The Blue Jays have reasons to start thinking ahead on the extension front, and the clock is part of the pressure. With a potential lockout looming and salary-cap proposals in the mix, Toronto has a chance to get in front of the market before the CBA expires on December 1.
That matters because the club has multiple young arms worth discussing now, not later. Trey Yesavage looks like the clearest candidate, Louis Varland is the most complicated, and José Soriano sits in the dark-horse lane.
Yesavage is the obvious place to start. Drafted 20th overall in the 2024 MLB Draft, he shot through the minors, reached the majors in mid-September last season, and immediately made his presence felt.
In his second career start, he helped Toronto clinch a postseason berth. In the next one, he helped the Blue Jays win the AL East.
The postseason only sharpened the case. In his playoff debut, Yesavage threw five hitless innings against the Yankees and set the single-season franchise record for strikeouts with 11. He finished by setting the all-time rookie record for strikeouts in a World Series with 12.
This season hasn’t been as smooth, but the talent has still shown up. Yesavage owns a 3.65 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 18 starts. He opened the year on the injured list and recently dealt with a meniscus injury, though he is expected back soon.
At 23, he’s exactly the kind of pitcher Toronto should be studying for an early deal. An extension would let the Blue Jays buy out some free-agent years and keep him cost-controlled if he keeps climbing.
The best comp in this lane may be Hunter Greene’s six-year, $53-million extension, since Greene and Spencer Strider are the only pitchers with just over one year of service time to sign pre-arb deals. Yesavage has 1.8 career WAR, and that puts him closer to Greene’s side of the conversation than Strider’s 4.8 WAR level.
Varland is a different kind of puzzle. Acquired from the Minnesota Twins at the 2025 Trade Deadline, he quickly earned manager John Schneider’s trust and became a weapon out of the bullpen. In the 2025 postseason, he appeared in 15 of Toronto’s 18 games, handling multiple innings, high-leverage work, and even the opener role in the ALDS Game 4 clincher against the Yankees.
His 2026 season started with a setup job behind Jeff Hoffman, but once Hoffman lost the closer role, Varland took over and kept it. He didn’t give it back, and he was named a 2026 All-Star.
Still, locking up a reliever early comes with real risk. Since 2020, only five relievers have signed pre-arb extensions: Justin Martinez, Trevor Stephan, Andrés Muñoz, Emmanuel Clase and Aaron Bummer.
The track record is messy. Martinez and Stephan both needed Tommy John surgery soon after signing.
Muñoz made the All-Star team in 2024 and 2025. Clase has been on the restricted list since July 2025 after allegations of sports betting.
Bummer struggled in 2023, was traded to the Atlanta Braves, and was released in May 2026.
Varland has been excellent since moving into a full-time relief role, piling up 4.1 WAR to this point, including 2.9 WAR and counting this season alone. But unlike Yesavage, there’s no obvious recent contract to use as a clean guide. He’s also controllable through the 2030 season, so Toronto doesn’t have to move fast unless it believes this version of Varland is here to stay.
Soriano might be the sneaky name in the group. Acquired from the Angels in a prospect package headlined by Arjun Nimmala, he has given the Blue Jays rotation a steady lift and paired well with Dylan Cease in an injury-hit staff.
The raw numbers are ordinary: in eight starts, Soriano has a 4.27 ERA and 1.32 WHIP. But there are signs the underlying work is better than the surface line.
His ground-ball rate has jumped to 56 percent with Toronto from 51.9 percent with the Angels, and his walk rate has dropped from 11.2 percent before the trade to 8.2 percent since. He’s also dealing with some bad batted-ball luck, with a .303 BABIP that lines up with his career high of .306.
If Toronto were to extend him, Tanner Bibee’s five-year, $48-million deal would be a reasonable starting point. Bibee had at least 3 WAR in each of the two seasons before his extension.
Soriano had a career-high 2.8 WAR last season despite a 4.26 ERA and 1.40 WHIP, and he’s still just 27. He is controllable for two more seasons, which makes him another candidate the Blue Jays may want to secure before the market gets pricier.
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The question now is what the Blue Jays are getting beyond the home run totals. Okamoto has also dealt with strikeouts and uneven work at third base, and the shape of his season has been as streaky as it is promising, with productive bursts followed by long cold stretches. For a team that expected a middle-of-the-order answer, the next step is figuring out whether the best version of Okamoto is the one that shows up often enough to anchor a lineup, or just in flashes. [Read more 🡒]