Blue Jays 2025 free agent target: Justin Verlander

Verlander had the benefit of pitching in a pitcher-friendly ballpark in San Francisco, but if we’re comparing durability alone, Verlander had almost double the number of innings compared to Scherzer in 2025. And those were quality innings thrown by Verlander, too.

Only Verlander himself knows how much longer it is before he hangs up his spikes, but after a season like he had, how could he not want to run it back for 2026?

Does Verlander fit with the Blue Jays?

The Blue Jays have been interested in Verlander in the past – whether it was prior to him re-signing with the Houston Astros many years ago or in between, there’s a lot to like about his makeup, even if he is in his 40s. As he prepares to head into his age-43 season, I believe there’s a spot for Verlander on the Blue Jays roster.

While selling him on Toronto may have been difficult in the past, the Blue Jays have the negotiating chip of being a team that just went to Game 7 of the World Series. If you’re a veteran pitcher, why would you not want to get in on that, especially for someone who’s in the twilight of their career?

With Shane Bieber opting in, the Blue Jays have six big league pitchers on their depth chart heading into spring training, but most teams will tell you that’s not even close to the number of arms you need to weather a full major league season. Even among those six pitchers, there’s a lot of uncertainty within the Blue Jays’ rotation.

Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber are the number one and two arms in the rotation, but Jose Berrios is a bit of a question mark, and Trey Yesavage will be given plenty of runway to figure things out, but he’s still a rookie pitcher with nine big league starts under his belt. Eric Lauer is there as a starting rotation insurance plan, and Bowden Francis should be healthy, but questions remain about his ability to unlock his second-half magic from 2024.

With that cast of characters, in addition to their depth options in the minors like Adam Macko, Lazardo Estrada and hopefully Ricky Tiedemann and Jake Bloss at some point, they should be able to weather a full season worth of starts.

This is why it would benefit the Blue Jays to raise the floor of their starting rotation by signing a veteran like Verlander to fortify the middle to the back end of their starting rotation. It takes the pressure off of guys like Yesavage and banking on a dead cat bounce comeback from someone like Francis.

Ideally, Verlander comes in and gives the Blue Jays the type of season they were expecting from a fully healthy Scherzer last season. And if it gets to the postseason, that’s when the club decides who is the best option out of the starting rotation. It was a treat to watch Scherzer deal in October; one can only imagine what it would be like to see that from Verlander again.