Blue Jays Lock In Key Roster Pieces With Arbitration Avoidance Moves
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The arbitration period is among us, and many are making sure that essential pieces to their team are rightfully getting paid from their performances in 2025. That includes the Toronto Blue Jays, who not only avoid arbitration with their star center fielder Daulton Varsho, but utility man Ernie Clement as well as catcher Tyler Heineman.
Between these three, the Jays have added a combined $16.5875M to their payroll for 2026 with Varsho leading the charge. The 2024 Gold Glove Award winner will be paid $10.75M while Clement earned himself $4.6M with his historic playoff performance and easily the best year of his short career.
Heineman rotates in as their No. 2 catcher behind their All-Star Alejandro Kirk and has been excellent when he does play which is why the Blue Jays made a deal to pay him nearly $1.25M for next season.
The Blue Jays were not a one man wrecking crew by any means in 2025. They became a reserve world champion with efforts all around and these three earned every penny that they are going to make in 2026.
A Look at 2025 for These Three
Daulton Varsho: Their centerfielder could have easily been at least named a Silver Slugger finalist last season if he had been able to play at least half of the season, but injuries kept him off the field. Despite recovering from shoulder surgery and a hamstring strain, he still finished the year with 20 long balls and 55 runs batted in.
Ernie Clement: Clement was impossible to miss in their playoff run even though he isn't a slugging machine. He set multiple playoff records including most hits in a postseason (30) as he led their monster of an offense in batting average (.411) .
The #BlueJays avoided arb with Daulton Varsho as well, per source, at $10.75 million. @Joelsherman1 was on it first.
— Mitch Bannon (@MitchBannon) January 8, 2026
Currently settled with Heineman (per @bnicholsonsmith) Varsho and Clement. Eric Lauer is Toronto's only other arb eligible player this offseason
Tyler Heineman: This was the most that Heineman has been behind the plate since 2022, and he was anything but a liability when he was swinging a bat. He played in 61 games for the Blue Jays, and in that time he batted .289 while slugging over .440. This was his career-best WAR at 1.9 and the first time it was over 0.2.
Pitcher Eric Lauer is the only Blue Jays player left who still needs to strike up a deal. He was moved into the bullpen around the trade deadline simply because they needed the help with their relievers. He finished the year 9-2 with 100+ strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA.
The Blue Jays payroll is inching towards being complete as they look to lock down one (or two) more free agents.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.