Jeff Hoffman is a 32-year-old right-handed reliever. The Jays picked him in the first round of the 2014 draft. He was #69 on Baseball America’s top prospect list in 2015.
And then the Jays traded him and Miguel Castro, Jose Reyes, and Jesus Tinoco to the Rockies for LaTroy Hawkins and Troy Tulowitzki. You’ll likely remember that Reyes had made some errors that season, and some, Jerry Howarth in particular, made it a mission to run him out of town. So we traded an over-paid, underperforming shortstop for a soon-to-be over-paid, underperforming shortstop (with the added feature of having more years on his large contract).
Things didn’t go great for Hoffman in Denver. There were injuries and poor pitching.
After the 2022 season, the Diamondbacks set him to the Reds. Things went somewhat better for Hoffman there. They transitioned him to the bullpen.
Before the 2023 season, Hoffman signed with the Phillies, where he became a star reliever. In two years in Philadelphia, he had a 2.28 ERA in 118.2 innings and 158 strikeouts.
And now it is our turn. He’s making $33 million over the next three years, and incentives could add $6 million.
Hoffman is a big guy, 6’5” and 235 pounds.
Hoffman throws a Slider (40.8% of the time last year), Four Seamer (39.1%), Split Finger (12%) and Sinker (8.9%)
The fastball averaged 96.6 mph.
Batters hit .197/.253/.324 against him last year. That’s a bit of a jump from his 2023 numbers (.158/.244/.257).
There are some worries because the Braves and the Orioles each passed on him because they were concerned about the physicals they gave him. He has had arm issues in the past, so it makes sense that his physical wouldn’t come back clean.
But the Jays had the worst bullpen in baseball last year, and they haven’t done as much to fix it this winter as I had hoped, so let’s not look at a gift reliever in the shoulder. Or something.
I imagine they will use him as a one-inning reliever (because they don’t know how to have a reliever go more than one inning). He only got four or more outs four times last year. If his arm falls off mid-season, we can all say, ‘I told you so.’
Steamer is optimistic. It has him pitching in 68 games, 68 innings, with 26 saves and a 3.25 ERA.