A Santander rebound could be the boost Blue Jays need next year

TORONTO -- No one in baseball will be happier to see the sun rise on a new season than Anthony Santander.

The Blue Jays’ biggest offseason splash from a year ago was barely a factor in 2025. It was a lost year, bogged down by injuries, poor performance and all the frustrations that come along with those things. Nothing went right, and there’s no silver lining to reach for.

This team needs Santander, though. It needs the man to whom it handed a five-year, $92.5 million deal. It needs the slugger who belted 44 home runs with the division-rival Orioles in 2024. All the Blue Jays can do for now is hope, but they still believe in Santander for all the same reasons they handed him that contract. If one player in this organization can bounce back in 2026, it needs to be the 31-year-old Santander.

“Tony is going to be huge for us,” said manager John Schneider. “Speaking to him at the end of the year and in the postseason, he battled to get back. … He wanted to be part of it so bad. He wanted to get off on the right foot. It didn't happen.”

Santander started slow -- as he often does -- then injured his left shoulder midway through the season and never quite escaped that injury. He tried to grind through it for a bit, but it was eventually revealed that he’d dealt with a shoulder subluxation and the recovery from that took much longer than anyone expected, at least externally.

Santander missed nearly four months of the season rehabbing from the injury and the inflammation that followed, only to return in late September for the stretch run. After appearing in five postseason games, he was removed from the American League Championship Series roster midway through that series against the Mariners with a back injury.

This was all a frustrating ride for the Blue Jays, sure, but it also had to be incredibly difficult for Santander as he tried to familiarize himself with a new organization.

“He is motivated. He is hungry to get back to the player we know he is,” Schneider said. “He's a big part of what we're doing. Again, I don't want him -- I've told him this, ‘I don't want you to think you have to do anything you don't do well. You don't have to come back and hit .300 with 50 homers to make up for last year.’ We need Tony to fit in the way we know he can when we signed him.”

Over 54 games, Santander hit just .175 with six home runs and a .565 OPS. Expecting a 44-homer season from Santander might be asking too much at this point, but what would success look like?

Given that Santander’s career OPS is .762, would a .750 OPS with 20-plus home runs be acceptable? That could end up looking even better if a slow start is offset by a strong finish that sees Santander show up in big moments in September and October. This may not be the ceiling the Blue Jays dreamed of when they signed Santander, but it would sure beat 2025.

Regardless of what the Blue Jays do next -- from Bo Bichette and Kyle Tucker to the rest of the free-agent market -- they simply need this bounce-back season from Santander. There’s no way around it, especially when you consider the possibility of regression elsewhere.

Will George Springer repeat his career renaissance from 2025? It would be one heck of a story, but the odds are against it. Will the Blue Jays get all the right contributions from their depth players at all the right times? Again, it’s likelier that these things take a step back instead of a step forward.

There are other ways to balance this. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s regular season was very good this past year, but by no means great. Daulton Varsho was excellent when healthy, so perhaps a full season of a motivated Varsho adds the power this lineup still needs. Perhaps Addison Barger takes another jump, from good to great. None of these feels as simple as Santander, though, a non-factor a year ago who could, at the very least, be a useful power bat near the middle of this lineup.

The Blue Jays have ideas, too. They’re speaking about ways to help Santander shake those slow starts he’s known for, and he’ll be the most eager player in that complex to get the new season rolling.