Fresh off a run to the World Series, the Blue Jays have been very active on the free agent market. They signed top free agent starter Dylan Cease to a seven-year deal and also brought in Kazuma Okamoto, Tyler Rogers, and Cody Ponce. The past few days have not gone in their favor, though. Toronto was one of the top suitors for Kyle Tucker and offered him $350MM over ten years before he signed with the Dodgers. They also hoped to re-sign Bo Bichette, but he opted for a short-term, high-AAV deal with the Mets yesterday.
After coming up short on Tucker and Bichette, it’s plausible the team could shift their focus back to adding more pitching. Lefty Framber Valdez remains available, and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reports that the Blue Jays met with him at the GM meetings back in November. Nicholson-Smith clarifies that the meeting was before Cease’s signing, but there was mutual interest between the two sides at the time.
Valdez has so far been publicly linked to the Orioles, Giants, Mets, and Red Sox. The Orioles’ interest was reported even after they signed Pete Alonso for $155MM over five years. The Giants are more interested in a short-term deal, while the Mets reportedly prefer to add pitching via trade. The Red Sox also Met with Valdez in November, but they may no longer be a fit after signing Ranger Suarez and trading for Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo.
As for the Blue Jays, their current interest in Valdez is unclear, as is their ability to fit him into the payroll. RosterResource has their 2026 payroll at $282MM and their CBT payroll at $310.5MM, which puts them over the maximum luxury tax line of $304MM. While their offer for Tucker would have carried a $35MM AAV plus a $31.5MM luxury tax bill, he may have been a special case as the clear top hitter on the market.
Meanwhile, Valdez is older than all three of Tucker, Bichette, and Cease. He was predicted to land a five-year, $150MM deal on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list. As a second-year luxury tax payor, the Jays would owe $27MM in tax penalties on that $30MM AAV, making Valdez a $57MM total cost in 2026 if they were to sign him. He also rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros, so he would cost the Jays their second- and fifth-highest draft picks in 2026. With a projected rotation of Cease, Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, and Ponce, it’s possible that Valdez is both too expensive and more of a want than a need for Toronto.
Of course, none of that takes away from Valdez’s track record. From 2022-25, he was worth 16.5 fWAR, which was fifth-best among qualified starters between Gausman and Cease. A lot of that success has come from Valdez’s suppression of home runs and exceptional groundball rates. In those four seasons, his 0.68 HR/9 is tied for fifth-best among qualified starters. His groundball rate of 60.0% is tops among starters with at least 500 innings. For Valdez, that number has never dipped below 54.2% in a full season.
He has also built a reputation for durability. Valdez’s 767 2/3 innings since the start of 2022 are second-most in the majors behind only Giants ace Logan Webb. This past year was more of the same. In 31 starts with the Astros, Valdez pitched 192 innings with a 3.66 ERA, a 58.6% groundball rate, and an above-average 14.8% K-BB rate.
He did show some signs of wear as the season went on, posting a 5.20 ERA in 71 innings in the second half. The last two months were especially rough. In August, Valdez only struck out 12.8% of hitters. In September and October, he became uncharacteristically homer-prone, allowing six long balls in 27 2/3 innings (1.95 HR/9). On the positive side, his sinker remained a dominant pitch, with a run value of 15 according to Statcast as well as above-average vertical break. While a long-term deal would take Valdez into his mid-30s, he should at least maintain a strong floor thanks to his durability and extreme groundball tendencies.
The market has been solid for pitchers looking for long-term deals. Cease was coming off an uneven walk year with the Padres and still got seven years from the Jays. Suarez just got five years and $130MM from Boston, matching our contract prediction in length and outdoing it by $15MM in value. Tatsuya Imai is perhaps the only starter expected to get a long-term deal who settled for a shorter pact (three years, $54MM with the Astros). Age aside, Valdez has a lengthy track record and should do better than Imai, at least in terms of AAV.
Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images
