Otto Lopez’s rise in Miami has turned a former Blue Jays afterthought into a name worth circling again in Toronto.
Lopez just finished a huge 2026 season for the Marlins, leading the majors with 191 hits in his third big league year with the club. He also ranked fifth in batting average at .305, trailing only Yordan Alvarez, Luis Arraez, Chandler Simpson and Gabriel Moreno, another former Blue Jay.
That production has now put him in the middle of trade chatter. According to reports online, Miami is willing to listen on Lopez, with the key condition that the return would have to be substantial.
Barry Jackson of Miami Herald framed it this way: "If a team is willing to offer a lot in return”. The Marlins, per the report, are also open to offers on Xavier Edwards.
For Toronto, the fit is obvious enough to at least examine. The Blue Jays need offense heading into the 2026-27 offseason, and Lopez checks a lot of boxes even if he isn’t the big power bat they may have been chasing. He hit only 11 home runs, but the rest of his game carried plenty of weight.
Lopez’s speed changed games all year. He stole 34 bases and scored 94 runs, both team highs for Miami.
Those totals would have led the Blue Jays as well. Kazuma Okamoto, Toronto’s top hitter, would have finished second on the club in runs with 81, while Andres Giménez would have been second in steals with 20.
He also brought real value with the glove. Lopez turned 76 double plays, posted a +6 defensive runs saved mark and added +14 outs above average, good for the 98th percentile in the league.
That kind of profile fits a Blue Jays roster that doesn’t seem eager to hand Ernie Clement the second-base job full time next season. Giménez has also gone through some brutal cold streaks over the last two years, which only adds to the appeal of a player who can help stabilize the middle infield. Lopez could give Toronto a workable platoon arrangement between the three without giving back anything defensively.
The question, as always, is cost. The Marlins want a real return, and Toronto would have to decide whether Lopez is worth paying for after essentially letting him go for nothing the first time around. If the Blue Jays believe the breakout is real and that he’s becoming a legitimate hitting force, then the reunion is at least worth exploring.
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The scramble could create a short window where clubs are forced to act faster than planned, and Toronto is being mentioned among the teams best positioned to take advantage. In the broader picture, the Blue Jays are linked to several of the top names still out there, with one projection connecting them to Seiya Suzuki, a reminder that the market may not wait for the usual long negotiations to play out. [Read more 🡒]