Suddenly the Blue Jays’ Reunion Rumors Make Perfect Sense
With an injury problem affecting Toronto's rotation, it makes more sense than ever for them to reunite with an old friend.
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Just as pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training for the 2026 season, the Toronto Blue Jays have an unexpected conundrum on their hands. According to MLB insider and Blue Jays beat writer Keegan Matheson, Shane Bieber will open the season on the IL due to lingering arm fatigue and fellow starter Bowden Francis will have season-ending UCL reconstruction surgery.
Francis wasn’t slated to be a major factor in Toronto’s gameplan this season, but Bieber’s injury shakes up a lot for the Jays. Their rotation was shaping up nicely to be composed of Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Dylan Cease, Bieber, and Cody Ponce, but now Bieber’s spot will have to be filled for at least the first bit of the season.
Toronto could try to fill this spot with an internal option like José Berríos or Eric Lauer, but there’s another candidate that could return from last year’s AL Pennant-winning team: veteran and future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer. Scherzer has already been heavily linked to a reunion with the Blue Jays and it’d be interesting to see how bringing him back would look for the team.
Missing Out on Bieber
It’s tough to see Bieber potentially missing out on a chunk of the 2026 season especially given his recent injury history. He exercised his one-year, $16 million player option to stay in Toronto for this upcoming season, likely leaving plenty of money on the table in free agency from another team. Bieber opting in was one of the key parts of the Jays’ offseason, symbolizing how the city and organization was becoming more attractive to players and enticing them to sign longer-term.
Bieber was a strong piece of Toronto’s World Series team last year and pitched excellently in the regular-season starts he was able to make. In the regular season, Bieber went 4-2 in seven starts worth 40.1 innings of 3.57 ERA baseball. Three of those outings were quality starts and Toronto won five of the games he pitched. Heading into the postseason, he was somewhat of a question mark to start games, but it’s a good thing manager John Schneider handed him the ball.
Bieber pitched in six postseason games for the Jays, including a gutsy start in Game 7 of the ALCS to help send the Blue Jays to the World Series. Unfortunately for Bieber, many fans remember his contributions not necessarily because of his good starts in crucial games, but for giving up the game-winning home run in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the World Series. While that’s definitely a sore moment to look back on, Shane Bieber is more than one misplaced pitch.
In his limited run in the regular season last year, Bieber still boasted a +6 Run Value on his breaking pitches and showed elite control of the strike zone, walking only 4.4% of hitters. Among starters with at least 40 innings thrown in 2025, Bieber had the seventh-best walk rate (1.6 BB/9).
When Bieber is able to return to the Blue Jays’ rotation, the team will be much better off than with him injured. His talents on the mound go far beyond the stat pages and he just has a rhythmic and satisfying way of pitching with a lack of velocity. While Toronto’s other starters like Gausman, Yesavage, Cease, and Ponce work in fastballs at or above 95 MPH with regularity, Bieber can mince up hitters with less velocity and it’s an art he’s become quite good at.
Regardless of when he’ll be back, though, the Jays need to find a way to fill the void in his absence and get the innings they need from a strong option. Enter Max Scherzer, fresh off a World Series Game 7 outing for the very same Blue Jays and looking for a one-year deal. It’s not a guaranteed reunion but it’s definitely one to keep an eye out for.
Mad Max’s Blue Jays Legacy
Max Scherzer had an interesting season with the Blue Jays after signing a one-year, $15M contract for the 2025 season, posting a 5.19 ERA across 85.0 innings in 17 regular-season starts. In his first start of the year, he was pulled due to back tightness and a thumb injury and didn’t return to Toronto’s rotation until the end of June.
The aging veteran threw some solid innings for the Jays and represented a sense of stability at times when the team went through injury issues, and although he wasn’t always great at preventing runs, he was always a strong option. Scherzer allowed at least one earned run in every regular season start he made but had a five-start span (07/27-08/19) where he threw 32.0 innings to the tune of a 2.25 ERA with 28 strikeouts while walking only seven batters.
Scherzer really brought the heat when it mattered most, pitching his best ball in the playoffs. He pitched in three postseason games for the Jays, including Games 3 and 7 of the World Series. In each start he went at least 4.1 innings and the team went 1-2 in his starts, but this wasn’t his fault. Both losses in the World Series that Scherzer started were lost in extra innings, and his presence on the mound was more than enough value to the team when combined with his solid performances.
Rotation Circumstances
As of the day of Bieber’s injury announcement, the final spot in Toronto’s rotation seems to be primed for either Lauer or Berríos at the moment, as both pitchers appear to be in a long-relief role in the Jays’ bullpen if not in the rotation. However, Scherzer might just be a better and more suitable option.
Firstly, Scherzer threw important innings down the stretch last season that helped Toronto stay in crucial playoff games when they needed solid starts. Berríos is on the back half of a seven-year, $131 million contract after posting his worst performance over the last three seasons. Lauer is certainly a solid option, but he was truly a Swiss-army knife of sorts by flipping back and forth from rotation to bullpen.
Lauer threw 8.2 innings of postseason relief innings last year and only gave up three earned runs, so he’s proven his ability to succeed out of the bullpen. Not to mention his heroic 4.2 inning outing in the marathon Game 3 of the World Series which went 18 innings long. Aside from his first outing against the Yankees (0.1 IP, 3 ER), he didn’t allow a single run.
Scherzer can not only fill the hole left in Bieber’s absence, but allow the Blue Jays to potentially move on from Berríos’ massive contract to find a solid trade partner and also capitalize on Lauer’s efficiency in a relief role. He even posted a +4 Run Value on his fastball last season, showing his capability to succeed with his low-to-mid-90’s MPH fastball in his early 40’s.
It’s also worth considering the things that can’t be quantified on paper. Scherzer’s presence on the mound and in the clubhouse is something that can unify a team and add more of a strong mentality to the younger players. He even refused to be taken out of his ALCS start against the Mariners and worked out of the inning in a way that only the great Max Scherzer can.
If Bieber’s injury isn’t too serious, there’s less of a likelihood of Toronto taking another one-year flyer on Scherzer, but if they need the innings they sure know where to get them. He likely wouldn’t command a very high-AAV (Average Annual Value) contract, especially when his former teammate and fellow future Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander just signed back with the Tigers for $13 million with $11 million being deferred.
Closing Thoughts
Scherzer had a tenure with the Blue Jays that you could argue was both good and bad at times, but you can’t deny the value he provided to the team down the stretch including the reliability and dependence that gave him the ball in Game 7 of the World Series. After it’s all said and done, there’s not many other pitchers you’d rather have on the mound in a big game, and Toronto might call on him to help them get out of another issue.
With Shane Bieber’s start of the season derailed for the time being, Scherzer could slot right into his spot and give the Jays some good innings. He’s at the back-end of his career and likely wants to play for a World Series contender, and the Blue Jays are the team to do it with, as he saw last season.
Whether he does or doesn’t return north of the border, seeing Max Scherzer pitch some of the biggest games of his career in a Blue Jays uniform was a special experience that will endear him in the hearts of Canadian baseball fans long after his career ends. Bringing him back could make sense for multiple reasons, but there’s also plenty of universes where he doesn’t come back to Toronto – whichever ends up happening, he was a big part of their 2025 AL Champion roster.
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Ethan has been writing for Just Baseball since 2024 and is fascinated by how sabermetric statistics can assist our understanding of outcomes and probability in baseball.…