Jeff Hoffman had an elite season last year with the Braves rival and signed for a contract the Braves could have matched….but didn’t.
Jeff Hoffman, who anchored the back end of the bullpen for the NL East champion Phillies, signed with the Blue Jays on Friday for a price that appeared to have Alex Anthopoulos’ name on it. Instead of signing with Anthopoulos’ current club, the righty has signed with his former team, the Toronto Blue Jays.
According to sources, before joining the Blue Jays, Jeff Hoffman signed a three-year, $40 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles.
Why the Braves were right to pass on Jeff Hoffman
On the surface, the three-year, $33 million contract the former Phillies setup man received from the Toronto Blue Jays would have been ideal for the Braves. Hoffman had a 2.17 ERA and 2.52 FIP in 66.1 innings for Philadelphia last season. He also received his first All-Star nomination in his nine-year MLB career.
Given that the team’s righty setup man, Joe Jimenez, could be sidelined for the rest of the season and the club’s next best righty not named Raisel Iglesias is Daysbel Hernandez, Atlanta’s bullpen has a clear vacuum that Hoffman could fill.
Alex Anthopoulos, of course, is no stranger to signing relievers to lucrative contracts like the one Hoffman recently received. In 2020, he gave Will Smith a three-year, $40 million contract. He signed Joe Jimenez to a three-year, $26 million contract after the 2023 season, and he took over Raisel Iglesias’ contract in 2022, which still had more than $51 million left over the next three and a half years.
However, shortly after signing, stories surfaced indicating that Hoffman’s $33 million deal was not his best offer. According to Robert Murray of FanSided, the 32-year-old had agreed to terms with a different AL East team for $40 million.
The Baltimore Orioles were prepared to sign the righty for $7 million more guaranteed than he ultimately received from Toronto, but the physical revealed something in Hoffman’s shoulder that caused the Orioles to reconsider.
Instead, both sides shifted, with Baltimore signing Andrew Kittredge to a one-year contract and Hoffman heading north on a three-year deal worth up to $39 million.
If Hoffman’s shoulder is as serious as the Orioles claim, the Braves were wise to pass on the righty.
Had the Braves signed him to the same contract he signed with Toronto, he would have become the club’s eighth-highest paid player, just ahead of Jimenez, the reliever he would replace. If Hoffman’s shoulder become a long-term issue, the Braves may have lost two of their nine highest-paid roster spots to relievers on the shelf.
As Alex Anthopoulos works to solidify an amazing core through a thriving free agent market, the last thing he wants is to spend a significant chunk of his cash on injured bullpen arms.
