Blue Jays free agent target: Gleyber Torres

When the postseason reaches its conclusion, the free agency window will get ready to kick off.

For the Toronto Blue Jays, it is business as usual as even with a potential work stoppage of a lockout looming over the rest of the league, the team is gearing up to be incredibly aggressive in free agency. The franchise wasted little time last winter as they locked up both Dylan Cease (seven years, $210 million) and Cody Ponce (three years, $30 million) early on in the free agent window. With pitching being very much shored up with the likes of Cease, Ponce, José Soriano and Trey Yesavage, the priority shifts to offence as the team that scored the fewest runs in baseball.

While the majority of fans are aware that a corner-outfield bat is likely priority one for this team, another bat with thump in the infield is not that far behind. Enter Gleyber Torres, a 29-year-old second baseman who’s spent the last two seasons with the Detroit Tigers after his first seven seasons with the New York Yankees.

While Ernie Clement was an all-star in 2026, his second half of the season was a concern as he ran out of steam offensively. Adding a power bat like Torres who had been consistently averaging 20 home runs a season until this past season due to only playing in 96 games. During that span, Torres batted .260 with eight home runs and 38 RBIs, while reaching base at a .364 clip.

Where Torres edges Clement slightly has to be plate discipline. Clement had the highest chase rate of any Blue Jay last season with 44.4%, compared to Torres who had the lowest on the Tigers last season with just a 18.9% chase rate. Another issue that Clement had last season was his habit of always swinging at the first pitch of the at bats, which happened 41.5% of the time last season, compared to Torres 32.5%. While those numbers may seem small, Torres has a career .767 OPS, which shows that the more he gets at bats, the more he is able to take a patient approach to the plate than wild swinging to make contact.

Torres has also had a lot of success against the Blue Jays as he’s hit 12 home runs and 44 RBIs in 100 games. Of those 100 appearances, six of those 12 home runs came at Rogers Centre as well as 26 RBIs. Having a long-standing record in Toronto while playing for teams like the Yankees and Tigers, shows Torres he has a lot of familiarity playing half the season there.

While the last two seasons showed that Torres is also a little streaky at times, just like how Clement was this season for the Jays, it could open up opportunities to rotate the two in the lineup, especially with Clement’s positional flexibility to move all around the infield. Torres has not played a game at shortstop since 2022 in the Bronx, he is still a capable bat to any major-league lineup. Torres has primarily seen himself slotted in second in the batting order, opening the door to having another capable batter to work a pitch count ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

In the postseason ,Torres has hit .262 with eight home runs and 26 RBIs in 53 career playoff games. Just goes to show that this could be a gamble that can pay off well for a team that sorely missed a lot of offence from key contributors. Torres is coming of a a $22 million dollar contract that he re-signed with the Tigers in 2025, with the market projecting him staying around that threshold per season. However, I do think a potential three-year, $60-million deal is not that far-fetched as Torres will be only 32 by the end of the contract.