Once the Toronto Blue Jays officially announce the Dylan Cease signing they will have 38 players on the active roster. Cease is also unlikely to be the last free agent they sign this winter, considering they are in the market for a top of the line reliever, and are hoping to bring back Bo Bichette. Those two moves would put them at the max of having a full 40-man roster – but that doesn’t mean they can’t add to it in the meantime.
The Rule 5 Draft will take place nine days from now on Dec. 10 and there are several interesting prospects that they should target during that draft.
3 players the Blue Jays should target in the Rule 5 Draft
Who to target: White Sox prospect LHP Shane Murphy (unranked), Rays prospect INF Jadher Areinamo (No. 24), Cardinals prospect LHP Pete Hansen (unranked).
Two of the players who were left unprotected by there teams are left handed pitchers Shane Murphy of the White Sox and Pete Hansen of the Cardinals. Murphy is not ranked in within the White Sox top 30 prospects but had a very Trey Yesavage-like type of season in the minors, as he advanced from High-A to Triple-A this past year. He led the lower ranks in WHIP (0.89) and ERA (1.66) while hitters managed just a .199 batting average against. He also had 104 strikeouts and only 25 walks in 135.1 innings pitched.
While the Blue Jays rotation appears to be set, Murphy could make for a strong bullpen addition for Toronto. They didn’t have many left handed options they could trust out of the bullpen throughout they year, with Mason Fluharty and Brendon Little getting most of the reps when Manager John Schneider needed a southpaw. Eric Lauer also figures to be a lefty swingman, a valuable position on this team as we saw in 2024.
The 24-year-old Murphy has been a starter throughout his entire pro-baseball career after being drafted in the 14th round of the 2022 draft. However, he is primarily a two-pitch pitcher with a low 90s fastball and a mid-80s changeup as his one-two punch. Those are two pitches that if he really defines, could make him a specialist against lefty hitters. He managed to keep left handed hitters to a meager .185/.231/.329 slash line in 229 plate appearances last season.
Hansen would fit on this team in the same way Murphy does, developing himself into a lefty specialist out of the pen. He’s also a guy that has been a starter in his entire pro-ball career, that started in 2020, but he’s a guy that doesn’t have an overpowering fastball – like Murphy.
What he does have are three secondary pitches that he mixes well, a low-80s changeup and slider as well as a mid-70s curveball. Hansen had 123 strikeouts in 137.1 innings all in Double-A last year, his first full season at that level. Hansen had a 3.93 ERA and held batters to a .256 batting average against.
Meantime, Areinamo is a 22-year-old who has yet to play above Double-A so he may still need some seasoning against more advance pitching, but he could develop into a Luis Arráez type hitter. This past season he hit .285/.344/.445 and has always made a ton of contact (12.2 percent career strikeout rate).
He can also play second, third and short and has some speed, swiping 80 bags across his five seasons in the minors. He’s a utility type player that could be a good bench piece with the upside to develop into an every day player. But if the Blue Jays want to add any of these players, their likely will have to be some cuts made down the road.
Who could be on the chopping block: RHP Tommy Nance, LHP Justin Bruihl, RHP Lazaro Estrada, C Brandon Valenzuela,
Three of the aforementioned who are currently on the 40-man roster are pitchers who likely will be on the bubble just to make the roster out of Spring Training. The veteran Nance had a a really good 30 game stint with the Blue Jays in 2025, pitching to a 1.99 ERA in 31.2 innings with 32 strikeouts. But he is a righty and the Blue Jays could have an abundance of those, especially if they are going to bring in another big name arm from the free agency class.
Bruihl was called up and sent down several times during the 2025 season and his upside might not be as high as Murphy or Hansen’s. Meanwhile, Estrada is a 26-year-old who has struggled as he has moved up to the higher levels of minor league ball. He made his MLB debut with the Blue Jays last season, giving up seven earned runs in 7.1 innings pitched.
As long as the Blue Jays have space on the 40-man roster, adding a player in the Rule 5 Draft will cost them nothing, and unless they sign someone between now and the day of that draft, they’ll have at least a couple of open spots.
Even if they do bring a player or two on board from the draft, and then decide to sign a couple of free agents, those players would simply be sent back to their original teams, making them worth the gamble for the Blue Jays to go after a cheap option to fill a current need.
