Baseball’s winter meetings are two weeks away, slated to begin in Orlando from December 7th to 10th.
The flurry of transactions will soon be upon us. However, we’ve already seen the reliever market start to move in the last week as Raisel Iglesias re-upped with the Braves for 1 year and $16 million, while Phil Maton and the Chicago Cubs agreed on a two-year pact with a club option on a third year (financials of the deal have not yet been announced).
The Blue Jays are sure to be active in this market as well, having been linked to late-inning arms with the ability to close. How many dollars they choose to allocate to this area remains to be seen. For this piece, we’ll look at three potential options the Jays should avoid investing in this offseason for varying reasons.
Pete Fairbanks – RHP
First off, let me preface this by saying Fairbanks doesn’t land in this article for performance-related reasons.
He’s been a fantastic back-end arm in the Rays bullpen for the better part of the last six seasons. In fact, Fairbanks added a cutter to his arsenal this past season, and it delivered fantastic results (.108 xBA/.136 xSLG/.106 xwOBA/34.4% whiff rate), giving him a newfound weapon against both righties and lefties.
Closer Pete Fairbanks is now a free agent after the Tampa Bay Rays declined his $11 million option, sources tell ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 6, 2025
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So you’re probably wondering why he’s on the avoid list. It’s something, unfortunately, completely out of Fairbanks’ control. He suffers from Raynaud’s syndrome, which impacts blood flow to some areas of the body — such as fingers and toes — to feel numb and cold in response to cold temperatures or stress. This prohibits Fairbanks from effectively pitching in road games in April and October as he simply cannot properly grip the baseball. While the Jays play in the Rogers Centre, which is climate-controlled and not exposed to the elements, those road games early and late in the year are crucial to the success of the team.
Kenley Jansen – RHP
Kenley Jansen has been a fantastic closer in baseball for a long time. With 476 career saves under his belt over the course of 16 seasons, Jansen will go down as one of the better relievers to ever pitch in Major League Baseball.
Unfortunately, Father Time catches up to us all. Jansen, now 38, exhibited signs of trouble last season that may not be as obvious in part because he still put up a sterling 2.59 ERA. When you dig in deeper, you’ll see that his strikeout rate decreased by 4% from 2024; his overall hard-hit rate dropped from a solid 65th percentile down to 17th percentile, while also getting barreled incredibly hard (3rd percentile average exit velo against and 2nd percentile groundball rate).
Allowing hard contact in the air is a bad combination. For a bullpen that saw Jeff Hoffman and numerous others give up their fair share of back-breaking home runs, Kenley Jansen wouldn’t exactly help alleviate that issue.
Paul Sewald – RHP
Paul Sewald falls into a slightly different bucket than the previous two relievers mentioned. He won’t command as much AAV and will almost certainly be taking a one-year deal.
The age-old adage is that there is no such thing as a one-year deal, and while I agree with the sentiment, I could rebut that there is such a thing as a wrong one-year contract.
If going the cheap route is the Jays’ preferred option, there are better, younger options to bet on that could return much higher upside than Sewald. A two-pitch guy, Sewald’s fastball has gotten hit hard the last couple of seasons. He lost 1 MPH on his heater, which was already only averaging 91.4 MPH to begin with. Hitters slugged .500 off of it in 2025, and it produced a paltry -2 run value.
This puts extreme pressure on his sweeper to be an elite offering, and while it’s a very good pitch, it doesn’t generate enough whiffs for it to withstand the fact that the fastball is so poor.