As appealing as it may sound to fans, the best time for the Toronto Blue Jays to take a risk and offer Teoscar Hernandez a deal has passed.
He has just entered free agency at age 34 after being key to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ back-to-back championships. I think it is easy to see the reasons.
The most pressing one is that the Jays need to resolve several questions on their roster heading into 2027, and one of them is the uncertainty they have in the outfield, where only Nathan Lukes will remain among the players who held a starting spot throughout the entire season.
Myles Straw, who appeared in 146 games, became a free agent, and Daulton Varsho, who played the first 99 games as a center fielder, was sent to the Houston Astros at the trade deadline. For next season, Addison Barger is expected to return, and Brett Bateman could get a bigger role—perhaps the utility spot that Straw used to fill—if Toronto does not do what it should do, which is look for a center fielder and another corner outfielder in free agency.
Let’s start from a reasonable point: his bat is not dead yet. This is where we cannot completely rule out the fact that Teoscar could enter the conversation, although we know that his defensive decline continues to plummet and he just finished in the 6th percentile in the league with -6 OAA. Teoscar is coming off a season of 16 home runs, 64 RBIs, and a 110 wRC+ in which he contributed 1.2 fWAR, double his total in 2025, which cleared up some doubts about the sudden drop in his offense.
That said, once he reached the postseason, his bat would heat up and bring out his best version, to the point that any defensive slip was never noticed. Teoscar played nine playoff series for the Dodgers and has won seven of them, and the only loss was this year, when they were swept out of the NLCS by the Milwaukee Brewers.
However, more than just his streak came to an end in this year’s postseason, as he finished limited to a line of just .200/.219/.300 with one home run, three RBIs, and a puzzling 38 wRC+ in 32 plate appearances. It was the worst playoff performance of his career since he debuted with the Jays by going 1-for-7 with four strikeouts against Tampa Bay Rays pitchers in the 2020 Wild Card Series, during the pandemic-shortened season.
That said, if Teoscar manages to stay healthy, his bat could bring much more power and consistency than the experiments the Blue Jays have carried out to find stability in left field over the last three seasons.
Now, obviously, the question here is at what cost the Jays could bring Teoscar back. Will they prefer not to invest in a high-value free agent like Seiya Suzuki and take a chance on Teoscar as a left fielder regardless of his history of -24 Fielding Run Value over the last two seasons? Trusting that his defense can improve enough could be as difficult as predicting every year how many games Anthony Santander will play with the Jays.
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