This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson’s Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox

Tomorrow, next week or next month, the first big domino will fall on the starting pitching market.

The moment that happens, you’ll appreciate Kevin Gausman even more.

Gausman’s five-year, $110 million deal looks like one of the best “big” contracts in the Major Leagues two years in. And as a finalist for the 2023 American League Cy Young Award, it just keeps getting better. Gausman stands alongside Gerrit Cole of the Yankees and Sonny Gray of the Twins, with Cole widely expected to win, but Gausman’s two years of dominance with Toronto are finally receiving the broader recognition they deserve.

“My career has had its ups and downs,” Gausman said recently on MLB Network. “As a starting pitcher, this is the award that you want, right? To be mentioned in the same sentence as those two guys is super cool and very humbling. Every year, you go into the season with that in mind, but also just trying to stay healthy. Everything came together pretty well for me this year.”

Gausman vs. Gray for No. 2 might be the more interesting comparison here. They’re two drastically different pitchers, with Gausman leading the AL in strikeouts while Gray has mastered weak contact and keeping the ball in the yard. While Gausman’s ERA ranked fourth among qualified AL starters, including Cole and Gray, his 2.97 FIP (Fielder Independent Pitching) was second behind Gray.

They’ve taken two different roads to the same destination, essentially.

Any case for Gausman will always lean on those strikeout totals and his brilliant splitter. He recorded 127 strikeouts with his splitter in 2023, the second most on a single pitch in MLB behind only Spencer Strider slider. Hitters know it’s coming and are still turned inside out by the pitch, which Gausman has made his trademark amid a career resurgence.

“Everybody talks about the splitter, but the splitter is only as good as the fastball,” Gausman said. “The more that I can command the fastball, the less likely it is that teams can eliminate the split.”

So much of Gausman’s value to the Blue Jays lies beyond the numbers, too. This won’t help his Cy Young case and it doesn’t need to.

Just as Gausman and Gray are different pitchers, Gausman and Cole are different personalities. Gausman is one of baseball’s most laid-back competitors. George Springer joked ahead of the AL Wild Card Series in Minneapolis that Gausman doesn’t even have a heartbeat, and that steady presence has proven more important than even the Blue Jays could have expected two years ago.

Gausman’s recent appearance on Foul Territory was particularly enlightening when he was asked about Alek Manoah. A year ago, Manoah was an AL Cy Young Award finalist after a brilliant season, but it’s fallen apart rather dramatically. If there’s anyone for Manoah to follow and lean on, it’s Gausman.

“To be honest, I think he went through some things in spring,” Gausman said. “I think he got off to a late start physically in spring. His shoulder just wasn’t … listen, the guy pitched almost 200 innings in his first full year as a starting pitcher. I’ve only gotten that close one time in my career. I think when you’re a 24- or 25-year-old guy, you don’t necessarily know the effect that will have on your body.”

By alluding to Manoah pushing for Opening Day and perhaps not being ready, Gausman shines a little more light on a story that we still don’t have the full version of. 

Manoah’s road back will be long and complicated, rebuilding himself as a pitcher while rebuilding a relationship with the organization, which requires work from both sides. Manoah’s spiral was stunning to watch, but beyond the baseball aspect of it all, there’s a human being. Manoah is still so young and has years ahead of him, but he's standing at a crossroads that Gausman knows so well. 

“I tell him that this game is not easy,” Gausman said. “Everybody is going to go through ups and downs. I’m a prime example of that. I’ve been DFA’d before. I’ve been the best pitcher on the best team in baseball, I’ve been the worst pitcher on the worst team in baseball and I’ve been everything in between. It helps to be able to talk to guys, and I think they can relate to me a little bit more than most of the aces or the ones and twos on teams who never went through that.”

Even with the Cy Young Award expected to go to Cole, Gausman is right where he belongs in this conversation among the best starters in baseball. That’s just part of his value to the Blue Jays, though, and he’s doing it all on one of the best free-agent deals this organization has ever signed.