{"id":339098,"date":"2025-12-10T09:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339098\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:23:07","slug":"shane-bieber-dealt-with-forearm-fatigue-late-in-2025-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339098\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Bieber Dealt With Forearm Fatigue Late In 2025 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the winter\u2019s earliest surprises was Shane Bieber<\/a>\u2019s decision to pick up<\/a> a $16MM player option for the 2026 season rather than take a $4MM buyout and return to free agency. That choice was viewed as a head-scratcher around the league at the time, as the former Cy Young winner\u2019s track record and the 3.66 ERA he posted in 59 innings between the regular season and playoffs with Toronto was likely enough to justify a solid multi-year deal.<\/p>\n

A report this evening from The Athletic\u2019s Mitch Bannon<\/a> offers a bit more perspective on Bieber\u2019s decision. Towards the end of the 2025 campaign, Bannon reports that Bieber was dealing with forearm fatigue. Bieber has since begun rehab work, and Bannon notes that Ross Atkins told reporters that the right-hander is \u201cin a strong position.\u201d\u00a0While the Jays are currently taking things week-to-week with Bieber\u2019s recovery process, Atkins noted that Bieber being ready to pitch on Opening Day remains \u201ca very realistic outcome\u201d\u00a0though he stopped short of definitively saying Bieber would be part of the Opening Day roster.<\/p>\n

That Bieber was dealing with a forearm issue just 13 appearances into his return from Tommy John surgery certainly seems to help explain his decision to exercise his 2026 player option. While there\u2019s little doubt that Bieber could have beaten the $12MM he would\u2019ve left on the table by declining the option in terms of overall guarantee, it\u2019s plausible that teams would have been hesitant to commit a substantial average annual value to a pitcher coming off elbow surgery who was already rehabbing a fresh ailment. By sticking with Toronto this winter, Bieber gives himself the opportunity to rehab with the Blue Jays rather continuing his rehab as a free agent, and can now look to enter free agency next winter with what he\u2019s surely hoping will be a full season of starts under his belt in 2026 to allay any concerns about the health of his arm going forward.<\/p>\n

With Bieber\u2019s status somewhat uncertain for Opening Day, it\u2019s all the more understandable that the Blue Jays have been aggressive in adding to their rotation. Dylan Cease<\/a>, Kevin Gausman<\/a>, Trey Yesavage<\/a>, Cody Ponce<\/a>, and Jose Berrios<\/a> figure to make up the club\u2019s Opening Day rotation if Bieber were to start the year on the injured list, though the depth provided by players like Yariel Rodriguez<\/a>, Bowden Francis<\/a>, and Eric Lauer<\/a> is strong enough that the Blue Jays seem to be considering<\/a> the possibility of trading Berrios this winter. Cease, Gausman, and Bieber are all surely locked into rotation spots when healthy, and Yesavage showed more than enough down the stretch and into the playoffs to warrant first crack at a rotation job headed into 2026.<\/p>\n

That would leave just one spot available for Ponce, Berrios, and the team\u2019s depth options to compete for in Spring Training, and so it would hardly be a shock to see the Jays make a move that ships a rotation piece out at some point this winter. At the same time, however, Bannon reports that the Jays remain interested in adding starting pitching even after landing both Cease and Ponce in free agency earlier this winter. While the team is overflowing with rotation options, not all of them are especially reliable. In addition to questions surrounding Bieber\u2019s health, Ponce\u2019s return from the KBO league this year will come with inherent question marks.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Berrios struggled in the second half and was relegated to the bullpen for October while Yesavage is a young arm who threw a career high in terms of innings this past year between the majors, minors, and postseason. It seems unlikely the team would look to add another high-end arm to the rotation given their needs in the bullpen and lineup, but perhaps additional depth to join players like Francis and Lauer as depth pieces would be valuable, especially in the event that Berrios is traded or Bieber opens the season on the injured list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the winter\u2019s earliest surprises was Shane Bieber\u2019s decision to pick up a $16MM player option for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,33136,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-339098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-shane-bieber","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}