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Right-handed starter Dylan Cease, one of the top pitchers in the free-agent market, has taken Toronto’s seven-year, $210 million offer. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Thanksgiving came a day early for the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
The American League champions, who took the Los Angeles Dodgers into an 11-inning Game 7 before losing the World Series, signed coveted right-handed pitcher Dylan Cease Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He received the largest contract ever given a free agent by the Blue Jays, a 1977 expansion team.<\/p>\n
The seven-year, $210 million deal, which contains deferred dollars, has an annual average value of $30 million, according to Sportrac. It becomes official after the pitcher passes a physical.<\/p>\n
Durability Counts<\/p>\n
Cease, who pitched for the San Diego Padres last season, is a durable starter who has made at least 32 starts in each of the last five campaigns. He and Framber Valdez, a left-hander who remains at large, were widely considered the top pitchers available in the current free-agent class.<\/p>\n
The hard-throwing right-hander has struck out at least 200 hitters five years in a row. He has also two 14-win seasons on his resume.<\/p>\n
Rookie Trey Yesavage was a surprise postseason star for the 2025 AL Champion Toronto Blue Jays. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
The signing solidifies a Toronto rotation that already includes veterans Shane Bieber and Kevin Gausman plus Trey Yesavage, a rookie whose confidence and composure made him a surprise post-season star. Jose Berr\u00edos is also expected to be a mainstay in the team\u2019s rotation next season, though two other 2025 starters, Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer, are now free agents.<\/p>\n
The Jays are in the market for a left-hander to balance their rotation, with Eric Lauer the lone lefty likely to return.<\/p>\n
Cease, who turns 30 three days after Christmas, broke into the big leagues with the 2019 Chicago White Sox and went to San Diego in a 2024 trade. The Georgia native was originally drafted by the Chicago Cubs but never pitched for them.<\/p>\n
Success At Last<\/p>\n
Signing Cease was a major achievement for the Jays, who made strong bids for Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto when those superstars were available via free agency in recent off-seasons.<\/p>\n
The early signing was a surprise too, since most other clients of super-agent Scott Boras stretch out their negotiations for months, even extending into the start of spring training on occasion. But Toronto\u2019s bid satisfied the pitcher\u2019s wishes for years, dollars, and a potential championship season.<\/p>\n
Toronto has not won a world championship since 1993, when it won its second in a row with a defeat of the Philadelphia Phillies. The previous year, the Jays outlasted the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n
The Jays finished last year with a 94-68 record, tied with the New York Yankees for the best in the American League.<\/p>\n
Sportrac figures show Toronto first in the AL and fourth in the majors with a projected 2026 payroll of $193,025,266. That is expected to increase as a result of arbitration results and additional free-agent expenditures.<\/p>\n
The Cease contract runs through the 2032 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-handed starter Dylan Cease, one of the top pitchers in the free-agent market, has taken Toronto’s seven-year, $210…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[1820,5,377,2554,76,387,389,381,4,18,1271,282,70,2553,5196,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-452267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-american-league-east","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blue-jays","11":"tag-bluejays","12":"tag-dylan-cease","13":"tag-jose-berrios","14":"tag-kevin-gausman","15":"tag-max-scherzer","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-san-diego-padres","18":"tag-shane-bieber","19":"tag-toronto","20":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","21":"tag-torontobluejays","22":"tag-trey-yesavage","23":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115623749459282942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}