Addition of Belt gives Jays important contingency plans

TORONTO — The heavy lifting, in Ross Atkins’ words, was over when the Daulton Varsho trade went down, but there’s still some important roster trim needing to be added with about five weeks to go until pitchers and catchers report to Dunedin.

The latest addition is veteran first baseman Brandon Belt, who comes with a number of hard-to-quantify positives, like leadership and championship experience from his 12 seasons on the West Coast with the San Francisco Giants, but also brings another key left-handed bat to a lineup that could end up needing him a whole lot more than you think.

At first glance, it seems like a bit of a luxury add, one that will cost the Jays a reported $9.3 million on a one-year deal.

But Belt covers a lot of bases, so to speak, even though he’s a first base-only option who is coming off his third knee surgery and heading into his age-35 season.

The age, injury history and lack of versatility are the obvious landmines here, but fitting Belt into the lineup picture all starts with the duo behind the plate.

If Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk both stay healthy and split the catching duties, that will give Belt a good chunk of DH time when Kirk is behind the plate a few days a week.

He could be in line for an important 350-400 plate appearances even without an injury.

A Jansen injury — he has four IL stints in the last two seasons alone — and Belt will be counted on to shoulder the majority of the DH work, depending on what else is added to the roster as the Jays are still in the market for a platoon outfield piece of some sort.

He also doubles as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. insurance in the event of an injury, while at the same time providing a dangerous left-handed bench bat for manager John Schneider to turn to on the days Belt isn’t in the starting lineup.

Add in the fact moving from the NL West to the AL East ballpark circuit may help his power numbers, as well as the shift ban, and the only thing that could potentially be standing in the way of Belt playing a sizeable role is health.

It’s hard to know what to expect in 2023 because it’s been a unique few years for Belt.

After a number of seasons of solid production, Belt suddenly started looking like an MVP candidate over the course of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, slashing a combined .285/.393/.595 over 148 games, which included a career-high 29 home runs in 2021.

He had never hit more than 18 in any season prior to that outburst.

Then injuries struck again in 2022, with his troublesome and chronic right knee eventually needing surgery to clean up cartilage and scar tissue in September after five-plus months of battling through the problem.

The issue originally needed microfracture surgery in 2018, but Belt has told reporters over the past few months — note: as a free agent, of course he’s going to go out of his way to say he’s healthy — that he’s been feeling great post-surgery.

If healthy, Belt crushes right-handed pitching.

Over the course of his long career, the Texas native has posted an .840 OPS and a well-above average 130 wRC+ against righties, while also being able to hold his own against lefties with .748 and 109 marks.

Over the course of this winter, the Jays front office has finally been able to put together a more complete lineup mix, adding left-handed hitters Varsho, Belt and Kevin Kiermaier.

It may not be as splashy as some of the other roster renovations around baseball this winter, but the Jays once again are a better team today than they were yesterday with Belt’s veteran bat in the fold.