Outfielder George Springer and Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a six-year, $ 150 million contract, sources confirmed to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Springer is going to the Blue Jays spring training center in Dunedin, Florida, for a physical exam. If everything goes according to plan, Toronto will receive the star it has been looking for all winter.
Springer, the star of the Houston Astros attack at the top for the past four seasons, was one of the most coveted free agents on the market this off season. He hit a record 14 home runs this season and added four more in the postseason, when the Astros lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series.
While several of his teammates fought offensively last season amid the 2017 signal theft scandal, Springer, who won $ 21 million in a one-year contract after avoiding arbitration, has continued to present better numbers since then – reaching 0.265 with 32 RBIs in 51 games in 2020, while reducing his strikeout rate to 17.1%, the best of his career.
He declined a one-year, $ 18.9 million qualifying offer from Astros, who will have a choice of compensation draft with him by signing with a new team.
Before the 2020 season shortened by the pandemic, Springer hit 20 home runs in five of the previous six seasons. He received three consecutive nods from 2017-19 stars, and was named MVP of the 2017 World Series in 2017, when the Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games.
Springer has done his best in big moments, hitting 19 home runs in the postseason, which is tied for fourth place of all time. He also occupies the sixth place in percentage of strokes (0.546), the seventh in extra-base strokes (34) and is tied for 14th in marked runs (43).
Since his debut in 2014, Springer has been one of the best hitter out of first place in all of baseball, occupying second place in home runs (136), third in RBIs (352) and fourth in hitting (665) and extra base hits (254), according to ESPN Stats & Information. He also achieved a first-entry home run 39 times during his career, which ranks fourth in the history of the American League.
In 2019, Springer set career records with a hitting average of 0.292, a hitting percentage of 0.591, a percentage of 0.383 at the base and 6.2 WAR (wins over substitution).
Defensively, Springer remains very solid as the daily central defender at age 31 and could easily slip into any of the outside corners of the corner, if necessary.
Overall, in seven seasons with Astros, Springer has averaged 0.270 in his career, with 174 home runs and 458 home runs.
The Blue Jays Nation first reported the deal Tuesday night, while the MLB Network first had the terms.