The Toronto Blue Jays received bad news on Tuesday as they prepare to defend the American League pennant.
Right fielder Anthony Santander will need surgery on his left labrum and is expected to miss 5-6 months. The second half of that schedule is expected to return sometime in August, well after the All-Star break.
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Manager John Schneider made the announcement to reporters on Tuesday. Santander has only played 54 games in his first season in Toronto in 2025, so will likely miss more than half the season.
Santander, 31, made his first All-Star team in 2024 as a member of the rival Baltimore Orioles and enters the offseason as one of the best hitters in free agency. He joined the Blue Jays in the offseason on a five-year, $92.5 million contract.
Various injuries, including a shoulder, limited Santander to 54 regular-season games in 2025. He returned in the final week of the regular season and played five games in the playoffs in the ALDS against the Yankees and ALCS against the Mariners.
But the Blue Jays removed him from the ALCS roster before Game 4 with a back injury, and he didn’t make Toronto’s World Series roster.
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Schneider told reporters on Tuesday that Santander “feels good coming out of the season” and the goal this offseason is to avoid surgery while resting and rehabbing in November and December.
But he faced setbacks in his return to hitting in January, and the Blue Jays and Santander ultimately opted for surgery. He will undergo surgery on Wednesday, more than three months after Toronto’s season-ending loss to the Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.
“Obviously, the timing is unfortunate and he’s definitely going through something like this at the end of the season,” Schneider said. But it’s just a setback after he started hitting in January and improved. “
