LAS VEGAS — Standing amid the revelry at Tropicana Field as his Milwaukee Brewers celebrated the club’s first ever World Series title, Matt Arnold pondered the difference-making moments his team produced during a remarkable October run.
“I’ll tell you one that stands out to me is Christian Yelich beating out that ball in the fifth inning that started the whole eight-run rally (in a 10-1 Game 3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays),” the president of baseball operations and GM said, recalling how the team captain extended the inning by negating a fielder’s choice on a William Contreras grounder.
“A veteran player getting to second base and beating that throw set the whole tone, because then we score all those runs right after that. We don't do that without Christian Yelich having a great secondary lead. All the things that make this team really special were there in that moment.”
All the elements behind the play — smart, attentive baserunning to the situation; seeing the play through; competing for every last inch — are the types of things the Toronto Blue Jays are talking about when they discuss internal improvement as a key focus this off-season.
While they intend to add to their offence — they’re engaged on Seiya Suzuki and Terauki Sato and have expressed interest in Brandon Lowe, according to people who have spoken to them — along with starting pitching, the most impactful thing they can do this winter is ensure they’re set up to better leverage the talent they already have in place.
First and foremost in that regard is getting Vladimir Guerrero Jr. right — Ross Atkins said the superstar first baseman “is already off to an incredible start,” has met with the club’s hitting staff and strength and conditioning coaches and “is fired up and on a mission.”
But, across the roster, “we have to find every eighth of a win that we can find, every 10th of a win that we can find on a nightly basis in any possible way,” said Atkins. “That could come in the form of the lineup construction, that could come in the form of roster deployment and the 'pen for middle of the game, on pinch-hitting, pinch-running or for base-running opportunities. The deployment over the course of a 162-game season, we've got to optimize that.”
Assessing whether they’ve properly identified the right areas of opportunity will take time — “I'll have a better answer for you when our roster is set,” said Atkins — but it’s clearly factoring into the club’s thinking.
Adding to the outfield is “the more natural fit right now as we stand,” he said, but the Blue Jays also “don't feel that it has to be there, by any means.”
Suzuki, who heads into his age-32 season after a five-win year with the Chicago Cubs, is a right-fielder whose maximum 2026 exit velocity of 112.9 m.p.h. would have ranked second only to Guerrero’s 116.3 on the Blue Jays. Described as an “extremely hard worker,” he travels with his personal trainer and could ease the production pressure on Guerrero and positively impact Kazuma Okamoto, who made a strong debut last season.
Landing him would force the Blue Jays to reset some of their puzzle and is perhaps why, when asked about how the team’s centre-field depth chart after Myles Straw’s 2027 option was declined, Atkins mentioned rookie Brett Bateman, Nathan Lukes and, surprisingly, Addison Barger.
Bateman impressed during a limited sample after being acquired from the Cubs at the trade deadline and will need to be protected. Lukes has played some centre while primarily working in the corners — he was a Gold-Glove finalist in right field in 2026 — while Barger was slated to cover right with some third base, spelling Okamoto against tougher right-handed pitching, and hasn’t played a single pro game in centre.
All are left-handed hitters, which would make a right-handed option, perhaps Straw, an ideal complement, but the Blue Jays aren’t shying away from potential redundancies, as Sato, like Barger, is a lefty-hitting right-fielder and third baseman who clubbed 39 homers while batting .306/.383/.609 with the NPB’s Hanshin Tigers.
Having the DH spot freed up post-George Springer opens up the opportunity for creative lineups as does the possibility that the Blue Jays use Ernie Clement at multiple positions, as opposed to primarily at second base like last season.
Hence the interest in Lowe, the lefty-hitting second baseman who clubbed 35 homers for the Pittsburgh Pirates while making drastic defensive improvements.
An interesting but uncertain possibility is trading for Ketel Marte, the switch-hitting second baseman whom the Arizona Diamondbacks may be willing to deal this off-season. As a player with 10-and-5 rights, he can veto any trade but his wife is Guerrero’s first cousin and the connection could make Toronto a welcomed landing spot.
Regardless of who the Blue Jays end up adding, they are likely to create surplus somewhere on the roster, which if not turned into trade capital will mean more puzzle pieces that can be fit together for the lineup and/or in-game moves.
All of which makes finding ways to best leverage the talent in place an essential, but under-the-radar ingredient to this Blue Jays off-season. In part due to injury, they didn’t do that in two of the past three seasons, but in 2025 they did, coming inches away from winning the World Series, when they very much resembled the buttoned-up Brewers, who took every inch they forced opponents to give.
