Vancouver Canadians: Mathieu Vallee aims to be real steal of a deal

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Parent club Toronto Blue Jays signed outfielder from Montreal area as a free agent after he stole 83 bases in 88 game in independent ball last summer

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Published Apr 08, 2026 • 4 minute read

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vallee Parent club Toronto Blue Jays signed outfielder from Montreal area as a free agent after he stole 83 bases in 88 game in independent ball last summer Photo by Mark SteffensArticle content

Here’s betting that Vancouver Canadians outfielder Mathieu Vallee sprints his way into fan favourite status at Nat Bailey Stadium in short order.

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Vallee, 25, is a native of Montreal suburb Saint-Eustache who stands all of 5-foot-9 and 175 pounds and signed a minor league free-agent contract with the parent club Toronto Blue Jays in February after stealing 83 bases in a mere 88 games last summer for the Frontier independent league’s Trois-Rivières Aigles.

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He had family and friends who cheered on the Montreal Expos and the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, Sr. until the club left town for Washington at the close of the 2004 season. Vallee had just turned four years old then. Like the majority of his circle, Vallee became a Blue Jays fan and he now finds himself a member of that very organization, alongside the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.

The C’s have been a Toronto farm team since 2011. They are in the midst of their first home series of the high-A Northwest League campaign, playing the Eugene Emeralds in a six-game set at the Nat that runs through Sunday. Check the team website for tickets.

“Obviously, I was going to roll with the first offer I got, the first team that wanted to give me a contract,” said Vallee, who admits he talked with the Arizona Diamondbacks as well. “The fact it was the Jays is a bonus. A big, big bonus.

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“Being a guy from Montreal, I watched as many Blues Jays games as I could with my buddies from high school. To be in the organization is special to me. I have family who don’t really know much about baseball, but they know about the Blue Jays. Everyone in Canada knows about the Blue Jays. I’m really proud, and my family and my buddies are all really proud.”

He played hockey, soccer and baseball growing up, and opted to focus on baseball in his late teens. The lefty-hitting, righty-throwing Vallee bounced between three different American post-secondary schools, seeing duty at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Dallas Baptist University and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His best season was likely his senior year at Southern Illinois, when hit .341, with five home runs, 41 runs batted in and 15 steals in 59 games.

He got a chance to play in a collegiate summer Major League Baseball Draft League along the way, but that’s as close as he could get to big-league interest.

Baseball fundamentally changed in 2023. Looking to bring back the speed aspect, those in charge of the majors instituted rules to limit pickoff attempts while also making bases larger. In that first season with the changes, steals went up 41 per cent in the National and American Leagues combined, winding up at 3,503.

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The two circuits have broken the 3,000 plateau in swipes the past two seasons, too. Before that, the bigs had been over that mark only three times since 2000.

Vallee had two steals in 21 games with Trois-Rivières in 2024, but it all clicked for him last season. The Frontier League record for steals in a single campaign had been 75, set by Gateway Grizzlies outfielder Jairus Richards in 2023. Vallee had seven steals alone in a 3-2 loss on July 18 versus the Tri-City ValleyCats.

Trois-Rivières wound up last in its five-team North Division, finishing 38-57. Vallee hit .352, with one homer and 41 RBI, to go along with the chaos and calamity caused on the basepaths.

“At first, I wasn’t counting them up. I was just playing the game,” Vallee said of his thievery last year. “About a third of the way through the season, I started to think that I could get a lot of bases. At the all-star game at the halfway point, other coaches were coming up and saying, ‘You have to steal 100 this year.’ I told them that I didn’t know if I had that in me. But getting the league record, I loved that.”

Vancouver started the season on the road with a series versus the Tri-City Dust Devils last weekend, and Vallee swiped a bag in Game 2 of the campaign. He banged up his ankle during the set, too, and was placed on the seven-day disabled list this week, but says he doesn’t expect to be out for any extended period.

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There have been players who have made their way from the Frontier League to the majors. That list includes Blue Jays reliever Tommy Nance, Athletics farmhand reliever Nick Anderson and one-time Seattle Mariners closer George Sherrill.

C’s fans of a more seasoned vintage might link Vallee’s tale, too, to that of Roemon Fields, the centre-fielder on the 2014 Vancouver team who was out of the game altogether and working as postman in Seattle when his junior college coach was short a player for a 2013 World Baseball Challenge showcase tournament in Prince George and talked Fields into suiting up. The Blue Jays saw him there, signed him as a free agent, and he stole 48 bases in 72 games for Vancouver in that first season.

He wound up playing six seasons in the Toronto system, getting all the way to triple-A before retiring.

“I’ve been told to use my strengths: getting on base, running,” Vallee said when asked about what it will take for him to advance through the minors. “The reasons I got picked up in the first place … I’ve got to do the same things here.”

sewen@postmedia.com