{"id":323458,"date":"2025-12-01T03:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T03:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323458\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T03:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T03:48:07","slug":"blue-jays-notes-helsley-berrios-management-extensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323458\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Notes: Helsley, Berrios, Management Extensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jays had \u201cat least preliminary interest\u201d in Ryan Helsley<\/a> before the right-hander signed with the Orioles, The Athletic\u2019s Mitch Bannon<\/a> reports.\u00a0 Toronto has shown past interest (both last offseason and at the trade deadline) in trading for Helsley when he was still a member of the Cardinals, so it tracks that the Jays would\u2019ve again considered Helsley in free agency.\u00a0 As it turned out, the Blue Jays will now have to deal with Helsley pitching for a division rival while Toronto\u2019s own search for bullpen help<\/a> continues.<\/p>\n

Such pitchers as Helsley, Raisel Iglesias<\/a>, Phil Maton<\/a>, Edwin Diaz<\/a>, and Pete Fairbanks<\/a> have been linked to the Jays thus far, and the first three of those names have already come off the board.\u00a0 Given how Ross Atkins\u2019 front office is known for casting a wide berth in its free agent explorations, it\u2019s probably safe to guess that the Jays have called about most or all of the top relievers on the market, ranging from set-up men to proven closers like Diaz.\u00a0 Atkins said after the season that the team was open to the possibility of moving Jeff Hoffman<\/a> into a set-up role, thus opening the door for Toronto to seek out another top saves candidate.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Jays\u2019 biggest winter moves to date have come in the rotation, not the bullpen.\u00a0 Shane Bieber<\/a> made the first move himself when he decided against opting out of the final year of his contract, and then the Jays made the priciest free agent signing in franchise history by inking Dylan Cease<\/a> to a seven-year, $210MM contract.\u00a0 Within less than a month after the end of the World Series, the Blue Jays rotation suddenly went from a question mark to all but settled.<\/p>\n

The projected starting five looks like Cease, Bieber, Kevin Gausman<\/a>, Trey Yesavage<\/a>, and Jose Berrios<\/a>, with Eric Lauer<\/a> on hand as a swingman.\u00a0 Adam Macko<\/a>, Ricky Tiedemann<\/a> and Bowden Francis<\/a> are further depth options.\u00a0 It\u2019s a deeper group with a higher ceiling than the starting pitching mix that got the Jays to the World Series, though it\u2019s possible another starter could still be added.<\/p>\n

To make room in the rotation for a higher-caliber arm, the Jays could consider trading Berrios.\u00a0 Bannon (in a piece for the Athletic<\/a>) and the Toronto Star\u2019s Gregor Chisholm<\/a> each floated the concept, as Berrios ended up being the odd man out of the starting mix even before a bout of elbow inflammation kept him sidelined for the Blue Jays\u2019 entire playoff run.\u00a0 The Jays planned to transition Berrios to bullpen work prior to the postseason, and Berrios made all of one relief appearance before hitting the injured list.<\/p>\n

Trading Berrios would be tricky for a few reasons \u2014 his eight-team no-trade clause, the three years and $66MM remaining on his contract, and the opt-out clause Berrios holds after the 2026 season.\u00a0 There\u2019s also the fact that Berrios was pretty unspectacular in 2025, posting a 4.17 ERA and a set of below-average Statcast<\/a> numbers across 166 innings.\u00a0 Any Berrios suitor would be counting on a bounce-back, naturally, but primarily might be interested in the veteran righty as a durable source of innings.<\/p>\n

Berrios\u2019 ability to eat innings makes him valuable to the Jays as well, considering how their pitchers added more mileage during an extended postseason run.\u00a0 Moving Berrios would open up some payroll space for Toronto as well, though in limited fashion.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty unlikely that the Jays would find a team willing to take the entirety of Berrios\u2019 $66MM salary, plus spending capacity might not really be a concern for a Blue Jays club that already shown it is willing to stretch its payroll even further in search of a championship.<\/p>\n

Turning to other topics from Chisholm\u2019s mailbag piece, he believes the Blue Jays might\u2019ve already finalized extensions for Atkins, team president Mark Shapiro, and manager John Schneider if the club hadn\u2019t still been playing on November 1.\u00a0 Regardless, it just seems like a matter of time before the trio are all officially retained.\u00a0 Shapiro\u2019s contract is already technically up, and Atkins and Schneider\u2019s deals are up after the 2026 season (the Jays already exercised<\/a> their club option on Schneider for 2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays had \u201cat least preliminary interest\u201d in Ryan Helsley before the right-hander signed with the Orioles,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[114657,379,146205,363,165255,37962,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-323458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-john-schneider","9":"tag-jose-berrios","10":"tag-mark-shapiro","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-ross-atkins","13":"tag-ryan-helsley","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}