Blue Jays are forming one of the best rotations in baseball

Cease also becomes the seventh-highest-paid pitcher in baseball with a $30 million average annual salary, which slots in behind the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Zack Wheeler, Jacob DeGrom, Blake Snell, Gerrit Cole and Corbin Burnes. 

The 29-year-old is coming off an up-and-down 2025 campaign with the San Diego Padres, where he went 8-12 while posting a 4.55 ERA with 215 strikeouts in 168 innings pitched. 

Prior to that, he’s accumulated three double-digit win seasons, including a sparkling 2022 campaign with the Chicago White Sox, where his 2.20 ERA landed him a runner-up finish in the AL Cy Young race.

Cease will now join an already formidable rotation that helped take the Blue Jays to Game 7 of the World Series last season, and his addition will be a huge boost in their chances of getting back to the dance and finishing the job this time around.

Dylan Cease takes Toronto’s rotation from good to great

The Blue Jays starting five was strong and deep in 2025, but with Cease now in the fold, they’ve increased their upside and depth at the position all in one move.

Cease has an ace-caliber repertoire, and heading to Toronto to work with their pitching staff should do wonders for him.

The Blue Jays haven’t had a pitcher throw 200+ strikeouts in a season since Kevin Gausman in 2023 (237), something Cease has done in five consecutive seasons, providing them with an element of swing and miss they just haven’t had from their starting rotation. 

He does so with one of the nastiest sliders in baseball, a much different way of missing bats as opposed to the splitters that Gausman and Trey Yesavage live off to get their strikeouts. Not to mention his 97+ mph average fastball velocity, which blows by what any of the starting options Toronto has had in recent years were throwing. 

In today's baseball, pitching has leaned even further towards the strikeout and velocity, and that's what Cease has and it's what the Blue Jays lacked. 

Pair his skill set with the aforementioned Gausman, Yesavage, Shane Bieber and Jose Berrios, and the Blue Jays boast a starting five that can go toe-to-toe with just about anyone in the MLB.

The heartbreak of how the 2025 season ended will never go away for the team and its fans, but continuing to push all of their chips in during the offseason to follow is certainly a good start as they look to move forward.