It’s November, and the Toronto Blue Jays are in pursuit of a star player looking to sign a historic contract and have seemed to go all in on him, with no backup in case Plan A backfires.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
That’s been the Jays’ offseason strategy for the past two years. Last season the star player in question was Shohei Ohtani, who after a tumultuous offseason where fans were trying to track his private jet, decided to sign with the now World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
This offseason, the player in question is outfielder Juan Soto, who’s coming off a career year with the New York Yankees, and helped the team to a World Series finals appearance, the organization’s first since 2009.
While the Blue Jays and general manager Ross Atkins look to replicate the success of their division rivals and return to their former glory of the ’90s when they won back-to-back World Series, they seem to be going in the direction of reaching into their deep pockets to find external help for a team without a postseason win since 2016.
It's a direction that neglects the already flawed composition of the roster and a lack of depth in the organization despite what their payroll says.
The sports statistics website Spotrac said the Blue Jays ranked ninth with a total payroll of more than $218 million in the 2024 season, while also owning the worst record among those top 10 teams last season.
Entering 2025, the Jays are again expected to be among the top 10 in the MLB payroll, with multiple core players either eligible for arbitration or free agents by next fall.
This offseason is the last where franchise player Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is available for arbitration and a contract extension is a main topic of concern for Jays' management this offseason.
Despite this, they want to go after top free agents so they will contend in the here and now.
It's a choice that, in a vacuum, makes sense. The top players are about to get large paydays, with the potential for more options than just Toronto, so the Jays might as well try to sign them while they have team control.
I fear that if the push for Soto doesn’t work out, and if Atkins and the Blue Jays brass don’t continue to make moves that improve the depth of the roster, as well as address the team’s struggles with hitting in the first half of the season and their bullpen, it will be more of the same underwhelming on-field play that Jays fans are tired of watching.
More than that, it will shorten their contending window and set the organization up for a long-term rebuild in a market that is desperate for a winner.
Sports statistics website Baseball Reference says the Blue Jays’ bullpen ranked dead last among the MLB in wins above replacement, an area that Jays fans have called to be addressed since the 2022 wild-card loss to Seattle.
On top of that, the Jays ranked as the worst team in the MLB in slugging percentage in the first half of the season. While the team’s batting was better after the all-star break, hitting consistency has been an issue that should be looked at to improve this off-season.
There are problems with this roster, and a future that needs to be established that involves a long-term extension for Guerrero Jr., and applying Rogers’ deep pockets to build up prospects rather than signing the top free agent available.
If Atkins and Blue Jays management decide to go after free agents, it will show that they haven’t learned from their Ohtani mistakes, and will set the franchise in the wrong direction.
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