Blue Jays' .691 OPS Needs More Than Depth Signings

The easiest way to oversell Toronto’s latest signings is to look at the positions and imagine the rest.

Cayro Hazel is a shortstop. Orangel Guanaguaney is an outfielder. The Blue Jays have signed both to minor-league contracts. For a club that hit .247 with a .691 OPS, it is tempting to see position players arriving and skip straight to a story about improving the offense.

The contracts do not support that leap. They add options to the organization. They do not tell us what Hazel or Guanaguaney will produce, let alone what the major-league lineup will look like.

Toronto’s offensive problem deserves a stronger argument than a glance at a transaction list.

The production is the starting point

The Blue Jays scored 648 runs in 162 games, averaging 4 per game. They hit 152 home runs. They finished 79–83 and fifth in their division.

No single number explains every part of that season. Nor do those totals identify a particular hitter who must go or a particular transaction the club must make. They do, however, establish what a plan for next season has to confront: the offense Toronto actually fielded did not carry it out of fifth place.

There are ways to argue for improvement without a major-league signing already on the ledger. The club could believe its existing players will produce more. It could plan to add help later. But those are possibilities to examine, not outcomes to claim in advance.

The distinction matters when minor-league signings enter the discussion. A shortstop and an outfielder might be valuable additions to the system. Their listed positions are not evidence that the team’s .691 OPS is on its way up.

Depth deserves credit on its own terms

The other recent contracts are for right-handed pitchers Siwoo Kwon and Windel Encarnacion. Together with Hazel and Guanaguaney, they give Toronto options at several positions. That is a legitimate aim of roster building, and the deals should be discussed without treating minor-league status as an insult.

We do not have evidence here that any of these players will succeed or fail. That is precisely why sweeping judgments about the individual signings would be misplaced. The Blue Jays saw reason to bring them into the organization; fans can acknowledge that without pretending to know what comes next for each player.

At the same time, reasonable praise for depth should remain proportionate. A club does not get to transform organizational options into a demonstrated improvement in major-league scoring merely by listing the signings together. The question about the offense survives every one of these announcements.

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Ask a question the ledger cannot dodge

The hot-stove ledger lists no arrivals. Its only departure is left-handed pitcher Joe Mantiply, who elected free agency on September 28. The four minor-league agreements appear in the transaction wire, not as confirmed arrivals on that ledger.

That is a snapshot, not an offseason verdict. It would be unreasonable to demand that an October transaction list contain every answer for next season. It would be equally unreasonable to treat the current list as if it already contained an answer to Toronto’s run production.

The useful question is what the Blue Jays believe will make their next offense better. If the answer rests on improvement from players already here, what makes that expectation credible? If it rests on additions, what will those additions change? The club need not resolve those questions on a particular October date. It does need to resolve them before asking fans to believe the offense has been addressed.

This is not an argument to stop signing players to minor-league contracts. Make those deals when they improve the organization’s options. Just keep the standard for the major-league team where the 2026 results put it.

Toronto scored 648 runs and finished fifth. Its four new minor-league players may give it useful depth. A better offense remains something the Blue Jays have to build, not something a list of positions can promise.