The Blue Jays will have a fourth option for right-hander Jake Bloss, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. That’s an important development for the club, as it will make it easier to keep Bloss on the roster next year.
Normally, a player has three option years. If a player on the 40-man roster is optionable, a team can send him to the minors without exposing him to waivers. If the player spends at least 20 days of a season on optional assignment, he uses up one of those options.
However, a team can be granted a fourth option on a player if he has exhausted the first three and hasn’t yet played five full seasons. A “full” season is one in which the player is active for at least 90 days, majors and minors combined, or one in which the player was active for 30 days and his active/injured list time added up to at least 90 days. Basically, these parameters are to exclude short-season rookie ball campaign as “full” seasons, or situations where a player misses an entire year due to a significant injury.
Those distinctions are moot with Bloss. He was only drafted by the Astros in 2023. He has only participated in four professional seasons, so it doesn’t really matter whether those were considered “full” or not. Houston gave him a roster spot in June of 2024, less than a year after he was drafted. He was traded to the Blue Jays a few weeks later as part of the Yusei Kikuchi deadline deal. The Blue Jays optioned him after that trade, so Bloss used his first option that season.
He remained on optional assignment for most of 2025 and 2026, using up his second and third option. While in the minors, he required UCL surgery in May of 2025. He was able to be back on the mound this year, as he pitched in the minors from May to July. A teres major strain shut him down. The Jays recalled him and put him on the major league 60-day injured list in August. He has since recovered from that teres major strain and has been pitching in the Arizona Fall League.
Having the extra option year is a nice development for the Jays. Bloss has been a notable prospect and was a key part of the Kikuchi trade but he’s still a work in progress. He’s 25 years old, turning 26 in June. With the Astros rushing him up to the majors and his UCL surgery, he has just 175 minor league innings under his belt. His 11 2/3 innings in the majors and 10 2/3 in the AFL get him close to 200 overall but it’s still a fairly limited body of work.
If Bloss were out of options, the Jays would have faced a ticking clock as Opening Day approached in 2027. In that scenario, they would have had to hold Bloss on the big league roster or cut him from the 40-man. Now they have another year to delay that decision. They can have Bloss pitching in Triple-A in 2027 as rotation depth, ideally getting his workload up as he gets further from his surgery.
The Jays currently project to have a rotation consisting of Dylan Cease, Trey Yesavage, José Soriano, Cody Ponce and Spencer Arrighetti next year. They will eventually get José Berríos back from Tommy John surgery but probably not until the second half. They could look to external options this offseason. If they acquire someone else, that might push Arrighetti down to Triple-A.
Bloss, Chad Dallas and John Klein project as optional Triple-A starters already. Ricky Tiedemann could be in that group but he may be kept in relief after injury issues in recent years. Like Berríos, Bowden Francis will also be looking to come back from Tommy John surgery but Francis went under the knife a few months earlier. If he’s healthy by Opening Day, he still has an option remaining. Josh Winckowski is around as non-roster depth. Prospects Johnny King and Nolan Perry will be looking to push into the Triple-A group throughout the season.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
