José Berríos at spring training in Dunedin, Fla. on Thursday, after he and the Blue Jays agreed to put a contentious end to his 2025 season behind him.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
José Berríos battled a bicep issue and elbow inflammation throughout the 2025 baseball season but it still stung when he was dropped from the Toronto Blue Jays pitching rotation in September and then placed on the injured list for the first time in his 10-year major league career.
He did not like the way the club handled it, and the organization was upset when Berríos did not stay in Toronto to cheer on the team in the World Series. Instead the 31-year-old went back home to Puerto Rico to be with his wife and kids.
“I couldn’t throw the ball,” Berríos said on Thursday at the team’s training facility in Dunedin, Fla. “I had never been injured. Nobody wants to be on the injured list so it was frustrating.
“I felt that being closer to my family was better for me.”
Berríos had been Toronto’s most consistent starter for five years and for a long time one of the most durable pitchers in the big leagues.
Dylan Cease is ready to jump at the opportunity the Blue Jays have given him
But at one point he felt so down that he began to doubt that he still had a future with the Blue Jays. Family and friends persuaded him to stay the course.
At first amends had to be made.
“I apologized [to management] because I think I might have made a bad decision to go back home,” Berríos said. “Then I talked to some of the Latin guys and others close to me and I apologized to them, too.
“Now I want to turn the page as fast as I can.”
Berríos battled a bicep issue and elbow inflammation last season, which led to him being moved to the team’s bullpen for the first time since his rookie season in Minnesota.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Berríos has returned to the fold and seems to have made a fresh start, after addressing his teammates at the start of spring training early in the week.
In turn, the club has acknowledged it probably could have taken a better approach with him.
“He is so well respected for what he has done here and throughout his career that we are glad to be in a better place,” manager John Schneider said. “He just needed to get past it.
“He said he is moving on and hopefully we are moving on and we’ll get better at things like this, too. When you are around someone so much it is easy to give them a mulligan.”
Berríos was in Florida for the first day of spring training earlier this week and is digging in to battle for a roster spot. It is likely it will not be easy.
Yesavage ready to dive into Jays’ camp
Toronto signed free agents Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce during the off-season. Cease was the top starting pitcher among free agents available, and Ponce is coming off a year where he went 17-1 with a 1.89 earned run average and 252 strikeouts in 180.2 innings in the Korean major leagues.
Cease ended up signing the largest contract in the franchise’s history – seven years and US$210-million – and Ponce agreed to US$30-million over three years.
The decision to shelve Berríos came after he was moved to the bullpen for the first time since 2017, when he was with the Minnesota Twins. He ended the 2025 season with a 4.17 ERA and 1.301 WHIP in 166 innings over 30 starts.
Toronto signed two projected starters this off-season in Cease and Ponce and the rotation already features Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber, though Bieber may not be ready for opening day.
“I’m a competitor and my goal is to keep doing what I have to do. I’ve been thinking about it since the end of last season,” Berríos said. “They signed two starting pitchers and I’m a starting pitcher, too. But in all of the time I have been in Toronto I have never had a guarantee. I have worked very hard to earn my spot on the team.
“I have never come to spring training and said ‘Oh, I will be one of the five men in the rotation.’ I have to earn that spot and that’s why I’m here.”