BURSTThe Toronto Blue Jays, a bottom-five team in home runs and average exit velocity last season, need more pop from their lineup in 2025. The most straightforward way to address that is in left field, where Steamer currently projects a combination of Joey Loperfido, Davis Schneider, and Nathan Lukes to produce 1.3 fWAR — 27th at the position in baseball.
This year’s free agent market presents two obvious upgrades — Anthony Santander and Teoscar Hernandez. In Santander, you get a 30-year-old switch-hitter who ranks fifth in home runs among outfielders since 2020. In Hernandez, you get a 32-year-old right-handed hitter who ranks sixth in home runs among outfielders since 2020.
Each has proven their ability to clobber baseballs as well as the top 20 per cent of hitters in the league, running average exit velocities in excess of 90-mph and max velos above 114-mph over the course of their careers. Hernandez’s legs have allowed him to make more of his non-homer contact and regularly post higher batting averages, while Santander has made more contact overall and demonstrated a peskier plate approach, giving him considerable edges in both walk and strikeout rates over the last three seasons.
Hernandez is a far faster raw athlete, yet both players have been graded as negative-value baserunners since 2022. Both rate as poor defensive outfielders, too, playable in the corners only because their above-average arm strength makes up for below-average range.
Durability has not been a recent issue for either — both rank among MLB’s top-10 outfielders in games played since 2022. Both are coming off the best seasons of their careers with an all-star jersey, a Silver Slugger award, and down-ballot MVP votes. And both are projected by Steamer to produce similar fWAR in 2025 — Santander, 2.5, and Hernandez, 2.3.
Depending on what characteristics a team values, what complements their current roster best, and what their assessments of intangible elements such as effort, mentality, and supportiveness suggest, it’s easy to see one front office preferring Hernandez and another preferring Santander.
Budgetary considerations will influence that determination, as well. Both players received qualifying offers and will cost a new team a draft pick plus international bonus pool money; both will command contracts with annual average values between $20 and $25-million. Yet due to their age discrepancy, Hernandez will be seeking a four-year deal, while Santander will be seeking five. Teams will no doubt find terms of three years for Hernandez and four for Santander more palatable.
Eventually, as spring training nears, either a team will raise its offer or one of these two will lower their expectations, materializing a deal. Don’t be surprised if they sign within 24 hours of each other, as teams that miss out on one rush to add the other. This off-season, the Blue Jays have projected a willingness to be patient, let markets develop, and await opportunities at their valuations. That likely means they won’t be the catalyst to set wheels in motion.
So, while we wait, let’s consider two options the Blue Jays could turn to if Santander and Hernandez’s markets get carried away and the club doesn’t come away with either. These players are riskier, more precarious bets. But the right one under the right circumstances might just come up with a better 2025 than Santander or Hernandez produce.
Timing’s everything in life. If Kepler hit free agency last winter, coming off a 24-homer, 123-wRC+ season, he’d be right behind Santander and Hernandez, looking at a multi-year deal with an AAV approaching $20 million. But here he is, coming off an 8-homer, 94-wRC+ season, looking at a one or two-year deal with an AAV closer to $11-12 million.
That’s how damaging an injury-plagued 2024 was to Kepler’s bank account, as an early-season right knee contusion and late-season battle with left knee patellar tendinitis limited him to his fewest games played in a season (putting aside pandemic-shortened 2020) and the lowest OPS+ of his career.
Kepler’s one win above replacement (per FanGraphs) was also the lowest of his career, which is telling in a funny way. Playing his worst baseball as a professional, Kepler still made a positive impact. A year earlier, healthier and more productive, he reached 2.8 fWAR and finished top-20 in home runs among outfielders. Acquiring that upside at Kepler’s price this winter presents a unique opportunity for a team willing to bet on a bounce back.
If you’re looking for reasons to believe, Kepler’s line drive and fly ball rates last season remained steady with 2023’s while he tied his career-high max exit velocity of 115.4-mph, the 23rd highest in the sport. And we’ve seen him rebound from down seasons twice before. He followed up a so-so 2018 with a monstrous 2019 in which he hit 36 homers as a four-win player. His .298 wOBA and 94 wRC+ last season are identical to what he posted in 2022 before he went off in 2023.
That inconsistency presents risk, no doubt. But his offensive floor so far has been that of a slightly-above-league-average hitter with some pop. And Kepler brings added value defensively as an 85th percentile outfielder by OAA each of the last two seasons. His above-average arm strength would let him cover right field when George Springer is DHing and he has centre field experience as recently as 2022 should the Blue Jays ever find themselves in a late-game positional pinch.
On a short-term deal at an $11 or $12-million AAV, it’s easy to envision Kepler returning value as the strong side of a platoon with Davis Schneider in left. Steamer projects him at 1 fWAR with 15 homers and a 103 wRC+ in 2025, which isn’t a terrible floor. But the bet here is on Kepler’s upside. And whether David Popkins, the Blue Jays new hitting coach who worked with Kepler in Minnesota, can help him realize it.
The Blue Jays expressed interest in Pederson last winter and it appears they were onto something — 2024 was a career season. As a DH facing almost exclusively right-handed pitching, Pederson hit .275/.393/.515 with 23 homers, good for a 151 wRC+ and 3 fWAR.
That was an excellent return for the Arizona Diamondbacks on the one-year, $12.5-million guarantee they gave him. And while repeating 2024’s production is likely asking a bit much, it’s easy to foresee Pederson achieving the 125 wRC+ and 1.8 fWAR Steamer’s projecting him for, which makes the 32-year-old an intriguing value opportunity for a club that can deploy him optimally.
That last bit is critical as Pederson isn’t a plug-and-play piece. He didn’t spend an inning in the field last season and received well below-average grades when he last did as a left fielder in 2023. His 20th percentile sprint speed clogs the basepaths and leads to negative value as a runner. And he’s near unplayable against left-handed pitching, which has held him to a .210/.300/.330 line for this career.
To roster Pederson is to embrace the narrow band in which he’s deployable — but the production from his 400+ plate appearances against righties has been well worth it for the teams that commit to making it work. He gave the Giants a 144 wRC+ in 2022 and the Dodgers back-to-back years of 126 wRC+ in 2018 and 2019.
Now, Pederson’s best years make a club sandwich of down seasons in 2020 (86 wRC+), 2021 (96), and 2023 (109). But his quality of contact has remained consistent throughout — he’s been a 90th percentile or higher hitter in average exit velocity and xwOBA each of the last three seasons. And his plate approach has improved with age, as he’s run an excellent 11.7 per cent walk rate and league-average 22.4 per cent strikeout rate since he turned 30 in 2022.
After trading Spencer Horwitz, the Blue Jays have room to make a Pederson acquisition work. He could get his 100 or so starts against right-handed pitchers as Toronto’s DH, leaving around 60 games for the Blue Jays to take turns getting George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and others off their feet when facing left-handed starters.
Or the Blue Jays could run a platoon of Pederson and the similarly powerful-yet-defensively-limited Orelvis Martinez at DH. The 23-year-old has torched lefties in the minors, posting a 1.047 OPS against them in 2023 followed by a .965 mark in 2024.
A one-year, $14-million or two-year, $26-million deal for Pederson would eat up a good chunk of Toronto’s remaining 2025 budget. But the team desperately needs to add power and you won’t find a better bet for a 20-25 homer season at that price point on the market.
