Dylan Cease Free Agent Contract Analysis

Why the Blue Jays might've overpaid for Cease and one change he can make to improve

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The Toronto Blue Jays made the first nine figure free agent signing of the offseason, inking starter Dylan Cease to a 7-year, $210M deal with $64M in deferrals. The present day value sits around $187.25M, still making it the largest free agent contract in franchise history. This surpasses the 5-year, $150M deal given to George Springer in 2021 equating to roughly $180M in 2025 dollars. While Vladimir Guerrero Jr. holds the largest contract in team history overall, Cease now represents their largest free agent acquisition.

Blue Jays Situation 

The Blue Jays have dramatically increased their financial commitment to winning over the past decade. From a modest $19.8M payroll in 2016, they've climbed to $160.7M in 2021 and reached $280M in 2025. They were rewarded with their first World Series appearance since 1993. Cease fits perfectly into this team heading into 2026, solidifying what should be a formidable rotation: Gausman, Cease, Yesavage, Bieber, and Berrios. That rotation struggled for much of the 2025 regular season, though things changed dramatically down the stretch and into the playoffs, largely due to the rapid emergence of young star Trey Yesavage. Still, the overall pitching staff was concerning. They ranked 22nd in xwOBA, 19th in SLG, and alarmingly gave up the 7th highest hard hit rate and the absolute highest barrel percentage in baseball. The Blue Jays clearly needed a rotation upgrade. Jose Berrios is coming off an extreme down year, Shane Bieber's health remains uncertain, and while Yesavage was electric in the playoffs, he'll be just 22 years old to start next season with only 3 regular season starts under his belt. You simply cannot over-rely on someone that young with that little experience. 

Cease as a Fit

Cease partially solves this problem for the Blue Jays, though he's not coming off a particularly strong year himself in terms of traditional results. Among qualified pitchers, he gave up the 19th most earned runs, 7th most walks, and posted the 9th highest walk percentage. He also had a .313 wOBA against, surrendered 21 home runs, in part due to his very high 22.4% pulled balls in the air rate, and finished with a 4.55 ERA. However, there's much more to the story. He posted the 6th highest strikeout percentage and total strikeouts among qualified starters. His xwOBA was .24 points lower at .289, and even more drastically, his xERA came in over a full run lower than his actual ERA at 3.46. He also pitched to a much more respectable 3.56 FIP and 3.58 SIERA, suggesting the underlying strengths despite the surface-level struggles. Looking ahead to 2026, Fangraphs' Steamer projections forecast a bounce-back season for Cease with a 3.60 ERA over 185 innings with a 3.57 FIP, decreasing his walk percentage over a full percentage point down to 8.7%, and a fWAR of 3.8, which is up from 3.4 in 2025. While public projections are extremely unlikely to be completely accurate, they provide a solid baseline for expectations.

Cease will be 30 next season and is signed through his age-36 campaign, similar to the 6-year, $210M deal Corbin Burnes signed last offseason entering his age-30 season which also had the exact same $64M deferred, just obviously over one less year. Using a conservative aging curve that assumes his WAR decreases by 0.5 per year as he enters his mid-30s, starting with his projected 3.8 in 2026, he would produce roughly 16.1 WAR over the life of the contract. Last offseason, teams spent an average of $8M per WAR in free agency. Adjusting to $10M per WAR to account for inflation and the rising cost of high-quality free agents, this would equate to $160.1M in total value, showing a slight overpay against the present value of $187.25M. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and may have actually been necessary to land Cease. Free agency isn't always going to appropriately value players, especially at the top of the market. The elite tier typically becomes a bidding war, with players usually going to the highest bidder, though not always. This makes sense for Toronto given their recent struggle in landing a top-tier free agent. Sometimes you have to pay a premium to get them in the door.

Necessary Change

Looking at his 2025 pitch usage, Cease was extremely reliant on his four-seam fastball and slider, which accounted for over 83% of his total pitches. His knuckle curve, sinker, sweeper, and changeup combined for the remaining 16.8%. The over-reliance on the four-seamer is something he's done throughout his entire career, and while it has worked to an extent, I think there's room for improvement. 

Examining his movement profile seen below, he has nothing that breaks inside to a right-handed hitter or away from a left-handed hitter.

Given the drastic increase in splitter usage around the league (over 3% league-wide for the first time ever) and increased changeup usage, I think this is something he could incorporate more effectively. The few changeups he did throw in 2025, just 34 total, actually graded out very well. Using Fangraphs' Stuff+ model, his changeup graded out to a 109, his second-best pitch after his slider at 115 and even ahead of his fastball at 104. It was also his best pitch by location, grading out to a 110 using Fangraphs' Location+ model, 6 points better than his next-best pitch, the slider. Obviously this should be taken with a grain of salt given the small sample size, but it still suggests there's something there worth developing. During one of his best seasons in 2021, he threw the changeup over 7% of the time. That season, the pitch graded out to a 115 Stuff+ grade and had a .199 xwOBA compared to .383 on his four-seam. In 2025, his four-seam had an xwOBA of .314 while his changeup posted just .140. It doesn't need to be his most-thrown pitch, but I think incorporating it more frequently would work tremendously in his favor. If he can reduce his fastball and slider usage from 40% each down to 35% each, and increase his changeup usage to 10%, he'll be a much more effective pitcher and keep hitters more off-balance with a now-dominant option down and in option to righties. He's shown he can do it. Now it's just about making it consistent and using it more frequently.  

Blue Jays Outlook

Overall, I think this was an excellent signing for the Blue Jays and one they needed to make. Even with the potential slight overpay, they'll still get tremendous value out of Cease, especially if he increases his changeup usage as suggested. It must also be noted that by signing Cease who received a qualifying offer, and being a CBT payor in 2025, the Blue Jays forfeit their second and fifth-highest picks in the 2026 Rule 4 Draft as well as $1M in international bonus pool money. This penalty must be factored into the overall cost of acquiring Cease when determining value. 

That said, the deferrals lower the AAV to $26.75M per year toward the CBT, giving the Blue Jays slightly more payroll flexibility. They're currently projected to have a payroll of just over $275M in 2026 per Spotrac. As a second-year CBT payor, the Blue Jays would pay a 30% tax on payroll from $244M to $264M, 42% on the portion from $264M to $284M, 75% on the portion from $284M to $304M, at which point their highest Rule 4 draft pick is moved back 10 spots). Anything above $304M would be taxed at 90%.

All of these are certainly possible scenarios for the Blue Jays, as they're rumored to be pursuing additional free agents and have already signed Cody Ponce to a 3-year, $30M deal since. The franchise is clearly committed to maximizing their championship window, and adding Cease represents a calculated bet on elite underlying metrics and strikeout ability over short-term results. If the Blue Jays' pitching development staff can help him refine his pitch mix and get more consistent with that changeup, this contract could age very well despite the surface-level risk. Toronto is going all in, and Cease gives them another legitimate weapon in what should be a dangerous rotation.