Blue Jays make a confusing and short-sighted decision on Alek Manoah

We’re talking about someone who finished third in Cy Young voting in 2022, not all that long ago. I realize he hasn’t been the same since then, but he also spent more than a year recovering from Tommy John surgery and has been pitching in the minor leagues as he works his way back. I’m fully aware that he hasn’t looked that great as he’s gone through that process, but I still believe the Blue Jays may have acted prematurely here. Maybe he never reaches the level again to justify an MLB rotation spot, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have at least waited until the spring to see what he could potentially still bring to the table.

As I texted back and forth with some friends on Tuesday afternoon, the suggestion was thrown out a few times that maybe the Blue Jays preferred to save the money Manoah was going to earn next season as he enters his second turn through arbitration. The Florida native earned $2.2 million in 2025 as he recovered from Tommy John; however, I doubt he would have received much of a raise without being able to build a case for it, so my guess is we’re probably talking about $2.5-3 million at most. Is that not worth it for a potentially viable starting pitcher? They’ve spent more for less in the past, so I’m not sure I understand the reluctance in this case, if that variable has anything to do with this decision.

Another suggested that Yesavage’s emergence might have made the front office feel better about DFA-ing Manoah, but I think we can throw that idea out the window pretty quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, at this point, Yesavage feels like all but a lock to be part of the group in 2026, but having a guy like Manoah around to fill out a back-end spot could have been helpful too. They’ll return Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios to next year’s rotation, but Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt will be free agents, and Shane Bieber has a player option that he’s highly likely to decline, so he probably joins them as well. I guess that the Jays will be in the running to try and bring Bieber back, but the other two feel less likely. Regardless of how that all plays out with the veterans and/or other potential free agents, you can never have enough rotation depth, and Manoah could have been a potentially cost-effective option.

I think the part that confuses me as much as any of this is that the Jays decided to DFA Manoah instead of a handful of other players. With all due respect to guys like Easton Lucas, Justin Bruihl, and a few others, it seems like there would be more potential upside from the 2022 All-Star starter than some of the other fringe 40-man players. With just five games remaining in the 2025 regular season, I’m genuinely confused that this was the time they decided with Manoah.

Again, I realize that he hasn’t pitched well since returning to the mound after surgery. His velocity has been down, and the underlying numbers haven’t been great, so I certainly understand why he hasn’t been in the conversation to return to the big league roster in 2025. I suppose it’s possible that the Blue Jays are so discouraged that they have lost faith in his ability to contribute as a big league starter altogether.

If that’s truly the case, then maybe they wanted to get ahead of next year’s roster considerations and save themselves a few million that they can use elsewhere. I’m just kinda blown away that they didn’t want to see what an offseason of rest and focused preparation could do for the former first-round pick after having surgery, and hope to salvage some of the potential that made him look like a perennial Cy Young candidate in 2022.

For the minimal price that Manoah would have cost in 2026, I think it’s a mistake for the Blue Jays to go in this direction. It’s still possible that he could remain in the organization if he clears waivers, but I expect that there’s a team out there that will take a chance on him even at this late point in the season. If he does clear waivers, Manoah will have the option of accepting an outright assignment or becoming a free agent, but we’ll see if that’s a decision he’ll have to make or not.

One way or another, the most likely outcome is that Manoah’s days with the Blue Jays are probably over, something I didn’t expect to be saying in late September.