{"id":473321,"date":"2026-02-11T17:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473321\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:53:07","slug":"trying-to-assess-why-former-blue-jay-chris-bassitt-hasnt-found-a-home-yet-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473321\/","title":{"rendered":"Trying to assess why former Blue Jay Chris Bassitt hasn’t found a home yet for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last three years, Chris Bassitt has been a staple on the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He’s never been the ace of the team in that time, nor was he an All-Star. He did finish tenth in American League Cy Young voting in 2023 (his maiden campaign with the Blue Jays), but that was more of a reflection of his dependability than any dominance he displayed on the mound.<\/p>\n

But that reliability is his calling card. Over the past three seasons in Toronto, Bassitt compiled a 3.89 ERA and 4.13 FIP in 541.1 frames. His stuff isn’t elite by any means, but he’s an excellent contact-manager who lived in the 85th percentile<\/a> in exit velocity allowed last year, as well as the 80th percentile in hard-hit rate. He moved to the bullpen during the Blue Jays’ postseason run<\/a>, but still authored a 1.04 ERA in 8.2 innings in October.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old is also one of the most dependable starters in the game, having made at least 30 starts in every season since 2022. He’s also completed at least 155 innings in each of the past five campaigns.<\/p>\n

So, what gives? Why is Bassitt still unsigned as pitchers and catchers report to camp across the league?<\/p>\n

Chris Bassitt deserves to find a starting pitching job before Opening Day 2026<\/p>\n

Naturally, it’s worth pointing out that the Blue Jays simply ran out of space to keep rostering Bassitt. He was great in the postseason as a reliever, but it’d be foolish to use him in that role over the course of a full season so long as he can continue to handle huge workloads.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, with Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce joining a rotation consisting of Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber (once he returns from injury), and Jos\u00e9 Berrios, all of the Blue Jays’ starting pitching jobs are accounted for (and then some). Bassitt just doesn’t fit within the group the front office has built this offseason.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he remains a valuable pitcher deserving of a home. Most projections<\/a> peg Bassitt for a reasonable short-term deal, with the average sitting roughly in the two-year, $25 million range. With spring training so close, he may have to settle for something even more team-friendly, perhaps covering just a single season.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to pinpoint why he’s still lingering in free agency. He’s known to want to go to a contender<\/a>, but his age (37 later this month) could be scaring off a few teams. He may also be demanding a multi-year contract, whereas teams are only willing to offer one-year deals. Or perhaps he wants to pitch closer to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and teams in the central divisions aren’t showing much interest.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, expect him to sign soon. He can still clearly offer major-league teams a valuable back-end-of-the-rotation arm, even if he’s mostly serving as a glorified innings eater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last three years, Chris Bassitt has been a staple on the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-473321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473321","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=473321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}