If the Toronto Blue Jays had succeeded in their free-agent pursuit of Shohei Ohtani, the team would’ve gotten both a franchise centrepiece and clarity about their long-term competitive outlook.
The Los Angeles Angels can attest that Ohtani’s presence alone is no guarantee of team success. But if the Blue Jays had landed the two-way superstar, they would’ve had MLB’s best player locked in over the long haul, giving the team a foundation to build around — and creating a situation where it wouldn’t have made sense for the team to step back competitively for the foreseeable future.
Although the Blue Jays’ front office often speaks about the importance of sustainable winning, in the aftermath of missing out on Ohtani it’s not clear how Toronto will keep its window open in the medium and long term.
That doesn’t mean that this franchise is on the way to a teardown. There’s a difference between having an ambiguous path ahead, and being doomed.
Even so, in the aftermath of the Ohtani miss, it’s apparent that following the two-year period while Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. remain the Blue Jays don’t have a clear direction.
Put another way, in the next two seasons the following players can become free agents: Bichette, Guerrero, Chris Bassitt, Jordan Romano, Erik Swanson, Danny Jansen, Yusei Kikuchi, Chad Green, Tim Mayza, Yimi Garcia, Genésis Cabrera and Cavan Biggio.
When 2026 rolls around, the only contracts locked in will belong to George Springer, Kevin Gausman, and José Berríos. That trio will cost approximately $65.87 million and have a collective age of 102. It’d be tough to count on Springer to be a starter at that point and the range of outcomes for Gausman is wide at 35, while Berríos has a good chance of remaining a solid contributor entering a season where he’d turn 32 in May.
On top of those three, the Blue Jays could have Alejandro Kirk, Daulton Varsho and Santiago Espinal in their final years before free agency — plus Alek Manoah two years out. Davis Schneider deserves a mention as well based on his outstanding 2023, but it’s difficult to know where he’ll fit in and it seems unfair to assume he’ll be a piece of the team’s core.
The farm system might surface a foundational player, and while there are candidates to reach that level — like Ricky Tiedemann and Orelvis Martinez — there are no sure bets. Publicly available farm-system rankings like those found at MLB.com and FanGraphs tend to rank Toronto’s group in the low-to-mid 20s.
Most MLB teams that see themselves as perpetual contenders can answer the question: “Who is going to be a great player for us in three years?” That answer isn’t guaranteed to be correct, but it can be offered with confidence.
Prior to his tumultuous 2023 season, Manoah fit that description. While it’s valid to be bullish about a possible resurgence, it would be overly optimistic to feel certain he’ll bounce back in 2024. Projecting him out as far as 2026 is an impossible task.
An optimist might frame the uncertainty the Blue Jays face in the near future as flexibility and opportunity. This club doesn’t seem likely to suddenly stop investing in its roster, and being locked into a significant set of players deep into the future isn’t always a good idea. It usually means that you’ve spent a lot of money in the free-agent market, which can yield mixed results as a team-building strategy.
The issue the Blue Jays are looking at is that flexibility is best used to find players to place around an existing framework. There are teams that have built a core around expensive free agents like the Texas Rangers, but it’s a tough thing to count on.
For now, the Blue Jays’ most pressing concern is making sure the team is ready to compete when next season rolls around. The pitching staff is nearly good to go, but there are significant moves to be made on the position-player side.
It’s unclear how those transactions will affect the team’s prognosis beyond 2024. The team could target shorter-term solutions, sign a relatively young, impact free agent — like Cody Bellinger — to a lengthy deal, or trade for someone with a little bit of term. We are going to learn more about where this team is heading in the weeks to come.
Until any of that comes to pass, the Blue Jays will look more like a team with two years to make some noise than a franchise positioned to put a winner on the field season-after-season.
Acquiring Ohtani would’ve completely shifted that paradigm.
Now that he’s in Los Angeles, the Blue Jays will have a more difficult road to forging a competitive future. The shortcut is no longer available. Now this franchise has to go the long way around, making multiple correct turns along the way.
