The Blue Jays don’t need to squint too hard to see the fit with Michael Soroka.
He’s a free-agent starter with a résumé that still pops off the page: a former first-round pick, a one-time Top 25 prospect by MLB Pipeline, a Rookie of the Year runner-up, an All-Star, and a pitcher who owns a top-10 Cy Young finish. He’s also from Alberta, Canada, which gives Toronto an obvious hometown angle if it wants to chase him.
And the performance case is there too. In 2026, Soroka turned in the second-best season of his career, and at 29, he still looks like someone who could slot near the top of a rotation. Based on last season alone, he would have been Toronto’s No. 2 starter.
The numbers stack up in his favor against the other big names on the market. He posted a better WHIP than Dylan Cease, a better K/9 than Freddy Peralta, and a better HR/9 than Tarik Skubal. He also should come at a much lighter price than Skubal and well below what Peralta would cost.
There’s a reason that price should stay reasonable, though. Soroka’s path to this point has been anything but smooth, and that’s likely to keep his deal short and modest.
He threw 116 innings in 2026, which was his second-highest workload. Before that, his career was derailed by a brutal stretch from 2020 through 2023, when he logged just 46 innings total.
The lowest point came in 2024, when he worked 79.2 innings, posted a 4.474 ERA, and went 0-10 for a White Sox team that lost 121 games. It was the most losses by a winless pitcher since 1982.
In 2025, Soroka split time with the Nationals and Cubs, then signed with Arizona in December. He had originally agreed to a one-year, $7.5 million deal with the Diamondbacks last offseason, and he should get more than that now, though still not the kind of money attached to the top tier of this market.
Toronto’s interest in Soroka isn’t just about the stat line. The connection goes back years.
In 2015, he pitched for the Canadian Junior National Team in a spring-training game against a Blue Jays split squad. He threw a scoreless first inning and then induced what should have been an inning-ending double play with only one run allowed, but his teammate booted it and the frame unraveled.
Soroka ended up allowing seven runs, only one earned.
Afterward, Alex Anthopoulos and several other Blue Jays front-office members brought him into their booth and basically asked whether he would sign if Toronto drafted him. On the way out, Anthopoulos joked that if he did sign, they would put a better defense behind him than the one that had just led to the Jays putting a seven-spot on the board.
Toronto picked 29th. Atlanta took him at 28.
Soroka has said he wants to stay with the Diamondbacks, where he now spends his offseason in Scottsdale, but he also has a Team Canada track record, including a loss to the United States in the WBC quarterfinals. He gave Arizona a jolt right away in 2026, striking out 10 over five scoreless innings in his debut on March 30, including the fourth Immaculate Inning in Diamondbacks history. Then, in mid-April, he faced the Blue Jays at Chase Field and held them to two runs over seven innings with five strikeouts and no walks.
The stuff still plays. Soroka works with roughly a third fastballs, a third slurves, and the rest split between a changeup, cutter and sweeper. Opposing hitters managed only a .178 average and a .226 slugging percentage against the slurve.
The concern is durability, and that part of his story doesn’t disappear. He missed six weeks from mid-June to early August with a glute strain and later dealt with arm inflammation.
He also hasn’t had a clean run since his early Braves days, when he debuted at 20 and became Atlanta’s youngest Opening Day starter in 2020 before suffering an Achilles tear in August of that year and then tearing it again in June of 2021. He did not pitch in 2021 or 2022.
Even so, the case for Toronto is straightforward. The Blue Jays can count Cease, Soriano and Yesavage in their rotation, but the rest is far less certain. Soroka gives them a starter who should be above average, adds depth, and doesn’t require surrendering a draft pick because he is unlikely to receive a qualifying offer.
With four Gold Glove candidates behind him, Toronto could also keep that long-promised idea alive and put a better defense behind him.
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