The Blue Jays held their introductory press conference for big-ticket free agent acquisition Anthony Santander on Tuesday. General manager Ross Atkins told the Toronto beat that the club still has some financial flexibility after finalizing that five-year pact (link via Keegan Matheson of MLB.com).
Atkins didn’t provide much in the way of specific targets. He noted generally that the front office will continue to pursue upgrades on both the position player and pitching sides. Toronto has been linked to the likes of Max Scherzer and Jurickson Profar within the past few days. They’ve long been tied to Alex Bregman and Nick Pivetta and have been mentioned as a potential Pete Alonso suitor. Most of the top remaining free agents have been at least loosely connected to the Jays at some point over the offseason.
If the Jays make a move on the pitching side, they could focus on the rotation. Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet wrote on Monday that they have been “less aggressive” in attacking the bullpen since they signed Jeff Hoffman to a three-year deal. Toronto had acquired Nick Sandlin and re-signed Yimi García earlier in the offseason. They join holdovers Chad Green and Erik Swanson as potential leverage options. That’s still not the most formidable bullpen, but it’s far better than the group which Toronto carried into the offseason.
A rotation pickup could also indirectly improve the relief corps. Yariel Rodríguez can pitch in either role. He’s currently penciled in as the fifth starter behind Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt and Bowden Francis. Signing a starter would allow the Jays to use Rodríguez as a multi-inning reliever if everyone is healthy coming out of camp.
There are a few areas for possible upgrade on the position player side. Even after adding Santander, they could accommodate a corner outfielder. Adding a left fielder would allow them to keep Santander in right field and use George Springer as a designated hitter and rotational outfielder. Their third basemen are mostly unproven at the major league level, though a second big infield pickup (following the Andrés Giménez trade) could block the path for the likes of Will Wagner, Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger to get opportunities to prove themselves.
The Jays dipped narrowly below the luxury tax threshold last year. They’re well beyond the $241MM base number this season. RosterResource calculates their CBT figure around $263MM — $2MM above the second penalization tier. That includes an $18.5MM estimate for Santander, though the deferrals in his contract are expected to push the “true” average annual value closer to $14MM. That could drop the Jays back into the first tier once the Santander terms are fully reported, but any acquisition of significance is likely to push them back into the second tier.
Toronto will pay a 20% tax on spending between $241MM and $261MM and will be taxed at a 32% rate for spending between $261MM and $281MM. The penalties escalate further if they go past $281MM, which would also push their top pick in the 2026 draft back by 10 spots.
I got a notification at 12:42 am and got excited we did something cool late at night. Instead it’s telling me the team with a top 5 richest ownership group in baseball has more money they can spend.
Going back to bed 🙁
How do they have that much tied up in salary with such a mediocre lineup???
Almost $64 million of it is tied up among three staring pitchers with another almost $53 million on the right corners
This is what happens when you have no farm and limited home grown players.
You end up trading prospects for more expensive players and have to grow the team with free agents.
Unsustainable
Yup. Means you have to buy a team. No pitcher development at all other than Manoa and, other than the outliers like Soto, starting pitching is the most expensive commodity in the game.
They have that much tied up in payroll because they have their own team, as well as taking on Cleveland’s bad contracts
They absorbed Gimenez and Straw… 🙁
Because our GM has literally no idea what he’s doing
Remember our Lousy Gm is shapiro and his lackie atkins….
shapiro calls all the shots and he has never built an elite team.
Last place team
Perhaps, but that’s because they play in the best division in MLB by far and a couple incompetent clowns in the front office on top of a complete fat boob moron manager who couldn’t manage a little league team with any success. In the Central they’d finish 1-2-3 easily. In the West they’d also finish 1-2-3. In the NL, perhaps win the NL Central.
They aren’t the best division by far and not even close. The NL West and East are far better divisions.
Al east has been the best still in the best and will likely be the best going forward for many more years it’s not even debatable
None of the teams would even make the playoffs in the Superior National League.
I’m a Mets fan too, and disagree with you. The Rays and BoSox are better than the Marlins and Nats, and better than the Rox and Giants. I would say the the Jays can make a run at a wild card, but their defense sucks and will hurt their pitching.
Wait what? The Jays were built around defense. They were #1 last year. It is the offense that is brutally bad. Now they have Miles Straw and Giminez, two more guys that are all glove no bat. It is why they can afford to sacrifice defense with Santander.
The NL West and East are far better divisions.
===========================
You are not even remotely close..
The NLE won 406 last year. The ALE won 420. Even the NLC was better than the NLE last year.
I don’t disagree with your first statement and I am a Jays fan but your logic is flawed. In each league there has to be the same number of wins and losses without interleague play. You are basing which league is better by interleague play teams don’t play all other teams in the opposite league. It is a bad way to determine which league or division is better. You might as well use the Allstar game to determine which league or division is better.
They are the best division in the AL and arguably better than the NL East and Central. You could even make a solid argument they’re better than the NL West. Over the last 3 seasons the AL East is collectively 184 games over .500.
Over that same period the NL East is only 50 games over .500 and the NL West is only 54 games over .500.
They just don’t have any truly horrible teams that you can beat up on in the AL East. In both 2022 and 2023 only one team was under .500 in the division and they were only six games under both years.
Just no
The al east is the most competitive division in North American sports pretty much every year for 25 years.
Jays have a top defense.
Only the Yankees are trying to win a WS in the AL east. In the entire AL really. NL West and East are far superior.
Mad – As much as I’d enjoy the World Series being played in a ST park, Rays will likely finish last. That team will be miserable playing their home games during the summer.
The Rays are unlikely to make the playoffs this year, but with their pitching they are almost assured of being a 75-85 win team. The Blue Jays are looking up at the Rays. What a horribly mismanaged team, on and off the field.
mp – I definitely agree the Jays are mismanaged, but they have way too much talent to finish last.
Remember, both Vlad and Bo are in their walk years (as of now) and we all know how players tend to improve their performance in their walk years.
Jays finished only 6 games behind the Rays last year, and that was with a 5-WAR player having a disastrous injury-plagued negative-WAR season.
Jays have improved with Hoffman and Santander, Rays did not improve as their best (only?) acquisition was Danny Jansen. Even if McClanahan stays healthy, Rays history indicates there’s a good chance he gets traded midseason with only 2 1/2 years of team control remaining.
So while I agree TB could win 75 games, I expect Toronto to win at least 78 …. possibly more if they sign Pivetta, Bregman or Alonso. I do believe the Jays will sign at least one of them.
It’s not clear if they actually improved with Hoffman and Santander.
Hoffman appears to be the new defacto closer. He replaces Romano, who prior to last seasons injury plagued year, was a superb closer for the Jays. If Romano is healthy this year in Philly, then this move could actually be a downgrade.
If Santander was being added to last years roster, it’s an upgrade, but he’s not. He’s effectively the replacement for Horwitz, who they traded earlier for Giménez. Horwitz was their best hitter last season after Vladdy. He was a contact/doubles/walks guy, while Santander is more of a homer guy. They’ll hopefully get more dingers, but have fewer baserunners.
In the end, these could both end up being lateral moves. They’ll need to make more moves in order to be better then last year. Either that, or hope a bunch of their in house guys play better then last year (or in Bo’s case, are healthier)
I think that you are right about the Rays. They’re looking like a cellar dweller to me. Baltimore hasn’t done a lot either. With their vaunted position player prospects and no moves on the pitching side they remind me a little of last year’s Reds. With the Santander and Gimènez additions and possibly more to come I think the Jays have a shot at 85 wins and third place.
That’s a long post to say you think the Blue Jays are 3 games better than the Rays. We will see.
Draker – Please clarify your post. Are you suggesting you think the Blue Jays are 3rd, the Orioles are 4th and the Rays are 5th?
Canuck – You make some valid points.
Improvement is based on Hoffman’s expected 2025 performance vs Romero’s 2024 performance, which as you noted was marred by injury. The comparison is being used to project team wins this season. Even if the two teams hadn’t swapped relievers, the Jays still would be considered improved based on a healthy Romano in 2025.
I think you’re underestimating Gimenez who is a Gold Glove 2B for the past 3 seasons who despite a drop in offense still put up a 4-WAR season last year.
Sure Horwitz has been the better hitter the past couple seasons, but again when comparing 2024 seasons his 1.2 WAR pales in comparison to Gimenez’s 4.0 WAR and if Gimenez can replicate his 2022 offense he is an MVP candidate. Horwitz simply doesn’t have the track record yet compared to Gimenez, while Santander is a huge upgrade over Schneider/Turner.
In summary, Santander-Hoffman-Gimenez-Healthy Bo is a huge improvement over Schneider-Injured Romano-Horwitz-Injured Bo.
I’d be shocked if the Jays manage to stay healthy and still finish in last place with the current group of players.
drake – Yes it’s very surprising the O’s did so little despite being in GFIN mode. They are a worse team than last year IMO.
mp – I like to support my opinions as much as possible, most people view that as a good thing ;O)
Pretty darned clear if you ask me. Jays have a shot at third in my opinion. Rays last. That leaves Jays and O’s duking it out for third. Obviously, we’re all just guessing at this point but that’s my guess.
mp – FWIW the Red Sox could be a 4th-place team.
I won’t explain why though ;o)
I take issue with the defensive value of players. DRS (used in calculating bWAR) is a useful metric that helps us determine defensive performance relative to other players. It doesn’t actually tell us how much that player’s defense helped his team.
DRS awards a partial point for a play made on defense that is made by very few other players based on statcast or whatever measurements they use. If the play is only made 1% of the time, it’s worth say 1 point. If it’s made 20% of the time, it’s only worth 0.5 points. (not the actual numbers) It doesn’t mean the player actually prevented a run.
We can look at a bevvy of offensive stats/metrics that paint a very clear and concrete picture of how much a player helped his team on offense and how many runs he actually helped generate.
I’ll take a 4 WAR player whose value is mostly offense vs. a 4 WAR player whose value is mostly glove. The glove guy only matters to me if the pitching staff is atrocious and relies on defense to save them.
A good pitching staff can pitch around a few defensive lapses. They cannot pitch around their offense providing no run support.
FPG – I definitely appreciate the detail, I just found your conclusion of a 3 game margin funny. 3 game margins can be boiled down to luck in my opinion. Keep up the detail though. We’ve chatted before and we’ll chat again.
Draker – Maybe I’m alone in this opinion, but I think the Yankees take a step back this year, the Red Sox remain treading water, and the Orioles easily win the division. Folks lamenting the Orioles do-nothing offseason are forgetting how many top prospects are banging on the door. The Blue Jays and Rays bring up the rear.
FPG – I agree. I would not be surprised if the Red Sox had a disappointing season. Their fans will riot if they do.
Horwitz was alright, but Santander is an obvious upgrade offensively. Horwitz only has a little over 400 at bats in the major leagues. He is far from a sure thing. Santander also had the better numbers last season.
Hoffman was better than Romano last year and Romano is still injured.
Gimenez also had 4.0 WAR last year and is better than anyone The used there last season.
You also have to figure that the bullpen is going to be much better simply due to positive regression because it’s extremely unlikely a bullpen is that bad 2 years in a row. Their bullpen was like dead last in era. Given the volatility of bullpens, it’s very unlikely it plays out that way again. That right there is going to be a big improvement because they coughed up a lot of games last year.
Canuck – Normally I would agree defensive metrics aren’t very reliable, but Gimenez is ranked so far ahead of every other 2B over the past 3 years it’s not even close.
Not just in terms of DRS, but also OAA, UZR, Range, etc. And the Gold Gloves further validate the stats. To have both the stats and awards on your side, that’s enough to convince me he’s the best in the game.
2B is the second-most important defensive position IMO, if he was a 3B or OF’er I wouldn’t put as much weight into the defense.
And the Jays pitchers were near the bottom of MLB in strikeouts last year, so I wouldn’t say they don’t rely on their fielders that much.
I respect your opinion though, there’s definitely some gray area when it comes to defensive valuations.
mp – Understood and now I see what you meant. I agree team win projections are kinda meaningless, I think I arrived at the 3 game estimate only because 75 wins for the Rays was brought up and I think the Jays could be slightly better.
Good chat, thank you!
That’s what’s fun about the off-season; sharing opinions and projections about what’s likely to happen in the upcoming year. I happen to regard the Yankees roster as clearly tops in the division and I really like the younger players on the Red Sox and have them second. As for the Orioles, their failure thus far to augment the starting staff, along with the decision to move the left field fence back in, is likely to result in some blowout home losses, as most of the top prospects you are referring to are position players. In the absence of a trade for a top SP I think they’ll be the ones treading water.
draker – Well said!
I also believe the Orioles have lost production by replacing Santander with O’Neill … even with the walls moved back in.
I think another pitcher could help them. Pivetta is Canadian and now that they lost a pick for Santander the pick penalty for signing Pivetta isn’t as serious.
forfeited 2nd highest pick for Santander, 3rd highest if they sign Pivettta. Pivetta has a career 56-71 record playing for Philly and Boston
Pivetta also had a top 20 xERA and xFIP last year among guys with 140 IP.
wins matter
No doubt, but you can’t say a pitcher is good or bad just by looking at wins or ERA.
mp – I’ll keep this short for you.
Pivetta is a #2 or #3 pitcher on most teams.
1) He has the 4th-best K/9 ratio in MLB over the past 2 years (min 250 IP) which places him behind only Snell and Glasnow and Sale.
2) He’s 53rd in IP (despite pitching some in relief)
3) He’s 50th in WAR
4) He’s 8th in Appearances
5) He’s 18th in Strikeouts
6) He’s 5th in K% behind only Glasnow, Snell, Sale and Skubal.
7) He’s 5th in K/BB% behind only Skubal, Glasnow, Sale and Ryan.
Wins matter to teams. They are circumstantial for pitchers.
FPG – Sounds like you agree with me that Piveta is a damn good pitcher.
mp – Yes! He has a lot of potential, he just needs a really good pitching coach and manager to unlock it. He’s got all the tools to be a sub-3.50 ERA pitcher, but he’s an all-or-nothing type pitcher …. he is either dominant or really bad, not too much in between.
Agree but it can’t be ignored either when you have that kind of record over 8 years playing for teams that are not bottom feeders.
One of the problems with the Jays is that they are slaves to analytics, with little thought to common sense, using your eyes and proper roster construction.
I don’t have a huge problem if they decide to take him on but for me he does not move the needle significantly. You can never have enough pitching but the current 5 is a pretty solid rotation.
Recognizing that they are unlikely to go too much deeper on spending money, the 20 plus Million it would take to get Pivetta would be much better spent on a a decent pen arm and an improvement at either 3rd or DH. ( no delsuions that Bregman or Alonso are on the radar now) Understanding roster construction is the biggest weakness of this managment group in my view.
Salar – Aren’t you aware of his versatility? Even if he doesn’t have a spot in the rotation, he has repeatedly shown the ability to switch midseason from starter to reliever with much success. In fact he struck out 13 batters in a single relief appearance.
Luckily the Jays have one of the best pitching coaches in baseball that has been able to get a lot out of pitchers looking to unlock potential.
I understand the attraction that the Front Office and fans can have to him. For me, what you pointed out as his all or nothing inconsitency is what bothers me. At the end of the day, my main thing is that the money that would be needed to sign Pivetta, or anyone in that ballpark on the SP side, is better spent elsewhere. You are not paying him 20 M to be in the pen. and because of the numbers you c ited and the current market you are not getting him for less than 20 M.
Maybe they will surprise us in how far they are willing to go on budget and address everything in a substantial way, but I sincerely doubt it based on what Atkins has said recently. Even before the Santander signing he has repeated that same schtick from last year that they are confident that they will have significant improvement just from what they have returning. I like some of the youngsters like Wagner, but to expect significant improvement from what they had is seriously flawed. In my view the pen in particular is not really better than where they started last year. Maybe it will be ok if no one get hurt but that is not realistic. The majority of subs on the current 40 for relievers are a bunch of guys that would likely get nothing more than minor league contracts from top teams.
The “he’s Canadian” thing is a little overplayed. I doubt very many Jays fans care that much where players are from as long as they play well. I know I certainly don’t.
And I doubt any Canadian player is going to take a discount just to play for the lone Canadian based team. The vast majority of Canadian ball players have spent their entire adult lives in the States and have homes there.
Also, Pivetta is from B.C. He’s not ‘going home’ if he goes to Toronto. It’s like saying a guy is going home to New York if he was born in California. If he wanted to ‘go home’, he’d sign with Seattle.
Canuck – From my personal experiences Jays fans have a lot of pride when it comes to Canadian MLB players. Why else would Jays fans give very warm receptions to Canadian players wearing Red Sox uniforms in Rogers Centre.
True that Toronto is not “home” to Pivetta, but Canadian players are very sensitive to their roots. Most of them maintain homes in Canada during the offseason, such as O’Neill and Josh Naylor.
It’s not that he would take a discount it’s that he would sign for a normal price which is a problem for the Jays. And the pick doesn’t matter as much to the Jays now because they already signed Santander.
Seems like a good fit to me.
Davidi suggests this isn’t true and any additional signings would need to go to ownership.
With that limited money to spend, picking up the gimenez and straw contracts is hilarious.
Your comment is deeply flawed, how do the Jays have limited money when ownership didn’t forbid the front office to make any additional signings? Just because the front office has to have ownership permission for additional signings does not mean they can’t spend any more or have limited money to spend.
bluejaysdiehard16
when ownership didn’t forbid the front office to make any additional signings?
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Do you know this for certain? As in, are you at their budget meetings?
When Atkins says they need to add to the team to fill roles you can bet he is in on the budget meets. Atkins is notorious for thinking they have the players to compete and no additions are necessary. Ed Rogers needs to be involved if they are making any significant signings and is also involved in the extension of Vladdy.
“We feel like we’ve got a lot of work done this off-season with the additions” of Santander, Andres Gimenez, Jeff Hoffman and Nick Sandlin, said Atkins.”
Translated – “we’re good”
I dunno man, maybe read the jays beat writer. I’m going to trust his opinion over yours.
At this point he said the jays are at their hard budget and anything else needs to go to ownership. That usually means they are pretty much done, unless Bregman or Alonso’s markets crash.
Which beat writer? I follow Davidi, Ben Nicholson-Smith and Keegan Matheson who are saying there is more money to spend. I wouldn’t rely on anybody else.
Problem is nobody wants their money. And can you blame-’em. Ahahahahaha!
I see you were talking about Davidi, this is copied from his Santander signing article. “In turn, using deferred money — as the Los Angeles Dodgers aggressively have over the past two off-seasons — for the first time also helps the Blue Jays keep more spending room open, and they weren’t done their pursuits after locking in Santander.” Where does he say he thinks the Jays have no more money to spend?
From davidi’s latest.
“Of course, we’ll continue to try to add to this team if there’s a way to do it and we’ll present those opportunities to Edward (Rogers, the club chairman) and Tony (Staffieri, the CEO of Rogers Communications Inc., which owns the Blue Jays).”
“In my view, Davidi summed it up well by saying, “But in stating publicly that further adds must be escalated up to the ownership level, Atkins is telling everyone that the Blue Jays need a strong business case to get more financial rope.”
They spent what was given to them, give or take this will be the team that starts the year. Good news is with the Santander signing they will give Tampa a dog fight for fourth.
I think Toronto will do all the can to try to get Scherzer to sign with them. They might even pay him up to $20M (max earning potential with incentives) to come North of the border. If he doesn’t want to play there then they will fall back on Pivetta and sign him to a 3 year deal with a 4th year option.
Toronto doesn’t have a proven closer either. I guess they’ll try Hoffman there but he’s more of a setup guy at heart.
Dotty – Still some closer possibilities remaining in free agency, including Estevez and Jansen.
Bring in Hays. When healthy, he is consistently solid at the plate and in the field. And, you can get him on the cheap. Also, the Jays will have 2/3rds of a starting outfield that played big roles in that 101 win season for the Orioles in 2023.
>Adding a left fielder would allow them to keep Santander in right field and use George Springer as a designated hitter
Please. Springer is a way better fielder than Santander.
Chicken parm?
Payroll Space is the grandson of actor Arthur Space, who played a veterinarian on ‘Lassie’.
The bullpen needs another solid arm. From where they started last year, Hoffman replaces Romano, and Sandlin replaces Cabrera. Not a huge upgrade. Hopefully Swanson gets back on track but otherwise how are they that much better from where they started last year? and we know how that ended.
Unfortunately I do think that Atkins is confirming they have no intention of adding. Rolling with Hoffman, Green, Yimi, Swanson, Little, Sandlin, out of options Pop, and maybe Yariel if they add a starter.
I don’t the Jays will spend that much on another OF. As said already you can get a Hayes or Verdugo and still improve your OF.
Pivetta would be a much better fit for them than Scherzer, too. Nick’s a good pitcher, honestly surprised he hasn’t been picked up yet.
And all three of the above have experience in the ALE, so that helps overall.
Jays need more offense even with Santander thd lineup is crap. Pivetta costs another pick which is too much for a mediocre pitcher
Judging on the Jays ability to draft and develop players, losing a pick isn’t really that painful.
I’m gonna predict a Springer trade. They would have to attach Manoah or Tiedemman for a team to think about it. And then they sign a pitcher and another bat. That’s just my guess.
Both Manoah and Ricky are recovering from surgeries.
Only way they dump Springer would be to take on a similar size bad contract and/or pay it way down in a trade.
Springer is a 4th outfielder at this point in his career. To get somebody to take that, you have to pay the entire contract, defeating the point. Nobody’s essentially paying $50M (or even $5M) to get Tiedemman.
Alonso, Vladdy and Santander in the same lineup would be pretty fun to watch.Just saying.
I very much doubt they could afford Alonso at this point.
Except we don’t really know yet how much his market has tanked. It’s not clear what he’s actually going to cost. I doubt he ends up in Toronto, but it isn’t entirely outlandish to think it could happen.
@Dustyslambchops23
So it’s Clement/Barger at 3B and Wagner/Kirk/etc. at DH, and Bloss in the pen and Rodriguez at #5. 4th place seems attainable.
I wonder if Bloss gets a chance to start and Yrod in the pen, put pretty much.
Only difference I could see is if Orelvis comes in and impresses and gets a chance to run with 3B.
@Dustyslambchops23
Given Orelvis’s time off because of fatherhood juice I think he spends time at Buffalo getting game ready and most importantly putting up numbers showing it wasn’t a fluke. Defensively, he kinda reminds me of a worse version of Lourdes. Hate to say it but his career path looks like DH/sometimes 1B.
Toronto is still hoping for 1 more meeting with soto and roki
Jays will end up with one of Scherzer or Pivetta and one of Profar and Alonso. Bergman is probably the best fit but is a pipe dream looking for a major long term deal.
If the team had one clue howbt9ndraftband develop, we wouldn’t need 300 million in payroll