Orioles, I’m sure, when they took him with the fourth pick in the 2012 draft out of LSU. Multiple issues, from the club’s disagreeing with Gausman over where he should stand on the rubber to efforts to get him to develop an average breaking ball, led to his disappointing end in Baltimore, and he didn’t reach his potential until he went to the Giants, who told him to stand where he wanted and throw that filthy splitter all the time.
Gausman still doesn’t have that average breaking ball, but he’s made it less important since he left the Orioles, throwing the splitter more in the three years since he left than he ever did in Baltimore, making his slider a distant third pitch that he uses only a few times a game. The splitter was the most effective splitter or changeup in baseball last year by Fangraphs’ pitch values, and it makes his fastball more effective as well because hitters can’t easily distinguish between the pitches out of his hand. He may just not need another pitch, and tinkering could just cause him to regress. There’s nothing in the last two years of his performance that would say he needs something else. Perhaps leaving San Francisco, a generally pitcher-friendly ballpark, will have some impact on him, but the quality of the pitches should carry him through. Toronto can at least feel like it has covered Ray’s departure with an equivalent starter, and arguably one with less risk — Gausman has been extremely durable, and his lows were never as bad as those of Ray. Replacing Semien won’t be easy, but this is a great first step toward getting the Blue Jays to the playoffs in 2022.
Toronto could still use another starter, assuming that Nate Pearson isn’t going to make more than 12-15 starts in 2022 after another injury-plagued year in 2021. (I still believe in his upside, but the team has to be realistic about his workload and durability.) Their bigger needs are on the infield, where the Blue Jays don’t have average regulars at second or third base; they do have Kevin Smith, who reworked his swing before 2021 and had a huge year in Triple A, as a possibility for one of those positions, but they need to find another option from outside the organization for the other spot. Eduardo Escobar, who signed with the Mets, would have been a good fit, as would Jonathan Villar.
With the deals for Ray, Eduardo Rodriguez and Jon Gray, along with the three-year, $130 million agreement between the Mets and Max Scherzer (who is much older than any of these other guys), I think it points to the remaining elite starter, Stroman, getting at least the same AAV as Gausman, if not more. Stroman should be looking for five years and $120 million. There are also still clearly enough teams looking for starting pitching for him to end up with a contract in that range; the Giants, who lost Gausman and no longer have Buster Posey’s salary on their 2022 payroll, should be first in line, although the Dodgers, Phillies, and Yankees should be right behind them.
(Photo: Will Newton / Getty Images)
