The Blue Jays are moving into the Tarik Skubal chase, and that alone tells you how aggressively Toronto is aiming at the top of the market.
According to the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, the club has lined up a meeting with the left-handed starter, who sits at the center of this year’s free-agent class. Heyman wrote, “The big-market Blue Jays are a player in the sweepstakes for superstar free agent Tarik Skubal, and they are expected to join the Mets, Padres and Dodgers in meeting with the two-time Cy Young winner in California next week, sources tell the Post,”
If Toronto gets this done, it would mean back-to-back winters landing the premier arm available. Last offseason, the Blue Jays brought in Dylan Cease on a seven-year, $210 million deal. Cease is likely to finish second in AL Cy Young voting behind New York Yankees ace Cam Schlittler.
Toronto’s rotation was battered by injuries throughout the year. Trey Yesavage, Max Scherzer, Shane Bieber, Jameson Taillon, and Cody Ponce, who made one start, all spent time on the IL.
The front office also worked the deadline, bringing in Jose Soriano and Spencer Arrighetti. It was a balancing act, and Toronto managed to walk that line between buying and selling.
Skubal, meanwhile, kept producing another Skubal-like season in 2026 even after surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing elbow.
Now the Blue Jays are trying to turn a disappointing fifth-place finish in the AL East into something much better, and landing Skubal would be a massive, costly first step.
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What makes the possibility more appealing for New York is the structure of Hernandezs situation. He still has minor league options available, and the contract he is expected to command should be modest compared with what a pitcher with similar numbers might usually cost, giving the Mets a potentially low-risk way to address a need without making a major financial commitment. [Read more 🡒]
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Mets Can't Afford To Ignore This Rotation Lesson
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But Peraltas experience also serves as a reminder that this kind of gamble is not always seamless. He had been effective in smaller markets before finding the adjustment to New York more difficult, which is exactly the sort of lesson the Mets cannot gloss over if they go looking for another rotation upgrade. The franchise has pulled off trade-and-extend moves before with players such as Francisco Lindor and Johan Santana, but repeating that formula in the pitching market is never as simple as it looks on paper. [Read more 🡒]