2025 Toronto Blue Jays

2025 Toronto Blue Jays / Franchise: Toronto Blue Jays / BR Team Page

Record: , Finished in AL Eastern Division (2025 AL)

Managed by John Schneider

Coaches: Mark Budzinski, Carlos Febles, DeMarlo Hale, Sam Greene, Lou Iannotti, Graham Johnson, John Lannan, Don Mattingly, Hunter Mense, David Popkins and Pete Walker

Ballpark: Rogers Centre

History, Comments, Contributions

After finishing in last place in 2024, the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays were looking to get back into postseason contention in a strong division - especially since two of their biggest stars, 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and SS Bo Bichette, were entering the final year of their contracts and were liable to leave via free agency at the end of the year. The team's biggest failing had been its bullpen in 2024, so the Blue Jays were active in the off-season in trying to improve things, and did so to some extent by signing free agent Jeff Hoffman, repatriating Yimi Garcia, whom they had traded away the previous year after falling out of contention, and trading for Nick Sandlin from the Cleveland Guardians in a deal that had also netted them 2B Andres Gimenez who was expected to nail down a position that had been a revolving door. The cost had been minimal, giving up 1B/OF Spencer Horwitz who was coming off a good first season but who was easily replaceable. They had hoped to make a splash on the free agent market by pursuing Japanese free agent P Roki Sasaki, even accepting to take on the bad contract of OF Myles Straw from Cleveland in order to increase their international bonus pool and make their offer to him more attractive, but alas they could not compete with the Los Angeles Dodgers on the glamor scale. They did sign OF Anthony Santander to a multi-year deal, in order to address a surprising lack of power in the line-up, but it came with the risk that, like the signing of George Springer a couple of years before, they were paying full price for a player about to enter the decline phase of his career. A less risky move was the signing of veteran starting pitcher Max Scherzer to a one-year deal.

The Blue Jays' Opening Day, held at the Rogers Centre on March 27th in front of a packed house of over 40,000, was a complete disaster. The only positive was the major league debut of RF Alan Roden, who had forced the Jays' hand with a great spring training, and who collected his first career hit and a walk in three plate appearances. On the other side of the ledger, the Jays allowed the Baltimore Orioles to score in six of their nine turns at bat, allowed six home runs, including three off starter José Berríos, in a 12-2 loss. They only managed four hits all game, with a two-run homer by Gimenez with Guerrero on base via walk accounting for all of their scoring. They did better the remainder of the series, taking two of the next three games to go 2-2 in the four games. One piece of bad news however was that Scherzer was placed on the injured list after an abbreviated start in the third game. Still, the Jays then swept the Washington Nationals to finish their first homestead a 5-2, and Easton Lucas, brought up from the minors to replace Scherzer, earned the win in his first career start to complete the sweep.

The Jays found the going tougher on their first road trip as they got swept by the New York Mets at Citi Field on April 4-6. Their starting pitchers were good, but they managed to score just three runs over the three games, as their purported big boppers, Guerrero and Santander, were both still looking for their first long ball of the season, and no one else was really picking up the slack. On the morning of April 7th, news came out unexpectedly that the team had reached an agreement with Guerrero on a contract extension, resulting in the biggest deal in franchise history: the slugger had agreed to a 14-year extension starting next season worth a total of $500 million, making it the third biggest contract i MLB history, after those consented to Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto over the past two years. Ironically, the Blue Jays had been in the final running to sign both Ohtani and Soto but had missed out, but given an exclusive window to negotiate with Vladdy, they were able to get things done. It was an understatement to say that the deal dramatically changed the franchise's outlook for the next few seasons as their most important player was now locked up for the long term. They then won the first three games of their next series, against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park and unexpectedly found themselves in first place in the AL East at 8-5, half a game ahead of the New York Yankees at the end of the day on April 9th. They came very close to making that a four-game sweep of Boston, but twice blew a late-game lead the next day and lost the game in ten innings.

On April 16th, the Jays set a new team record by recording a team record 19 strikeouts in a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves. Chris Bassitt started things off by striking out 10 in 5 innings in earning the win, and the bullpen did the rest. That game also featured Guerrero's first homer of the season.

Further Reading

• Ronald Blum (Associated Press): "Guerrero, Blue Jays agree to a $500 million, 14-year deal that starts in 2026, AP source says", Yahoo! Sports, April 7, 2025. [1]
• Keegan Matheson: "5 pressing questions for Toronto as Spring Training nears", mlb.com, February 3, 2025. [2]
• Keegan Matheson: "'One more time': Vladdy, Blue Jays head into 2025 with new hopeful outlook", mlb.com, March 26, 2025. [3]
• Keegan Matheson: "Vlad Jr. agrees to 14-year, $500M extension with Blue Jays", mlb.com, April 7, 2025. [4]

2025 MLB season by team