An update on the reasons for the main free agent’s non-official signing………

It’s unclear how the Blue Jays will deploy Rodriguez when this is finished. Despite starting for Team Cuba in the World Baseball

Classic, he was a successful reliever in the National Pastime League.

With Chris Bassitt, Kevin Gausman, Yusei Kikuchi, Jose Berrios, and Alek Manoah, Toronto already has five anticipated starters.

Rodriguez may take Manoah’s place if the organization doesn’t think he can recover from a terrible 2023. If not, he might play in the

bullpen.

Alternatively, the Jays may start him in the minors and develop him there until they feel he is ready to start in the major leagues, as

per a prior report.

Third place went to Toronto in the American League East.

The Mariners swept the Jays in that round in 2022, marking the second straight season that it has happened.

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Russell Martin and Jimmy Key, two former Toronto Blue Jays players, were included in the 2024 class of the Canadian Baseball Hall

of Fame that was revealed on Tuesday.

The six members of the 2024 class are Martin and Key, national team pitcher Rod Heisler, longtime Toronto Leaside baseball official

Howard Birnie, former Jays president and CEO Paul Godfrey, and infielder and coach Ashley Stephenson.

On June 15, they will be in during a ceremony held at the Hall of Fame grounds in St. Marys, Ontario.

From 2006 to 2019, Martin, who was raised in Montreal and was born in East York, Ontario, spent 14 seasons in the major leagues.

After the 2014 season, he signed with the Blue Jays, where he helped the team win back-to-back ALCS titles in 2015 and 2016. Martin

From 1984 to 1992, Key threw eight seasons with the Blue Jays. Among qualifiers, he ranks third in the team’s history in terms of ERA

(3.42), fourth in terms of wins (116), fourth in terms of innings pitched (1,695.2), and sixth in terms of strikeouts (944). The 1992

World Series champion from Huntsville, Alabama, joined the Toronto Blue Jays as a free agent and departed for the New York

Yankees the following winter.

Stephenson played on the inaugural National Women’s Team in 2004 and was named team MVP twice in her 15 seasons with them

(2005, 2008). After finishing her playing career, the Mississauga, Ontario, native became a coach for the women’s squad.

Heisler started Canada’s opening game at the 1984 Olympics and pitched for the National Men’s Team in 14 international contests.

After finishing his playing career, Heisler—a native of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan—became a teacher and baseball coach at Notre Dame

College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan.

Godfrey, a native of Toronto, was instrumental in establishing Major League Baseball in the region and prepared the way for the Blue

Jays’ arrival in 1977. In 2000, Godfrey was appointed president and CEO of the group, a position he held until 2008.

Over the course of his more than 70 years in baseball, Birnie has played, coached, umpired, and run organizations in his native

Toronto. Since 1973, he has led Leaside Baseball.

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