Jeff Hoffman is a different pitcher than the one who was drafted ninth overall by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014. The 32-year-old right-hander has changed organizations multiple times, most recently moving from the Phillies back to his original team on a three-year, $33 million contract he signed in January. He earned that deal following back-to-back years in which he came into his own on the mound. Since being signed off the scrap heap by Philadelphia prior to the 2023 season, Hoffman has made 122 relief appearances and logged a 2.28 ERA, a 2.58 FIP, and a 33.4% strikeout rate over 118 2/3 innings. Before his breakthrough, he’d appeared in 134 games with a 5.68 ERA and a 5.34 FIP over 348 1/3 innings from 2016-2022.

Expectations were high when he entered pro ball. A potential first overall pick before injuring his elbow during his draft season at East Carolina University, Hoffman ranked second on our 2015 Blue Jays Top Prospects list despite having undergone Tommy John surgery the previous summer.

What did his FanGraphs scouting report look like at that time? Moreover, what does he think of it all these years later? Curious to find out, I shared some of what our then-lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel wrote back in 2015 and asked Hoffman to respond to it.

———

“He broke out in the summer before the draft on the Cape, flashing an 80 fastball and 65 or 70 curveball from an athletic delivery, projectable frame and shockingly good feel to pitch given the power stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

One way to tell the difference between a baseball fan who has a life and a true sicko is whether they have strong opinions on players who sign minor league contracts and attend spring training on a non-roster invite. The person in a Cubs hat who’s stoked about the Kyle Tucker trade and knows all sorts of intimate biographical details about Shota Imanaga? That’s your friend. If they start talking to you about Travis Jankowski, they might be in a little too deep.

We sickos know that while championships can be won and glory earned on the major league free agent market, NRIs are nonetheless a meaningful collection of useful roster players. Sometimes more. I’d argue that these fringe hopefuls are the only players who truly stand to gain by their performance in camp.

Moreover, these players are by definition underdogs. They include former top prospects, guys recovering from injury, and itinerant Quad-A players hoping for one last spin of the wheel. If you weren’t interested in their progress on a competitive level, surely we can interest you in an underdog story. Read the rest of this entry »

If the winter is a time for dreams, the spring is a time for solutions. Your team may have been going after Juan Soto or Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani, depending on the offseason, but short of something going weird in free agency (like the unsigned Boras clients last year), if you don’t have them under contract at this point, they’ll be improving someone else’s club. However, that doesn’t mean that spring training is only about ramping up for the daily grind. Teams have real needs to address, and while they’re no doubt workshopping their own solutions – or possibly convincing themselves that the problem doesn’t exist, like when I wonder why my acid reflux is awful after some spicy food – that doesn’t mean that we can’t cook up some ideas in the FanGraphs test kitchen.

This is the first piece in a three-part series in which I’ll propose one way for each team to fill a roster hole or improve for future seasons. Some of my solutions are more likely to happen than others, but I tried to say away from the completely implausible ones. We’ll leave the hypothetical trades for Bobby Witt Jr. and Paul Skenes to WFAN callers. Also, I will not recommend the same fix for different teams; in real life, for example, David Robertson can help only one club’s bullpen. Today, we’ll cover the 10 teams in the East divisions, beginning with the five in the AL East before moving on to their counterparts in the NL East. Each division is sorted by the current Depth Charts projected win totals. Read the rest of this entry »

Drake Baldwin is one of baseball’s most-promising prospects. A third-round pick in 2022 out of Missouri State University, the 23-year-old catcher in the Atlanta Braves organization is No. 11 on our Top 100. His left-handed stroke is a big reason why. Flashing plus power, Baldwin bashed 16 home runs last season while logging a 119 wRC+ between Double-A Mississippi and Triple-A Gwinnett.

He could have pursued a career in another sport. All-State in hockey as a Wisconsin prep, the sturdily-built Madison West High School product potted 43 goals as a junior, then found the back of the net 46 times as a senior.

Why did he choose the diamond, and not the ice?

“Hockey recruiting is a little later, so I didn’t actually talk to many colleges,” Baldwin said of his decision. “I think I had a chance, and the [junior hockey] route was interesting too, but being able to go right from high school to college and start working on a degree was a more straightforward path to where I wanted to be. I mean, I love both sports. I wish I could play both of them. Baseball just came first.” Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday morning, legendary baseball writer Jayson Stark was at Blue Jays camp in Dunedin, Florida, where he found something he liked.

Here's another Dunedin feature I'm a fan of. Exit velocity data on the scoreboard during batting practice. Including the bunts!

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T15:36:16.065Z

The Blue Jays were posting live batted ball data during batting practice, and this is indeed cool. At the absolute worst, this is an interesting bit of information for anyone who happens to be hanging around. We all have varying appetites for data while consuming sports, but I don’t know anyone who sees a hitter put a ball in the seats and doesn’t immediately think, “I wonder exactly how far he hit that.” Read the rest of this entry »

In a generally bleak 2024 season for the Toronto Blue Jays, one of the few bright spots in that Kafkaesque wasteland was the return of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as a force to be reckoned with in the lineup. Guerrero followed up his MVP-caliber performance in 2021 with a solid-but-underwhelming 2022 season and a below-average 2023, and there were real questions about his value as a player as he neared his expected free agency after the 2025 campaign. His .323/.396/.544, 165 wRC+, 5.5 WAR line last year was a dramatic demonstration that his 2021 season was a lot more than a stone-cold fluke. Free agency beckons, and the Blue Jays are down to the last year of his services before he reaches the open market. Guerrero set the deadline to work out an extension with Toronto for February 17, and that date has come and gone without an agreement.

My colleague, and notable non-pitcher, Mike Baumann wrote about the risks and rewards of signing Guerrero to a long-term deal from the perspectives of both parties, so you ought to read that for further exposition on the topic. We’re hear to put the fear into numbers, the numbers into dollars, and the dollars back into fear! Read the rest of this entry »

The first deadline of the 2025 season has come and gone: February 17, the last day Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was open to signing an extension with the Blue Jays before he hits free agency this coming winter. While both Guerrero and Toronto GM Ross Atkins remain interested in continuing their partnership, it does not appear that the two sides were close to a deal. Guerrero has his price, and the Jays didn’t meet it. No hard feelings; we’ll talk again in November.

It seems like just last week that Guerrero brought his bonkers power and elite hit tool up to the majors, but time flies. Should Guerrero choose to play elsewhere next season, losing him would be a definitive moment in Blue Jays history. Not just because of his star power and the hype that accompanied him since he first signed with the team as an amateur free agent, but because he’s Toronto’s best player by far. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley introduce the 13th annual Effectively Wild season preview series, then banter about the Tigers signing Jack Flaherty to a smaller-than-expected deal, a long-awaited explanation for the gambling-related firing of umpire Pat Hoberg, and the death and legacy of former commissioner Fay Vincent. Then they preview the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays (43:30) with the Toronto Sun’s Rob Longley, and the 2025 San Diego Padres (1:20:30) with MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell.

Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Grant Brisbee, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to season preview series wiki
Link to projected standings page
Link to Silicon Valley clip
Link to Dan S. on Flaherty
Link to Petriello on Flaherty
Link to MLBTR on Flaherty
Link to over/under draft wiki
Link to Hobert press release
Link to EW on Hoberg’s ump perfecto
Link to Vincent’s NYT obit
Link to Vincent’s SABR obit
Link to Vincent’s SABR bio
Link to Manfred’s Vincent statement
Link to Sheehan on Vincent
Link to Vincent on gambling
Link to Posnanski on Vincent
Link to EW on commish tenures 1
Link to EW on commish tenures 2
Link to Law on farm systems
Link to McDaniel on farm systems
Link to Jays depth chart
Link to Jays offseason tracker
Link to Rogers Centre offense info
Link to Rob’s author archive
Link to Padres depth chart
Link to Padres offseason tracker
Link to black swan wiki
Link to Padres TV subs
Link to AJ’s author archive
Link to Topps Bunt 24 art
Link to Winfield game
Link to Canseco/Garvey game
Link to Ben’s Luka pod
Link to Memorial Cup wiki
Link to EW gift subscriptions

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Max Scherzer is heading north of the border. On the heels of an injury-marred season, the three-time Cy Young winner agreed to a one-year, $15.5 million contract with the Blue Jays on Thursday. The deal is still pending a physical, no trivial matter for a 40-year-old pitcher who was limited to nine starts in 2024.

Scherzer spent the last season and change with the Rangers after being acquired from the Mets ahead of the 2023 trade deadline, and the past three seasons on a three-year, $130 million contract that set a record for the highest average annual value for a pitcher. This time around it’s former Tigers and Mets teammate Justin Verlander, whose subsequent two-year, $86.67 million deal with New York matched Scherzer’s AAV, more or less setting the market for over-40 future Hall of Famers coming off injury plagued seasons for AL West teams. He signed a one-year, $15 million deal with the Giants earlier this month.

The Rangers didn’t get much out of Scherzer, whose time in Texas added up to just 17 regular season and three postseason starts interrupted by five separate trips to the injured list. That count doesn’t even include his being replaced on the World Series roster after leaving Game 3 with back spasms. Fortunately for the Rangers, they wrapped up their win over the Diamondbacks in five games, nipping in the bud any what-might-have-beens regarding Scherzer missing a potential Game 7 start. Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Blue Jays have finally signed a free agent slugger, agreeing to a five-year, $92.5 million deal with outfielder Anthony Santander on Monday afternoon. A former Rule 5 pick out of Cleveland, Santander has spent his whole major league career with the Baltimore Orioles. He’s amassed 9.6 WAR, 155 home runs, and a 113 wRC+ in 2,830 plate appearances since his 2017 debut, but these numbers are also dragged down a bit by the fact it took him a few years to really get going as a hitter. Since the start of 2022, his age-27 season, he’s been worth 8.3 WAR and posted a much sunnier 124 wRC+. This past year was the best full season of his career thus far; he slashed .235/.308/.506 and set career highs with 44 homers, a 129 wRC+, and 3.3 WAR en route to earning his first All-Star selection and Silver Slugger award.

Anthony Santander and Blue Jays are in agreement pending physical, sources say. @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) January 20, 2025

Santander’s deal includes a club option for 2030 and an opt-out after the 2027 season, according to multiple reports. The club option is a conditional one; if Santander chooses to opt out, Toronto can void his decision so long as it tacks on the sixth year, which would bring the total value of the contract to $110 million. The options here don’t change the calculus of the deal all that much. Considering Santander is already 30 and doesn’t offer much more than his power, he probably won’t risk the security of his contract unless his production with the Jays exceeds what he did with the Orioles — and even then, he might rather stay put. Similarly, the Jays probably won’t exercise their option for the sixth year unless he continues to be a viable middle-of-the-order slugger into this mid-30s. Read the rest of this entry »