High-upside relievers Blue Jays could target in free agent market

While re-signing Yimi Garcia was a start, the Toronto Blue Jays clearly must continue reinforcing a bullpen that cost the team -2.5 fWAR in 2024. They could do that via a multi-year commitment with one of this winter’s top free agent relievers (Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman, Carlos Estevez) or a shorter pact with a veteran leverage arm (Kenley Jansen, Kirby Yates, Chris Martin, A.J. Minter, Paul Sewald, David Robertson).

But even if adding one of the above, the club will still need to seek down-market value plays, adding high-upside depth to an inherently volatile roster segment. The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees are star-studded, high-payroll teams — but even they were throwing low-cost relief fliers such as Anthony Banda, Jake Cousins, Tim Hill, Daniel Hudson, Mark Leiter Jr., and Luke Weaver in the World Series.

So, let’s look at some intriguing options in this winter’s market that could potentially provide big returns on minimal commitments.

LHP Hoby Milner

Milner’s a great example of how fraught it can be to evaluate relievers by ERA. The 33-year-old’s 4.73 mark in 2024 was nearly a full run above league-average for relievers. But his 3.15 xERA and 3.14 FIP both came in well below. Scan his FanGraphs page a little further and you’ll find his 2024 strikeout, walk, and groundball rates remained stable with the ones he posted over the two years prior when he worked to a 2.79 ERA.

So, what changed in 2024? Milner’s BABIP and HR/FB rate increased substantially while his strand rate plummeted, all indicators his surface-level results were greatly impacted by bad luck on balls in play. What didn’t change? Milner ran a 99th percentile barrel rate, 92nd percentile walk rate, and 91st percentile groundball rate, remaining one of the league’s best left-handed relievers at painting the zone and generating soft contact on the ground.

The side-armer’s stuff didn’t change, either. The shape and movement of Milner’s high-70’s sliders and high-80’s sinkers were consistent with his career norms. Even his third-most used pitch, a high-80’s four-seamer, earned a +8 run value thanks to opponents batting .059 with a .137 slugging percentage against it, hitting groundballs or pop-ups 60 per cent of the time it was put in play.

That’s why Steamer projects Milner to regress in 2025 with a 3.73 ERA — right in line with fellow lefty reliever Andrew Chafin, who signed one-year free agent deals for $6.3-million and $4.8-million the last two off-seasons. And Milner likely won’t cost anything close to that.

On a one-year, $2-million deal, Milner could fill the Tim Mayza role — sometimes targeting tough lefties late in tight games, sometimes cleaning up a starter’s mess in the fifth or sixth before coming back out for another inning. It’s an unglamorous job, but Mayza produced 2.1 bWAR filling it in 2023. Milner produced 1.7 with the Brewers that year. And coming off a hard-luck season, he’s a good bet to do it again.

RHP Lucas Sims

If it’s stuff you’re after, look no further than Sims, who ran strikeout rates of 33 per cent in 2020, 39 per cent in 2021, and 27.9 per cent in 2023. He got less swing-and-miss last season, but made up for it as one of baseball’s best pitchers at suppressing contact quality, running a 99th percentile average exit velocity and 95th percentile hard-hit rate.

The 30-year-old’s cutter, curveball, and sweeper all feature well above-average horizontal break while his high-spin, 94-mph fastball can ride right over bats at the height of the zone. Stuff+ graded his cutter as the seventh-best among qualified MLB relievers last season and his sweeper as sixth-best.

But there’s a catch. Last season Sims pitched to a 4.38 ERA, walked 14 per cent of the batters he faced, and allowed 1.5 HR/9.

Walks and home runs are a tough combination, but the Blue Jays have helped wild pitchers with big stuff hit their spots more consistently in the past. See: Ray, Robbie and Kikuchi, Yusei.

And the home run troubles can’t all be chalked up to execution. Sims is an extreme flyball pitcher and spending the last seven seasons working up in the zone at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark — MLB’s most homer-happy environment — hasn’t helped his cause.

Of the 13 home runs Sims has allowed over the last two seasons, four have travelled less than 378-feet and three wouldn’t have been home runs at Rogers Centre. While hitters slugged .413 against him last season, his xSLG based on the quality of contact he allowed was.384. Put Sims in a less hitter-friendly environment and his results ought to look much better.

The Blue Jays love to bet on undervalued pitchers with big stuff and a wager on Sims won’t be steep. One year at $3-million could get it done.

RHP Spencer Turnbull

Had he not missed the second half of the season due to a lat strain, Turnbull may have been looking at a multi-year deal this winter after pitching to a 2.65 ERA over his first 54.1 innings in a swingman role with the Phillies. A .233 BABIP and 84 per cent strand rate suggest luck was on his side, but there’s no arguing with a 26.1 per cent strikeout rate or the fact 47.5 per cent of the contact against him was on the ground.

Turnbull can produce those rate stats because he throws six different pitches over five per cent of the time. He’s primarily four-seamer, sinker, sweeper; but there’s also a curveball and changeup for lefties, and a harder, tighter slider for when he wants to dot the glove-side edge of the zone. His curveball, in particular, sticks out as a pitch he could stand to use more often, as he allowed only one hit off of it last season and earned a whiff 59.4 per cent of the time hitters swung at it.

Clearly, Turnbull would present plenty for Toronto’s pitching department to work with and a quick glance at his 2024 heat maps shows you how reliably he’s able to locate each of his half-dozen pitches:

The 32-year-old’s in need of a one-year deal to prove his health and reestablish value. The Blue Jays could try to sign him for $2-3 million with appearances or innings pitched incentives and install him in a swingman role, using Turnbull for length out of the bullpen and rotation insurance, which would free up Yariel Rodriguez for shorter, more targeted, high-leverage appearances.

RHP Trey Wingenter

Here’s a list, in order, of the Blue Jays relievers with the highest average fastball velocity in 2024: Nate Pearson, Yimi Garcia, Jordan Romano, Yerry Rodriguez, Genesis Cabrera, Luis Frias.

All but Garcia are no longer members of the Blue Jays organization. The other hardest throwers from last year’s bullpen returning for 2025 are Chad Green, Tommy Nance, and Ryan Burr. Clearly, the club needs to find a way to make up for some of that lost velocity.

Wingenter could help. He averaged 97.1-mph with his fastball last season, regularly touching 99. And thanks to the right-hander’s 88th percentile extension — Wingenter gets the most of his 6’7 frame, releasing the ball seven feet in front of the rubber — Statcast measured its perceived velocity to a hitter as 98.3-mph.

As with many hard-throwers, Wingenter’s problem has been control. He’s run a 12 per cent walk rate for his career and his fastball’s flat shape makes it susceptible to hard contact when he isn’t getting it to the edges of the zone. But the 30-year-old’s also struck out 30.5 per cent of the batters he’s faced over parts of four MLB seasons and produced a gargantuan 46.7 per cent whiff rate with a bullet slider featuring sharp downward break.

An elite leverage reliever’s tools are here — Wingenter just needs help harnessing them. The Blue Jays feel strongly about their staff’s ability to help pitchers with big-time arm talent improve. It shouldn’t take more than a minor-league deal to bring Wingenter to spring training, and the Blue Jays can sweeten it by offering him a decent guarantee if he makes the team out of camp. It’s an extremely low risk gamble to see if Toronto can be the ones holding the bag when something clicks and Wingenter puts it all together.

RHP Joe Ross

The story of Ross’s career is one of unfulfilled potential due to injuries, as the 2011 first-round pick underwent two Tommy John surgeries in a five-year span. And it was a familiar refrain in 2024 as Ross, pitching in the majors for the first time in three years, hit the IL only 9 starts into his season with a back issue.

But upon his return in August, the Brewers shifted Ross to the bullpen and the right-hander took off. Pitching with an extra tick on his fastball, Ross worked to a 1.67 ERA across 27 relief innings over the final two months of the season and made two scoreless appearances in Milwaukee’s Wild Card series against the Mets.

Still only 31, Ross has plenty of tools to work with as a reliever. He posted strong run values last season on both his mid-90’s sinker (+5) and mid-80’s slider (+5), the latter of which produced a 38.4 per cent whiff rate. He also throws a four-seamer, a curveball, and a hard split-changeup to lefties with an above-average arm-side run. And we all know how much the Blue Jays like splitters.

It could take only a minor-league deal with a $1-2 million guarantee in the majors to add Ross to Toronto’s spring training bullpen mix. And his starting experience gives him the versatility to fill several roles. He could pitch short relief against pockets of righties; he could chew outs over multiple innings after a starter’s short outing; he could even make a spot start here and there if needed. He’d be this year’s Trevor Richards or right-handed Ryan Yarbrough — an unheralded yet vital role in any successful bullpen.