It’s been an unusually slow start to the MLB offseason, and that is due to Juan Soto holding up the market. Teams are also waiting for the non-tender deadline so they can clear space on their roster to sign those proverbial free agents.

Clubs like the Toronto Blue Jays can start tearing down (and/or building up) their roster once they have more payroll and roster certainty. With somewhere in the $200 million range set aside for salary next year, Toronto has some wiggle room to rebuild their roster back into a contender.

The first major juncture of their offseason is this Friday’s non-tender deadline, with eight Blue Jays in jeopardy of becoming free agents. Some decisions are slam dunks, while other intriguing possibilities may shape how the team approaches the rest of the offseason.

This might be one of the most perplexing non-tender decisions the Blue Jays have had to make in recent years that could receive a lot of blowback from the fan base. How the front office approaches the future of Jordan Romano’s tenure with Toronto may be the first domino to fall.

We’ve heard little about his injury progress since he went down with elbow surgery in early July. On September 4, Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet said that Romano was in a throwing program down in Dunedin, and then two days later, manager John Schneider said the team shut down Romano for the rest of the season. I don’t believe this to be a case of “no news is good news” as Romano is still working to come back from the elbow soreness that delayed his arrival at Spring Training, sent him to the injured list in April, and sidelined him for the rest of the season.

The fact that Ross Atkins was recently non-committal about Romano’s role for next season may have indicated how the organization feels about the right-hander’s future with the club.

Last week, Mitch Bannon detailed all the scenarios that could unfold for Ramano at the non-tender deadline. Among the many options were letting things ride, non-tendering Romano, or non-tendering him and re-negotiating a new contract.

Considering how badly the bullpen performed in 2024, the Blue Jays have a lot of work to do to overhaul their reliever core to bring them back to the league average in 2025. And Romano’s status remains a huge question mark, with a $8 million price tag likely coming in arbitration. As Mitch outlined, even if the club non-tenders Romano, there’s a possibility to re-work a deal, and one has to believe Toronto has the inside track to bring their hometown kid back if there aren’t any health concerns.

If there isn’t much money to go around in the bullpen, $8 million is a lot to fork over to someone you can’t even guarantee will be healthy for the 2025 season. It’s an aggressive move to let go of your established closer from the last four seasons, but I think the Blue Jays will non-tender Romano this Friday.

What is it with the Blue Jays’ Canadian boys on the bubble at the non-tender deadline? Just like his fellow countryman in Romano, Zach Pop is also in the hot seat as the Blue Jays look to revamp their bullpen, who had the second-worst ERA in MLB.

When he first came over to the Blue Jays at the 2022 deadline, Pop looked like a dark horse candidate to become the best reliever in that deal. At times, he’s flashed brilliance armed with his signature sinker, but this past season was a struggle for Pop.

His strikeout rate tumbled almost 10% year-over-year, which is concerning for a dude who has fastball velocity and movement to get batters out, but Pop just hasn’t been able to put it together consistently over the last two seasons.

He’ll be arbitration-eligible for the first time in 2025, so it’s not like he’s going to command a lot of money ($1 million), but since the Blue Jays walked away from Génesis Cabrera making potentially $2.5 million next year, they might not hesitate to cut bait with Pop over $1 million.

It’s been a bizarre set of circumstances to fall upon Alek Manoah dating back to the 2022 season. Going from a Cy Young finalist three seasons ago, to a 5.87 ERA in 2023, to missing most of 2024 with an elbow injury.

If the Blue Jays were the Rays or the A’s, they might cut bait to get out from his projected $2.4 million in arbitration, but the Blue Jays can afford to keep Manoah around as he rehabs and hopefully returns in the second half of 2025.

2024 was a tale of two seasons for Erik Swanson. His 9.20 ERA made him unplayable even in low-leverage situations, which is why the Blue Jays demoted him to Triple-A to work out the kinks and help regain his confidence as a high-leverage reliever.

Credit to Swanson, he came out in the second half guns-a-blazing, trimming his ERA to 2.22 and holding opponents to a .182 batting average. It took almost until the end of the season, but Swanson earned his way back into John Schneider’s “circle of trust”, as Sho Alli from Sportsnet often says.

As bad as the Blue Jays’ bullpen was, they can’t just go carte blanche and burn the whole thing down. They’ll need to bring back some incumbents, and Swanson feels like a safe bet to return to the Blue Jays in 2025.

If the same Alejandro Kirk from the first half stuck around for the second half, we might be having a different conversation. But by trading Danny Jansen, Kirk is the number one catcher in the organization by default.

Kirk also redeemed himself in the second half, having a stellar season defensively and cleaning things up at the plate as well. It would be nice if the Blue Jays built on their catching depth this offseason, but Kirk isn’t going anywhere.

When you’re desperate, you’re willing to try anything, hence the Blue Jays picking Dillon Tate up off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles back in September. When you look at a guy with a 4.49 ERA and he looks like Mariano Rivera compared to the rest of your relievers, you might be the 2024 Blue Jays.

Tate didn’t fare any better with Toronto down the stretch, appearing in only four games, so it’s difficult to glean anything from his sample size with the Blue Jays, let alone his entire body of work in 2024.

The thing Tate has against him is he’s already been to arbitration and his salary sits at $1.5 million, with $1.9 million predicted as his outcome for arbitration in 2025.

One year ago, Ernie Clement was on the bubble, not only at the non-tender deadline, but he wasn’t guaranteed to break camp on Opening Day 2024. He survived the purge and performed admirably over his first full season in the majors.

Ideally, the Blue Jays upgrade at the hot corner, but even if they don’t, Clement would be great to have around as a bench bat, defensive replacement and pinch runner. He’s projected to earn $1.7 million in arbitration, which is more than fair for the 28-year-old journeyman.

Nope, not happening, not even a bit. Varsho is here for the foreseeable future.