Blue Jays Lose World Series, Immediately Lose Their Minds With 7-Year Dylan Cease Deal

The Toronto Blue Jays ended the 2025 Major League Baseball season in the most heartbreaking fashion imaginable. 

Game 7 of the World Series. At home. After returning to Toronto with a 3–2 series lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. They had a 3–0 lead entering the fourth inning thanks to a mammoth Bo Bichette home run against Shohei Ohtani. They held a 4–2 lead entering the eighth inning and were just two outs away from a title, with their highly paid closer facing light-hitting backup infielder Miguel Rojas. We know how that at-bat ended.

Still, even after surrendering the tying run, they had an opportunity to bring home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth with a runner at third and fewer than two outs. Instead, a ground ball to second and a fly ball to left-center ended the inning, with both plays just a few inches away from ending the series.

Fast-forward to the 11th, and after giving up the go-ahead homer to Will Smith, Toronto once again had a runner on third with one out — only for catcher Alejandro Kirk to hit into a game-ending double play. That was the second straight game in which the Blue Jays hit into a game-ending double play, after a disastrous base-running mistake cemented a Game 6 loss. It’s hard to imagine a more devastating series of events for an organization and fan base.

And in the first big splash of the 2025–2026 MLB offseason, the Blue Jays seem to be indicating to their fans that they intend to respond to the loss by being aggressive in free agency — even if their aggression seems, at first glance, totally insane.

Padres RHP Dylan Cease pitches in the first inning vs. the New York Yankees at Petco Park in San Diego. (Chadd Cady-USA TODAY Sports)

Blue Jays Sign Dylan Cease To Massive, Ill-Advised Contract

This week, the Blue Jays made their first big move of free agency by signing starting pitcher Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million contract. Per Ken Rosenthal, the deal includes significant amounts of deferred money, which we'll come back to. But at face value, it's a massive contract for someone with Cease's résumé.

Massive as in a tie for the seventh-largest contract ever given to a pitcher, behind only Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Max Fried, David Price and Clayton Kershaw.

For… Dylan Cease?

Cease’s 2025 season with the San Diego Padres included 215 strikeouts in 168 innings, with a 3.56 FIP and a 19.9 percent K–BB rate. That’s the good news. The bad news? His ERA was 4.55. His HR/FB rate ticked up to 11.9 percent despite pitching in Petco Park. In two of the last three seasons, his ERA was over 4.50, and 168 innings marked the second-lowest total of his career since becoming a full-time starter.

And he just got $210 million? What are the Blue Jays thinking?

Cease is the ultimate example of modern baseball — how front offices think, what they value and the cost of doing business. His career ERA is an unspectacular 3.88, but his FIP is a more tolerable 3.67. He's consistently ranked among the league leaders in strikeouts. And he's made 32 or 33 starts in every season since 2021.

This is why it’s become ever trickier to evaluate pitching. Health is a skill — until it isn’t. Gerrit Cole was an extremely reliable and healthy starter for much of his career, then made just 17 starts in 2024 and missed the entirety of the 2025 season. Cease has shown an ability to dominate with exceptional, strikeout-inducing stuff, but he’s extremely inconsistent. He had 10 starts (out of 32) where he allowed four runs or more in 2025, but also had nine starts where he allowed zero or one run.

His tendency toward wildness leads to elevated pitch counts and short outings, which is how he threw just 168 innings in 32 starts — only 5.25 per start.

But the Blue Jays were clearly enticed by his potential and his stuff, while hoping for some positive regression with batted-ball luck. In 2022, when it all came together for Cease, he had a 2.20 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 184 innings. That’s a pitcher worth paying $210 million for. But it’s the only year of his career with an ERA under 3.47. So how did he get this much money? Well, Toronto has the disadvantage of playing in Canada, with its exceptionally high tax rate. There’s a scarcity of dependable starting pitching with elite potential, raising prices for players like Cease.

Oh, and what about those deferrals?

It’s important to note that while the Dodgers have been criticized for deferring money, that practice is available to all 30 teams. The deferrals lower the present-day average annual value from $30 million to $26 million — a substantial discount. It makes the contract a bit more understandable from their perspective.

Does it make sense for the Blue Jays to target starting pitching? Yes. Cease now heads a very good rotation with Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber and Trey Yesavage. Their offense made significant strides in 2025, and they're likely favorites to retain Bo Bichette, too. And most importantly, it's great to see teams going for it, even if it takes a bit of an overpay. The Blue Jays are a better team today than they were two days ago, and at the end of the day, it's only money.

Money fades. Flags fly forever.