Amid deadline uncertainty, Hoffman hopes Blue Jays ‘take a leap of faith’ on 2026 group
TORONTO – Like so many of his Toronto Blue Jays teammates, Jeff Hoffman doesn’t know what to expect between now and Monday’s 6 p.m. ET trade deadline. He’s been around the game long enough to know how the standings dictate what happens at this time of year, but he isn’t in the least ready to concede on 2026, playoff probabilities be damned.
“I know we have a very competitive ownership group. I know we have a GM that wants to win and everybody in the front office wants to win, they expect to win, so I’m hoping they kind of take a leap of faith for us a little bit, because we all still have the belief in each other,” Hoffman said Friday before earning the win with a clean eighth as the Blue Jays beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1, winning consecutive games for the first time since July 7-10.
“Not to harp on what we did last year, but it’s close for the collective group … and we feel like what we’ve done this year hasn’t been an accurate representation of what we’re capable of. I think pretty much anybody who’s a Blue Jays fan can agree with that.
“Obviously, we’re out here grinding and trying to figure it out, but it’s Major League Baseball, the guys on the other side are pretty good, as well, and they’re all fighting for their lives, too. But we still believe in each other and we still love each other and want to go to war for each other. Until we lose that, we’ll be in a decent spot.”
The muddled wild-card race in the eminently mid American League is, for the time being, one of the few lifelines for Hoffman’s outlook, as despite a 51-59 record, they’re only 4.5 games out of the final playoff spot. How the front office sees things will be determined in the days ahead.
Manager John Schneider is urging his players to “not live in hypotheticals” between now and the deadline, focus on what’s at hand since “whatever’s going to happen is going to happen” while describing the Blue Jays’ approach as “kind of murky.”
“I haven’t been told by anyone above me that we’re selling, you what I mean?” he continued, while adding later that, “we are where we are right now, there’s no kind of skating around it.”
Other clubs are certainly acting as if the Blue Jays intend to sell, as there was once again a heavy scouting presence, just as there was during the club’s road trip to Boston and Washington. Kevin Gausman, slated to start Saturday in what may be his last outing with the Blue Jays, is bracing for a possible move.
The wider market continues to develop slowly, with one executive suggesting that the Detroit Tigers’ handling of Tarik Skubal will be the catalyst that clears the current bottleneck, which means an expected frenzy of deals might not start until Sunday. Further complicating things is the dual-lane posture a number of teams are taking, the Blue Jays partially among them, as they’d like to do both some adding and subtracting.
How creative they get will depend on what the market presents and the whirlpool of speculation has pulled all sorts of names into the mix, Hoffman among them. In a thin reliever pool, the righty who’s allowed only three earned runs in his last 21.1 innings over 22 outings with 29 strikeouts is an intriguing leverage option, should the Blue Jays consider moving him.
Hoffman hopes that doesn’t happen, saying, “I want to be here and win with this group here.”
“I don’t think any of us in this room have given up on this year,” he continued. “We’ve obviously dealt with adversity through the year that’s made it hard for us to get going and stay hot. It seems like every time we win one, we have a stinker right after, that makes it tough to get on a roll and to really start feeling good about yourself. But the rest of the league is in a lull as well.
“So I think a lot of us are just staying the course and trusting what we have here and thinking that eventually we’re going to get something going. There’s no reason why we can’t do something like Boston just got done doing and win a bunch of games in a row and then all of a sudden you’re right back in the thick of it.”
The Blue Jays have been saying that all season long, of course, which is why the players have to deal with so much uncertainty right now. As Hoffman pointed out, “it always gets loud around this time, especially if you’re on a team that’s on the outside looking in,” and there’s a human cost to that.
“When you’re on a team that’s going to be getting rid of a bunch of your friends, (the deadline) kind of sucks, obviously,” he explained. “That’s not fun having to say goodbye to guys that you got close with. But on the other hand, if you’re on the other side of it, it’s great. You’re in a position where you’re kind of filling needs here and there to hopefully get you over the edge and try to win a World Series. So two sides of the coin.
“No matter what team you’re on, you spend so much time with the guys around you that they all become brothers and family and stuff like that,” Hoffman continued. “When you’re in the middle of it and you’re a player, all it really is is uprooting and changing people’s lives and stuff like that. So it’s difficult to see guys go through that stuff. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen here. Hopefully, we can grind it out and maybe even add some pieces to help us out in the near future. It’s a lot of noise right now until the phone calls start coming through and then it’s real.”