The Rumor: In the aftermath of Kyle Tucker signing with the Dodgers, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reported that the Blue Jays had an in-person meeting with Framber Valdez back in November—prior to signing Dylan Cease—and perhaps they’ll take some of the 10-year, $350M offer they reportedly made to Tucker and pivot to the southpaw.
Save for occasional mentions of the Orioles’ interest level, Framber Valdez’s market has been strangely quiet all offseason.
But he’s eventually going to sign somewhere, right?
And the Blue Jays are clearly all-in on winning in 2026, right?
It’s still an unlikely pairing.
For starters, Toronto already has a full supply of starters, set up to roll with Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage and José Berríos, with Cody Ponce, Eric Lauer, Bowden Francis and Ricky Tiedemann also among their stockpile of options.
The Blue Jays signing Valdez would be about as superfluous as the Red Sox signing Ranger Suárez with all the rotation options they already had.
It would also cost them way more, as Toronto has a tax payroll about $60M higher than where Boston was before signing Suárez. Every dollar the Blue Jays add to their payroll at this point comes with a 90 cent tax. So if they add Valdez at a $35M AAV, it would add $31.5M to their tax payment, too.
They were willing to bite that bullet for Tucker, but for Valdez? Probably not.