There’s a little bit of procedural news today. First, it was the deadline for players to officially accept or reject the qualifying offer. As expected, Bo Bichette has rejected the Jays’ offer. Bo is going to make a lot more than $22.025 million over a lot more than one year, so accepting the QO was never a realistic expectation. In terms of other teams’ impending free agents:
None of those decisions are significant surprises.
It was also the deadline to add players to the 40-man roster and protect them from the upcoming Rule 5 Draft. As a refresher, players are eligible for the draft if they are not on a 40 manroster and a certain number of rule 5 drafts have passed since they signed their minor league contract, with the number varying by age. This year, high schoolers and some junior college players drafted in 2021 and college players drafted in 2022 are newly eligible, as are many 21 year old international free agents.
The Jays added Brandon Valenzuela to the 40 man roster back on November 6th. The return in the Will Wagner trade is an above average catcher who struggled a little in Buffalo but who should be a solid glove-first backup in the long run. He’ll be the third catcher in 2026. Following outrighting Nick Sandlin yesterday, the Jays had 37 players on their 40 man roster.
Today, Ricky Tiedmeann was added. Tiedemann has had some setbacks in his Tommy John rehab, but he’s on track to be ready for spring training and it sounds like the stuff that made him a top 50 prospect is intact. There’s no way he’d have gone unclaimed, so it was no surprise he was added.
The Jays have opted to keep a couple of spots open for trades or free agent signings, meaning that several notable prospects have been left unprotected. In rough order of their likelihood of being taken:
It seems likely that at least one or two of these players will wind up being taken. Good organizations should regularly be losing players in the Rule 5 draft, because it means they have depth to the point of having players other teams like that they just don’t have room for, but it’s never fun to lose prospects. We’ll find out who gets taken on December 10th.
