Blue Jays just got the full Yankees experience after trio of blindsiding injuries

Spring training is time for optimism. For most New York Yankees fans, it means there's light at the end of the tunnel, which is the bitter cold of winter. In a baseball sense, it means an opportunity to begin anew, with endless possibilities laid out on the horizon.

This time last year, there was a little extra urgency to the spring. The Yankees were coming off a disappointing showing in the 2024 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and hopes were high that they could get back to the Fall Classic to right the previous year's wrong.

The wind was quickly taken out of those sails, however. Giancarlo Stanton developed dual tennis elbows over the offseason, causing grave concern and dashing hopes that his epic postseason performance would breathe new life into his bat and offset the loss of Juan Soto in the lineup.

Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil went down, and while they weren't sidelined for the year, both were slated to miss substantial chunks of the 2025 season. When Gerrit Cole was lost for the year with a torn UCL, Marcus Stroman went from superfluous to dangerously essential.

With the hits piling up, New York's status as the American League favorite began to come into question, and that's a reality that the Toronto Blue Jays are dealing with right now.

Blue Jays are getting a taste of the Yankees' misery following a rash of unforeseen injuries as spring training kicks off

Spring training hasn't fully kicked into gear yet, but Toronto got awful news on the injury front regarding three key players. Anthony Santander, Bowden Francis, and Shane Bieber will all be on the shelf for a while.

Santander missing 5-6 months puts a return date in mid-July, at minimum. More than likely, he'll need time to knock off the rust, so it's entirely possible that he misses a good chunk of the second half as well.

The switch-hitting slugger was supposed to elevate Toronto's lineup after a 44-homer campaign in 2024 with Baltimore. Instead, he battled injuries and ineffectiveness, hitting just .175/.271/.294 in 2025, which, when combined with his putrid defense, subtracted 0.9 fWAR from Toronto's total last season. Santander's five-year, $92.5 million deal now has to be in the running for one of the most underwater contracts in all of baseball.

Francis missing the entire season due to Tommy John surgery, might not seem like a huge blow on the surface. The 29-year-old was only made 14 starts for the Blue Jays last season, posting a 6.05 ERA. However, the right-hander was a valuable swingman for them in 2023 and 2024, posting ERAs of 1.73 and 3.30, respectively. His loss, in conjunction with Bieber going down, will amp up the pressure on a guy like Cody Ponce to prove that his KBO dominance can translate to the bigs.

Bieber might be the most important one of them all. The 2020 Cy Young winner has struggled to stay on the mound over the past few seasons, and while his prognosis is the best of the trio, the injury could foreshadow further problems down the road.

In a similar situation to the Yankees, this makes Jose Berrios their Marcus Stroman. The 31-year-old had been relegated to sixth-starter status, and his declining performance plus bloated salary had made him the subject of some trade speculation. Now, he'll be an important part of their rotation until Bieber can return, provided his forearm fatigue doesn't turn into something more serious.

The Blue Jays are getting a taste of the medicine that was so bitter for the 2025 Yankees last spring. As they hope to get over the hump after falling short against the Dodgers, they'll start the year behind the eight-ball with this collection of injuries, and we haven't even seen the spring action truly ramp up yet.