Blue Jays 7-for-7 in arbitration settlements

Reports indicate Jays now with 17 roster players under contract

The Blue Jays 2025 payroll situation is taking shape, with the fogs of fiscal uncertainty lifting on a busy Thursday, as SportsNet’s sources report that all seven of the team’s arbitration-eligible players have come to terms on one-year contracts for the coming season, thus avoiding the sometime vitriolic arb process.

Combined with the 10 Jays players already owning guaranteed contracts, that brings the active 2025 Blue Jays payroll to 17 players, $185.3-million.

The most significant of the seven Thursday contracts, in both dollars and impact, was first-baseman Vlad Guerrero Jr, who agreed to a $28.5M deal in his final season before reaching free agency, in time for the 2026 season. The Guerrero Jr contract was slightly surprising, if only for its dollar-amount. The MLB Trade Rumors site issues projections for every arb-eligible player, using similar history, service-time and performance and running them through a computer. They are usually very close, but they had projected Vlad for $29.6M, which is $1.1M more than what he signed for.

There are two possible reasons for the largesse of the Blue Jays’ best player when it seems he could have squeezed more money out of the club.

First is that the actual ’25 salary number is insignificant because they are continuing negotiations for a mega, multi-year contract and this will simply be absorbed and manipulated into the broader amount of a huge Total Value deal of 12-15 years.

Second is that perhaps the $1.1-million that Guerrero Jr seems to be leaving on the table of his estimated award is in order to allow the club some flexibility in seeking a trade partner and that having a 2025 contract in place, instead of having to go to a hearing with the Jays or a new team is much more palatable for everyone concerned. In either case, much of the Jays payroll fog has lifted.

Last season’s opening day 26-man number according to the reliable website, Cot’s Baseball Contracts, was $225,632,600, now leaving the Jays close to $40M to spend on the remaining 11 roster spots. Note that we are saying 11, not nine, because two players are expected to be on the IL on opening day. They are centre fielder Daulton Varsho ($8.2M) and righthanded starter Alek Manoah ($2.2M). They will both need to be temporarily replaced on the active roster.

At his season-ending press briefing, team president Mark Shapiro promised that the opening day payroll would be “more or less” the same in 2025 as it was in 2024. That means that with 17 players now under MLB contracts, the Jays have just less than $40-million to find a significant power hitter, a No. 4 starter for the rotation and a reasonably priced higher leverage reliever from a huge free-agent pool that remains.

You do the math and have fun seeing what can be added for that amount. But, above and beyond, what would surely help in convincing free agents to take their money would be if they were to announce a long-term deal with Vlad.

Reported ‘25 contracts for Blue Jays arb-eligible players: 1B Guerrero Jr $28.5M; CF Varsho $8.2M; C Alejandro Kirk $4.6M; RHP Manoah $2.2M; IF Ernie Clement $1.975M; RHP Nick Sandlin $1.63M and RHP Zach Pop $0.9M.