TORONTO – The Phillies characterized their pursuit of Jeff Hoffman as “aggressive.” Hoffman said the Phillies were “pretty light.”

Hoffman, who is facing his former team for the first time since signing a three-year, $33 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, took some time on Tuesday to greet his former teammates Orion Kerkering and Matt Strahm in the outfield at Rogers Centre before the series opener. He facetimes with Strahm often. He keeps in touch with everyone on the Phillies side.

The Phillies have handed over Hoffman’s fireman high-leverage role with runners on to Kerkering.

“Orion is doing what Orion does,” Hoffman said. “He’s gonna be good for a long time.”

Maybe if things played out a little differently, Hoffman would still be in the Phillies bullpen in the role he dominated in. Hoffman told the Phillies multiple times that he had interest in signing an extension. Talks never really got going.

“We asked a couple of different times and it just wasn’t something that they were willing to do,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman’s free agency was complicated. Teams had interest in him as a starting pitcher. He loved closing, but wouldn’t mind a better deal to return to his original role. He had a deal with the Atlanta Braves to start that was reportedly for around $45-48 million. The 32-year-old went in for an in-person physical, and the Braves backed out due to concerns about his right shoulder. Ditto for the Baltimore Orioles, who backed out of a lesser deal with Hoffman.

That led to Hoffman signing with Toronto. During the Mets series, Dave Dombrowski alluded to the Phillies offer being close to what Hoffman ended up signing for with the Blue Jays.

“We tried to sign Hoffman, very aggressively,” Dombrowski said.

Hoffman and his camp did not see it that way. When the Phillies were eliminated by the Mets in the National League Division Series, Hoffman said he wanted to be back. It wasn’t just an emotional response to losing and the possibility of being in the Phillies clubhouse for the final time. He knew, however, that a return might not be likely.

“It was a lot of negotiating and not negotiating and down periods and then getting back into it with a different team,” Hoffman said about his offseason. “Every step of the way, they were pretty light. It was pretty clear early on that they weren’t going to be in the right type of competitive market that we were looking for.”

For the first month of the season, it looked like the Phillies made a grave mistake. Hoffman was one of the best relievers in baseball – and the Blue Jays pushed him as hard as they could. He had a 1.10 ERA through his first 14 appearances.

But then Hoffman started getting hit around. A few bad outings ballooned his ERA to as high as 6.05. It’s at 5.81 now, but Hoffman is confident that a few mechanical tweaks will get him back on track.

His counterpart Jordan Romano, signed by the Phillies to replace Hoffman, got his tough stretch out of the way earlier. Through his last 10 games, Romano has a 3.72 ERA. His season ERA is down to 7.36.

Romano, who is returning to his hometown team for the first time since the Jays non-tendered him, reflected on what went wrong earlier in the year.

“Maybe I was trying to do a little too much at times instead of just kind of trying to be myself and being who I am,” Romano said.

Romano said his mechanics are “an ongoing battle.”

It will take some time to truly evaluate whether passing on Hoffman for Romano was the right decision. What the Phillies do know now is that they are an arm or two short in the bullpen. That will be addressed either before or at the trade deadline.

The free agent process could have gone a lot smoother for Hoffman, but he’s grateful that his accomplishments – and career revival in Philadelphia – led him to where he is now.

“I’m really thankful and grateful for the opportunity that they gave me that allowed me to do what I have done and come here and make some money and put my family in a great position to be successful moving forward,” Hoffman said. “I owe a lot of that to them. I definitely wouldn’t be here without that.”