The Toronto Blue Jays have signed their high-leverage reliever.
On Friday evening, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Blue Jays have signed Tyler Rogers. It’s a three year deal worth $37 million, with an additional year on a vesting option.
Free-agent reliever Tyler Rogers in agreement with Blue Jays on three-year, $37M contract with vesting option, source tells @TheAthletic. Value with option is $48M.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 13, 2025
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The Jays were looking to bring in a high-leverage reliever to replace Seranthony Domínguez. While Rogers is more than capable of pitching in high-leverage, he’s not going to generate nearly the same number of whiffs, strikeout as many batters, or beat batters with velocity. Instead, Rogers averages 83.5 mph with his fastball and relies on soft contact.
Despite the lack of strikeouts, Rogers had a 1.98 ERA and 2.88 FIP in 77.1 innings pitched with the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. It was the fifth consecutive season Rogers has finished with 70 or more innings pitched, and he hasn’t had an ERA above 3.60 in that span. In fact, his ERA has climbed over 3 just twice in those five seasons.
Last season, Rogers picked up 32 holds, blowing just two saves. It was his third consecutive season with 30 or more holds, and the fourth time since 2021 he’s reached that mark. Surprisingly, he’s only made three saves in the past four seasons, with the majority of his career saves coming in 2021 when he had 13.
Rogers’ strikeout rate sat at 16.1% last season, slightly worse than his career strikeout rate of 17.6%. However, he has pinpoint command, walking just 2.3% of batters (4.4 BB% in his career) and generates a ton of soft grounders.
Last season, 62.1% of the balls put in play off Rogers were ground balls, which was sixth in the league for any pitcher with 30 or more innings pitched, and since 2021, Rogers has 56.3 GB%. When it isn’t on the ground, Rogers generates soft contact, as the average exit velocity off his pitches was just 85.8 mph, one of the lowest in Major League Baseball. He rarely gets barreled either.
This was the second transaction for the Blue Jays bullpen on Friday, as they acquired Chase Lee early in the evening. Their other major transaction this week saw them select Spencer Miles in the Rule 5 draft, another pitcher who could make the Blue Jays bullpen next season.
It’s unclear if the Blue Jays will look to make another addition to their bullpen. As good as Rogers is, he probably won’t usurp Jeff Hoffman as the team’s closer, so it’ll be interesting to see if they’ll sign another high-leverage starter.
If not, the Blue Jays lone priority move is to bring in a big bat, whether that be Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Cody Bellinger, or Alex Bregman is anyone’s best guess.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.