As the Toronto Blue Jays continue to look for ways to improve on both sides of the baseball during Major League Baseball’s offseason, there are a couple of guys who stick out more than others.
Among the many options the Blue Jays could pursue in free agency, at the top of that list should be Randy Arozarena.
Arozarena feels like he’s actually being overlooked in regard to how much he could get paid in free agency.
After coming off a .281 batting average, 26 home runs, and a 79-RBI season, as well as the 12th-best OPS in baseball at .865, it’s not crazy to think that he’s going to get paid very handsomely.
The one thing holding him back is the fact that he’s 31 years old, so teams might not want to sign him to a long-term deal.
In regard to how much he’s expected to get, The Athletic recently predicted a four-year, $108 million contract and named the Blue Jays as one of the potential suitors.
“Amid a disappointing season for the Mariners, it was possible to lose sight of the fact their left fielder was enjoying a career year. Arozarena finished third in the American League in fWAR, and his 151 wRC+ was third in the majors behind only Yordan Alvarez and Pete Crow-Armstrong.
“Defensive metrics have consistently pegged Arozarena as a negative defender, but he’s made up for it at the plate. Since becoming a fulltime player in 2021, he’s only once had a season worth less than 2.6 fWAR and he’s never finished with less than a 114 wRC+. Arozarena’s groundball rate spiked in 2026, but he otherwise avoids the extremes. He can run well enough to steal bases, he consistently hits 20-plus homers, and neither his walk rate nor his strikeout rate is problematic,” The Athletic wrote.
The more interesting part about Arozarena is that he’s one of the best postseason performers in all of baseball. His postseason sample size isn’t huge because he’s only been in the postseason and has played more than five games in it twice throughout his career, and he struggled in 2025 with the Mariners, but he also hit 10 home runs in 2020 for the Tampa Bay Rays in just 20 games.
If that’s the type of player Toronto could get when it matters most, it would be one of the best teams in baseball and very difficult to beat in October if other guys stepped up.
