The Blue Jays may not be done thinking about Kevin Gausman.
Even after a season that never really clicked, Gausman still looks like one of the more interesting starters on the free-agent board, and a reunion in Toronto would not come as a shock. The appeal is easy to see: even when the results wobbled, he still gave the kind of workload and baseline performance teams crave.
His 2026 season had its rough patches, especially in June and July, but he still finished with a 3.74 xFIP while holding opponents to a .244 batting average and a .294 BABIP. After moving to the Chicago Cubs in the second half, he tried to get back to his old form, though the splitter never fully came around.
The underlying numbers were a mixed bag. Gausman’s 3.30 xFIP stood out despite a .339 BABIP against him and a higher home run rate, with hitters producing 1.52 per 1.20 HR/9.
He also got his K/BB rate back up to 5.18 after it had fallen to 3.53 during his first stint with the Jays. That stretch helped him finish his sixth season with at least 170 innings pitched.
That durability remains one of the biggest reasons Gausman still matters. Across his career, he has built real value on the simple fact that he keeps taking the ball. Over the last six seasons, only nine pitchers have logged at least 1,000 innings, and Gausman ranks second in that group with 1,103 ⅓ innings in 190 starts, behind only San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb, who has 1,129 IP.
He also sits fourth in fWAR among those pitchers at 25.8, trailing Zack Wheeler (30.9), Webb (26.3), and Dylan Cease (26.2), who was his rotation teammate with the Jays until he was sent to Chicago at the trade deadline.
Still, the warning signs were real. The splitter, one of Gausman’s best weapons, lost some of its bite, and the slider also slipped. Those issues helped leave him in the 52nd percentile in Pitching.
That’s a steep drop from 2023, when he finished in the 92nd percentile in Pitching, the 99th in Fastballs, and the 64th in Offspeed. This year, he was still strong in Fastballs at the 87th percentile, though his Run Value fell from 20 to 11. He also sank to the 7th percentile in Breaking and the 37th in Offspeed.
He still misses bats and remains elite in Chase%, Whiff%, and BB%, but the splitter and slider were less reliable when he needed them most, particularly against right-handed hitters.
After the first time through the order, Gausman’s Run Value dropped from 8.1 to -6.1 with the splitter, and the slider slid from -1.6 to -3.2.
Those trends followed him all season and leave real questions about how dominant he can be going forward. But if he can make the right adjustments, there is still plenty here for a team like Toronto to consider: durability, competitiveness, and a track record of impact.
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