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By Jon Vankin
Contributing Sports Writer
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After an offseason spending spree that saw the Toronto Blue Jays commit $337 million in free-agent contracts, including $240 million on just two starting pitchers, the team’s starting rotation heading into 2026 looks not only solid, but overcrowded. Free agents Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce now join rookie Trey Yesavage, two-time All-Star Kevin Gausman, 2020 American League Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber, and another two-time All-Star José Berríos in a group of six frontline starters competing for spots in a five-man rotation.
But could there still be room for one more? According to analyst Zachary Rotman of FanSided, if the Blue Jays' starting pitching doesn't look good enough already, there is one free agent signing that, if Toronto could pull it off, would make the rotation “absurdly good.”
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With several free agent starters remaining unsigned, one name seems to stand above the rest at this point: former Houston Astros two-time All-Star Framber Valdez. Toronto officials reportedly held a meeting with the 32-year-old all the way back in November, but have not made a move to sign him.
With a projected price of $199.9 million over six years, according to Spotrac, signing Valdez would mean adding a third contract exceeding $30 million per year — along with Cease and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — to the Blue Jays' ledger, and pushing the Toronto payroll past the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies to rank third in baseball heading into the 2026 season.
So why would the Blue Jays, already overstocked on starters, do it? According to Ryley Delaney of Blue Jays Nation, Valdez would be a “fit” with the Jays for one simple reason.
“All six of those starting pitchers have one thing in common,” Delaney wrote on Monday. “They’re all right-handed, whereas Valdez is a left-handed pitcher.”
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“Adding Valdez would arguably make their rotation one of the strongest in baseball, if not the strongest,” the Blue Jays Nation writer continued. “It doesn’t seem likely, but adding another starter, especially a lefty, would make the Jays stronger heading into 2026.”
FanSided's Rotman also endorsed the signing of Valdez by the Blue Jays.
“We know how badly the Jays want to win, and even if they don't really need him, Valdez would make them even scarier,” he wrote.
Valdez arrived in Houston as an unheralded prospect, signing for just $10,000 as an international free agent in 2015 — when he was already 21 years old. In the vast majority of cases, international free agent prospects sign at 16 or 17 years old. And $10,000 is the minimum amount that could count against a team's international signing bonus pool.
And yet, the left-hander from the Dominican Republic made his major-league debut with the Astros just three years after signing and went on to a career that has seen him compile a 3.36 ERA in 188 big-league games, as well as pitch in 17 postseason games with an 8-4 record, including two wins in the 2022 World Series won by the Astros over the Phillies.
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