Blue Jays Acquire Jameson Taillon

The Blue Jays have acquired Jameson Taillon from the Cubs, the team announced. Utility player Lenyn Sosa is moving to the 60-day IL to make room for the right-hander on the 40-man roster (per Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi). Toronto will send cash considerations or a player to be named later back to Chicago. The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon reports that the Cubs will send money to the Blue Jays to cover some of the money left on Taillon’s contract. He is owed about $5.67MM for the rest of the season.

The Cubs designated Taillon for assignment last Monday. He was in the final season of the four-year, $68MM contract he signed with Chicago before the 2023 campaign. For the first three seasons of that deal, Taillon was the solid, mid-to-back-end starter the Cubs signed up for. He averaged five and a half innings per start with a 3.93 ERA and 4.33 SIERA. Although he spent time on the IL in each of those seasons, he still gave Chicago 449 1/3 frames; only 21 pitchers threw more innings with a lower ERA in that time.

Unfortunately for Taillon, he has not been able to keep the ball in the yard in 2026. The 34-year-old allowed 25 home runs across his first 15 starts. That’s more than he allowed in 23 starts last year and 28 the year before. His home run rate stats (2.96 HR/9 and 21.4% HR/FB) have never been anywhere close to this high in any other season of his 10-year MLB career. Those home runs led to a 5.92 ERA, which led the Cubs to cut Taillon, even with the money remaining on his contract and their lack of starting pitching depth.

The Blue Jays are a good landing spot for Taillon, who has Canadian citizenship and played for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year. Injuries have hit Toronto’s rotation hard this year. The Jays finally have a proper five-man rotation again, but Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber are likely to be dealt before the deadline. Max Scherzer could be traded too, especially after his strong start today. That would leave Toronto with a whole lot of innings to fill over the final two months of the season.

If nothing else, Taillon should be good for innings. Despite his struggles, he still averaged five innings per start with the Cubs this year. There’s also reason to believe he can get back to something resembling his 2023-25 level of success. His 6.73 FIP is the worst among pitchers with at least 50 innings to their name this year. However, his 4.80 xFIP – a stat that replaces a pitcher’s actual home run rate with the league average home run-to-fly ball ratio – is much easier to stomach. Taillon gave up homers on 12.3% of his fly balls in his first three years with the Cubs. That’s right around league average. Similarly, his hard-hit rate was right around league average each year from 2023-5, and it remains close to league average in 2026. It’s more than possible his high home run rate is fluky and not a sign of a serious decline. That would be great for a Blue Jays rotation that could soon be built of Dylan Cease, Trey Yesavage, Taillon, and tape and glue.