The Blue Jays got here into this offseason with one evident want: relievers. Now, that’s to not say that they don’t need assistance elsewhere. The underside of their lineup is skinny. They’re most likely a starter wanting an optimum rotation, significantly given how unsure Alek Manoah’s future appears. However they’re a playoff hopeful, and so they had the worst bullpen in baseball in 2024 – 3.1 wins worse than the White Sox, should you can consider it. So the bullpen needed to be precedence primary, and voila:
OFFICIAL: We’ve signed All-Star RHP Jeff Hoffman to a 3-year deal ??
Welcome Again, @Hoff_23! pic.twitter.com/A1tN8zOGjV
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) January 11, 2025
Jeff Hoffman may not be a family title, however he’s been probably the greatest relievers in baseball since becoming a member of the Phillies in 2023. He’s racked up 3.6 WAR in that point, however reliever WAR can get bizarre with the leverage changes, so let’s put it this manner as an alternative: He’s sixth in ERA and third in FIP during the last two years. His strikeout fee hovers round 33.3%, and he walks a completely regular variety of hitters. In different phrases, this doesn’t appear to be a fluke, and he’s not getting paid like a fluke, both. His deal is value $33 million over these three years, with $6 million in accessible incentives.
In Philadelphia, Hoffman was a part of a dominant ensemble. The Phillies have had probably the greatest bullpens within the league every of the final two years, usually going six deep with influence arms. Toronto – effectively, Toronto has had 15 completely different pitchers accrue detrimental wins above substitute. Hoffman is coming in because the clear finest arm within the group, a totally completely different scenario than he’s confronted lately.
To the Jays’ credit score, they didn’t simply slap Hoffman on an otherwise-unchanged bullpen and name it a day. After buying and selling final yr’s finest reliever, Yimi García, on the deadline, they re-signed him earlier this offseason. After they traded for Andrés Giménez in December, they secured Nick Sandlin as a throw-in. These three will all function in the direction of the highest of the ‘pen, hopefully absorbing innings that may have in any other case gone to meaningfully worse arms.
It’s an attention-grabbing solution to construct a bullpen, although one which feels born extra out of necessity than want. One of the best ways to get an amazing reliever like Hoffman is to do it earlier than he’s nice. That’s what the Phillies did once they signed him off of waivers in 2023; the Reds had launched him, as had the Twins, and Philadelphia profited. It’s so laborious to foretell which relievers will pan out – risky pitchers, small pattern sizes, and damage danger make for a tough guessing sport. If everybody had their druthers, they’d maintain a always percolating pot of reliever maybes and make hay with those who pan out. You see this yearly with the Phillies, Dodgers, Rays, and Brewers. However a one-year makeover? The Jays needed to have a headliner, and Hoffman looks as if a great choice for it.
I wouldn’t fairly name Hoffman’s arsenal basic, however you’ve seen pitchers who not less than strongly resemble him earlier than. He throws a four-seamer within the higher 90s with stable vertical motion and explosive arm-side break. He enhances that fastball with a pointy, mid-80s slider. He misses an outrageous variety of bats with these two pitches, a stable sinker, and a nasty splitter. Pitch-level fashions assume all the pieces he throws is spectacular. This isn’t a case the place some lesser pitcher BABIP’ed and misdirection’ed his method right into a yr of fine stats; Hoffman has clearly been the true deal of late.
From that standpoint, I believe that this signing is nice. The Jays had a particular want, and so they acquired probably the greatest pitchers accessible to start out patching issues up. I most popular Tanner Scott and Blake Treinen amongst free agent relievers, however solely by a hair, and I believe Treinen was at all times headed again to the Dodgers. In different phrases, the Jays are procuring on the prime of the market right here, and that’s positively a good suggestion given the depths of their bullpen dysfunction final yr and their postseason aspirations within the upcoming season.
Now for the downsides. Hoffman was reportedly in search of a deal that valued him like a starter, the Reynaldo López/Jordan Hicks plan. In truth, his Jays contract makes some nods in that course — annually has $2 million in incentives for pitching 90 innings (staggered as $500,000 for 60, 70, 80, and 90 frames) — however nobody’s treating it that method. GM Ross Atkins mentioned that the staff is “excited so as to add Jeff to our bullpen” and that Hoffman “will get a chance to shut video games for us.”
Their bullpen shortcomings imply that Toronto was absolutely most occupied with Hoffman as a reliever all alongside, however on condition that starters are extra extremely compensated than relievers in free company, you would possibly count on different groups to make bigger provides to him for a beginning function. In truth, Hoffman and the Orioles reportedly reached a three-year, $40 million deal that fell by way of because of considerations over his bodily. It didn’t seem like an enormous disagreement – the Orioles continued to barter with revised phrases – however I surmise that groups is likely to be skeptical Hoffman can maintain as much as the trials of full-time beginning.
There’ll absolutely at all times be some danger there. However truthfully, I believe that’s principally to the great for Toronto. If groups thought Hoffman might hack it as a starter, he most likely wouldn’t be accessible for 3 years at $11 million per yr, a cut price fee for an elite reliever. Each reliever is an damage danger, and I’m skeptical that groups are so good at anticipating accidents that they will meaningfully distinguish between the completely different dangers related to otherwise-healthy gamers; Hoffman didn’t hit the IL in any respect with the Phillies for no matter that’s value.
The larger danger? It’s that relievers who pop up out of nowhere typically vanish simply as rapidly. Final yr’s Jeff Hoffman was Bryan Abreu, who went from substitute stage (0.2 WAR from 2019-21) to elite (2.9 in 2022 and 2023) as an ensemble member of an amazing bullpen. He was nonetheless efficient however hardly elite in 2024. Or perhaps it was Matt Moore, who like Hoffman was over 30 when he posted two straight good years – he was abysmal in 2024, acquired injured, and could also be out of baseball.
The yr earlier than, Collin McHugh felt like a equally apparent prime reliever and reclamation challenge, coming off of a two-year stretch with a 2.09 ERA, 2.43 FIP, and three.2 WAR over 133 innings. He promptly declined, acquired harm, and retired from baseball (although to be truthful, he signed a free agent deal after the primary yr of his torrid stretch and was a cut price in free company even contemplating his downward trajectory). You could possibly throw Giovanny Gallegos or Ryan Tepera (elite in 2020 and 2021) into the combination. Typically relievers who flash out of nowhere return from whence they got here.
That’s the danger of lengthy offers for relievers, and that third yr of Hoffman’s contract feels dicey to me. However truthfully, I’d make this signing too if I have been the Jays, and I wouldn’t really feel even somewhat bit unhealthy about it.
The 2025 season is the yr for the Jays. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are set to hit free company this coming winter. Toronto has disenchanted relative to expectations in its Sons of Stars period. That is the staff’s final probability to ship the type of outcomes that felt possible when Guerrero, Bichette, and Cavan Biggio hit the majors collectively. And whereas there’s at all times one thing that wants fixing, this bullpen was an enormous one thing, and it wanted fixing badly.
That’s how I’m this deal – a mandatory patch to a clearly poor unit. This isn’t the way in which I’d construct a staff if I acquired to start out from scratch. I’m as bought on Hoffman as I’m on any reliever coming off of two spectacular seasons, which is to say that I’m skeptical however hopeful he’ll be wonderful within the quick time period. However that third yr of his deal? It’s the distant future so far as the Jays are involved. It’s time to play for the current. Might Hoffman get harm or regress in the direction of common? Clearly. However might the Jays make a extra significant enchancment for the same monetary dedication? I doubt it. This feels to me like an amazing match between a staff determined to compete in 2025 and a reliever whose current feels extra engaging than his long-term future.