H
offman’s two seasons in Philadelphia also lifted his value just as he hit free agency this past off-season. The Blue Jays, seeking to remake a putrid 2024 bullpen, reached out early, having both some history from drafting him nearly a decade earlier and admiration for his progression. “He was a clear target for us,” says Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins, “and it seemed like the interest was mutual from the start.”

Still, shopping at the top end of the bullpen market was out of character for the Blue Jays under the current front office, whose biggest guarantee to a free-agent reliever before signing Hoffman was the $15-million, two-year deal for Yimi Garcia in December. There’s a logic to treading carefully with relief arms given their inherent volatility but the depth of the team’s bullpen struggles in 2024 changed some of their calculations. “It’s not, in our minds, as much of a departure as it was the right opportunity for us,” says Atkins. “This off-season, the bullpen was very much a priority, so that opportunity with a pitcher like Jeff Hoffman aligned.”

On two separate occasions, however, the opportunity very nearly didn’t. First, Hoffman reached an agreement with Atlanta, which planned to use him as a starter in the first season “and then I was going to transition back into the pen for the last years,” he says. The Braves had just helped guide Reynaldo Lopez, an all-star last year, through a similar transition back to the rotation from the bullpen. But as he was boarding a plane after his physical, Hoffman got a call telling him there was an issue. “I almost fell out of my chair. I said, ‘They flagged what? What’s wrong with my elbow?’” he recalls. “And my agent was like, ‘No, your shoulder.’ And I was, ‘What?’ That’s where I was at. It was ridiculous. Who knows what the motives were behind it.”