Earlier this week, reports emerged that the Blue Jays had made a four-year, $82 million offer to free-agent outfielder Anthony Santander. After losing out on other top free agents like Juan Soto, Max Fried, and Corbin Burnes, the team needs to make a significant addition if it hopes to compete in 2025.

The club has been tied to Santander since the start of free agency and seems to be the current front-runner for his services on the hot stove front.

How exactly will he fit into Toronto’s lineup? Let’s take a look at what he brings to the table.

The Blue Jays struggled in several ways in 2024, with a lack of power being one of the biggest concerns. The team’s 156 homers were 26th in the Major Leagues, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s 30 knocks leading the group. Beyond him, nobody cracked 20 home runs. Toronto has struggled to find players who can hit the ball over the fence for the last few seasons, with 32 (Guerrero) being the average output by any player over the last three years. They will try to get back to where they were in 2021, when Guerrero (48), Marcus Semien (42), Tesocar Hernandez (32), and Bo Bichette (29) led a powerful offence.

It’s not often that a guy who hit 44 home runs becomes available via free agency. As a matter of fact, over the last ten seasons, only 20 different players have hit as many round-trippers in a season. Santander trailed only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani atop the leaderboard. He also cleared the 100 RBI plateau for the first time in his career in 2024, splitting time hitting anywhere from 2nd to 5th in the Orioles’ lineup.

The Margarita, Venezuela native initially debuted in 2017, spending the next four seasons as a part-time player. Since then, he has steadily improved his game, becoming a key starter for a young and competitive Orioles team. Although his 2024 home run output was his career high, he also bopped 33 home runs in 2022 and 28 in 2023, showing that this season was no fluke. He has also been one of the more reliable players in the majors since becoming a full-time starter, playing in at least 150 games in each of the last three seasons.

While there’s no denying his power, there are other parts of the Venezuelan outfielder’s game that could raise some red flags.

While power is Santander’s calling card, a look at his complete offensive profile is necessary to understand what kind of player he is. If you took a look at only his power numbers, it would be reasonable to expect him to earn a contract well over $100 million. However, there may be a reason why the Blue Jays’ offer is rumoured to be his top offer: he’s kind of a one-trick pony.

The 30-year-old seems to be a guy who has embraced the launch angle revolution and focused on hitting home runs at the expense of other methods of solid contact. A whopping 31.4% percent of his 140 hits were out of the park in 2024, the highest percentage among major league starters. The next closest HR/H ratio was Cal Raleigh, whose 28 home runs accounted for 28.3% of his total hits.

The home run approach means that Santander has been a guy with less-than-ideal on-base percentage numbers throughout his career. Through seven seasons, his 2023 mark of .325 was the highest of his career. Last year, he got on base at just a .308 clip. Through his first few seasons in Baltimore, he didn’t walk a whole lot, which has changed in recent years once he started to hit for more power and earn regular at-bats. His BB% has remained steady at around 8.5% over the last three seasons, which isn’t bad but may be a bit low for a power hitter. The main reason for the mediocre on-base numbers is that Santander has historically been a low BABIP guy, as his swing plane doesn’t result in a lot of line-drive base hits.

Oddly enough, the six-foot-two slugger doesn’t have a ton of swing and miss to his game, with his 19.4% strikeout percentage being an above-average mark compared to the MLB standard. This challenges the typical profile of a power hitter from the last decade or two, who you’d expect to have high walk totals while also striking out a lot. In the above chart, Santander is among six other players who hit a ton of home runs while other parts of their game hindered their overall performance. Most of these players fit the above archetype, with only Pujols striking out and walking less than Santander did in 2024.

Despite the red flags of signing a player like Santander, the potential reward may be worth it for the Blue Jays. Considering their priority placed on defensive skills with players currently on the roster, the team can afford to take on a player like Santander who may be a below-average fielder. He would likely settle into a corner outfield spot, while occasionally slotting in as a designated hitter.

It’s not a perfect comp, but Santander would have a good chance to replicate the kind of production that Jays fans grew to expect from Hernandez when he was a Blue Jay. Both corner outfielders provide middle-of-the-order pop while possessing average to below-average on-base skills. Santander makes less quality contact than Hernandez but walks moderately more frequently. Furthermore, both don’t provide much in terms of defence or baserunning ability. Their 2024 fWARs were very similar, with Hernandez’s 3.5 mark narrowly edging out Santander’s 3.3.

Providing they don’t go much beyond the $20 million AAV figure that they have rumoured to have offered Santander, the Blue Jays lineup would likely benefit in a big way by adding a power hitter like Santander. Although he has some limitations as a player, having a player that can hit 35+ home runs will give the team the chance to be a lot more flexible with the rest of their lineup moving forward.