Blue Jays 2025 free agent target: Gregory Soto

Starting pitching appears to be the Toronto Blue Jays’ top priority this off-season, slightly ahead of re-signing shortstop Bo Bichette. But the front office also seems motivated to make a significant improvement at the back end of the bullpen.

With Seranthony Domínguez hitting free agency, general manager Ross Atkins has at least one high-leverage spot to fill this winter — two if they believe Yimi García won’t be ready for Opening Day following his injury-plagued 2025 campaign. Fortunately, this year’s class is flush with intriguing late-inning relievers, including names such as Edwin Díaz (whom they’ve already expressed interest in), Robert Suarez, Devin Williams and Ryan Helsley, to name a few.

Most of those top-tier arms are surely to command lucrative free-agent commitments, though, and depending on the Blue Jays’ aggressiveness to address their other needs, that could make them more inclined to shift their focus to the lesser-expensive-but-still-talented relief group. Perhaps that could lead management to someone like left-hander Gregory Soto.

After starting his career in Detroit, spending four seasons with the Tigers from 2019-22, Soto has split the last three seasons with as many teams, including the Philadelphia Phillies (2023-24), Baltimore Orioles (2024-25) and New York Mets (acquired mid-season in ’25).

Soto was part of the Mets’ bullpen overhaul at this past season’s trade deadline, which also included Helsley and Tyler Rogers, with the team sending a pair of pitching prospects to the O’s in exchange for the pending free agent. It’s the first time in his career that he’s reached the open market.

2025 Season Stats

The 30-year-old Soto was a workhorse this past season, making a career-high 70 relief appearances between Baltimore and New York, spanning 60.1 innings. He sported a combined 4.18 ERA, but that was outdone by his career-best 3.42 FIP and 8.6 per cent walk rate.

On top of minimizing his previous command woes, the veteran southpaw excelled at generating swing and miss and missing barrels, as evidenced by his impressive strikeout (25.1 per cent), whiff (29.9 per cent), chase (31.5 per cent) and barrel rates (four per cent) — all of which ranked in the top third percentile of the majors in ’25.

Most of Soto’s best work came against left-handed batters, of course, producing a .192 OPP AVG — three points lower than Bredon Little for 12th among qualified lefty big-league relievers (min. 100 batters faced) — and a career-high 18.6-per-cent strikeout-minus-walk rate (K-BB%), excluding the 2020 shortened campaign. And his mid-80s slider was the leading force behind this left-on-left success.

It’s always been about the breaking ball, both versions of it (slider, sweeper), in these matchups for Soto over the last few seasons. This year, left-handers hit just .121 against his slider in 35 plate appearances and swung and missed half the time — the second-highest whiff rate on that pitch from a qualified lefty (min. 30 plate appearances, starter or reliever).