The Toronto Blue Jays are reportedly making a massive splash in free agency.

Free agent starter Dylan Cease has agreed to a seven-year, $210 million contract with the Blue Jays, pending a physical, as first reported by the New York Post’s Jon Heyman. The report was confirmed by several other outlets shortly afterwards.

It becomes the richest free-agent contract — and second-largest ever, behind only Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 14-year, $500 million deal — in franchise history, surpassing George Springer’s six-year, $150 million deal signed ahead of the 2021 season.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that Cease’s contract will include salary deferrals, but the amount is unknown at this time.

That tactic has grown increasingly popular in recent years, particularly with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although the Blue Jays followed that strategy last off-season with Anthony Santander’s five-year, $92.5 million contract — $61.75 million of which was deferred and will be paid starting in 2035.

Cease ranked among the best starting pitchers in this year’s free-agent crop, alongside the likes of Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez, Tatsuya Imai and Michael King. His departure is the first major domino to fall in that market this off-season.

The 29-year-old righty — an AL Cy Young finalist in 2022 and a fourth-place finisher in the NL race in ’24 — brings exceptional swing-and-miss to Toronto’s rotation, after ranking in the 90th percentile or higher in whiff rate in four of the previous five seasons. He’s also proven extremely durable in his career, having made at least 32 starts in five consecutive campaigns and leading the majors in total starts (162) since ’21.

After spending the first five seasons of his major league career with the Chicago White Sox, Cease was shipped off to the San Diego Padres in a blockbuster trade prior to the ’24 season. Over the last two years, the front-line starter pitched to a 3.98 ERA and 3.31 FIP across 65 combined starts, striking out nearly a third of his batters faced and walking less than 10 per cent of them.

Additionally, Cease accounted for 8.1 total fWAR, tied with Max Fried for sixth-highest among big-league starters — trailing only Zack Wheeler (9.1), Logan Webb (10), Garrett Crochet (10.4), Cristopher Sánchez (11.1) and Tarik Skubal (12.6).

Cease carries a six-pitch arsenal, headlined by his high-90s, high-spin four-seamer and wipeout high-80s slider. Those top-tier weapons are complemented by a curveball, sinker, sweeper and changeup.

Limiting walks and missing barrels have become troublesome at times for Cease, whose 9.8-per-cent walk rate ranked in the 20th percentile, while his 8.6-per-cent barrel rate against finished in the 45th percentile, respectively. But he’s able to minimize those concerns with his elite-level ability to miss bats.

Adding a top-notch starter like Cease to the fold has now transformed the Blue Jays’ 2026 rotation into one of baseball’s premier staffs, slotting him alongside Kevin Gausman, rookie phenom Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber and José Berríos. If that starting five stays healthy, it’ll become among the most formidable in the sport.

Entering this off-season, Toronto’s starting pitching depth appeared concerningly thin, with Gausman and Bieber both scheduled to hit free agency, and Berríos able to join them by triggering his opt-out clause. Now, however, Cease and Yesavage have become the core pillars of this rotation through the rest of this decade.