With the 2026 season now wrapped up for the Toronto Blue Jays, George Springer may have already played his last game in a Toronto uniform. His six-year contract, signed before the 2021 season, ran through 2026, and while nothing is locked in, the signs point toward this being the end of the line.
That deal stood as the biggest free agent contract in Blue Jays history when it was handed out, until Dylan Cease’s seven-year, $210 million agreement passed it this past offseason. Springer’s time in Toronto came with a wild mix of highs and lows, but the overall question is simple: where does that contract belong in the team’s all-time free agent landscape?
One important note matters here. This conversation only includes free agent deals, so extensions like Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s or José Bautista’s are not part of the comparison.
On pure production, Springer gave Toronto plenty to work with over six seasons. He appeared in 776 games and logged 3,325 plate appearances, hitting .260/.340/.452 with a 122 wRC+ and 15.6 fWAR.
Among Blue Jays position players, that puts him 13th in wRC+ and 21st in fWAR. In the counting stats, he finished 11th in home runs with 134, 13th in runs scored with 474 and 20th in RBI with 392.
The peak seasons are what make the deal look so strong. Springer put up 6.6 fWAR and a 135 wRC+ across 2021 and 2022 while batting .266/.346/.502.
Then came 2025, when he delivered the best offensive season of his career: .309/.399/.560 with a 166 wRC+ and 5.2 fWAR. His OBP, wRC+ and wOBA that year were all career highs.
But the rough stretches were real, too. Over 2023 and 2024, Springer managed just 2.8 fWAR and a 99 wRC+. In 2026, he was still useful, but nowhere near the version Toronto had at its best, finishing with 0.9 fWAR and a 105 wRC+.
The contract itself came in at six years and $150 million, which works out to $9,615,384.62 per fWAR over the life of the deal.
Compared with some of the Blue Jays’ biggest free agent contracts, Springer’s deal sits in a pretty solid spot:
Player | Years | Total $ (millions) | fWAR produced | $ per fWAR (to date)
George Springer | 6 | 150 | 15.6 | 9,615,384.62
Dylan Cease | 7 | 210 | 5.7 | 4,444,862.11
Kevin Gausman | 5 | 110 | 20.5 | 5,127,429.22*
Anthony Santander | 6 | 92.5 | -0.9 | -39,333,333.33
Russell Martin | 5 | 82 | 11.1 | 7,063,063.06
*Only includes money paid by Blue Jays, not other organizations
Outside of the obvious outlier in Anthony Santander’s case, Springer’s deal holds up well against the franchise’s biggest free agent swings. The cleanest comparisons are probably Gausman and Martin, since both spent most of their contracts in Toronto. Cease, meanwhile, still needs more time before the full picture comes into focus.
By rate, Springer comes in behind those two, and the reason is obvious: the contract split into two very different versions of the player. There was the All-Star-level Springer from 2021, 2022 and 2025, and then there was the version in 2023, 2024 and 2026 who was much closer to replacement level.
That leaves the bigger question of how much peak performance should outweigh the quiet stretches. Do three elite seasons balance out three subpar ones? That’s the heart of the debate with this deal.
Springer’s 5.2 fWAR in 2025 was just shy of the best single-season mark in this group, trailing Gausman’s 5.5 in 2022 and 5.3 in 2023. It’s also worth remembering that Springer was on a 4.9 fWAR pace per 650 plate appearances in 2021 before multiple IL stints cut his season short.
Toronto has also gotten huge production from shorter deals, including Marcus Semien’s one-year, $18 million run in 2021, when he posted 5.9 fWAR. But that kind of one-season burst doesn’t match the volume Springer provided over six years.
If you’re grading the contract strictly on value, a B feels about right. The down years were too visible to ignore. Still, there’s another layer here: the October moments.
Springer’s 2025 postseason line was .284/.347/.552 with a 147 wRC+ during Toronto’s run to the World Series. And then there was the home run - the one that will stick in franchise memory.
George Springer: BIG TIME PLAYER #SpringerDinger pic.twitter.com/pnkTKB7OOA
- Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) October 21, 2025
His go-ahead homer in Game 7 of the 2025 ALCS against the Seattle Mariners stands as one of the biggest moments in Blue Jays history. It belongs in the same conversation as Bautista’s bat flip, Edwin Encarnación’s walk-off against the Baltimore Orioles in the 2016 Wild Card game and Joe Carter’s walk-off to win the 1993 World Series.
So when the dust settles, Springer’s contract lands near the top of the Blue Jays’ free agent ledger. Between the regular-season production, the contract value, the huge October moments and the less measurable impact that came with it, this is one of the best deals the franchise has ever signed.
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