BURSTDALLAS — All off-season long, two narratives about the Toronto Blue Jays circulated in baseball’s gossip circles.
One painted them as a team hell-bent on spending big, determined at all costs to remake their roster after an 88-loss season, lengthening a competitive window at risk of expiring.
The other depicted them as a team intent on finding ways to improve within the confines of their ever-trusted processes, exploring all avenues while staying within, and remaining disciplined to, their valuations.
As the former took root far deeper than the latter, fuelled by the Blue Jays’ participation in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, the perception of their plans swerved further and further from reality. While industry speculation suggested their final bid for the superstar wasn’t far off the $765 million committed to him by the New York Mets, they were actually under $700 million, perhaps even significantly so. On Max Fried, who agreed to a $218-million, eight-year deal with the New York Yankees, they weren’t in nearly deep enough to factor at the end. The same thing will almost surely happen with Corbin Burnes, too.
Like it or not, this front office is forever true to itself, and that was reflected in their actions Tuesday at the Winter Meetings, when they acquired three-time Gold Glove-winning second baseman Andres Gimenez and reliever Nick Sandlin from the Cleveland Guardians, while also reuniting with Yimi Garcia on a $15-million, two-year deal that’s pending a physical.
The looming transactions were sandwiched around a draft lottery that went all Rockies-Marlins sad for them, as they landed the eighth overall pick despite having the fifth-best odds of getting the top pick. The fallout there is for down the road.
Their first substantive moves of the off-season, on the other hand, carry immediate ramifications because they may very well be two of the most significant transactions they make this winter.
As such, they were totally to type, even if they were very different from what the industry seemed to expect.
In Gimenez, the Blue Jays add a dynamic defender whose work in the field is so good that it helps protect against the $96,857,145 he’s owed over the next five seasons if his bat doesn’t recover from consecutive down years.
The annual CBT hit of nearly $20 million is significant, but general manager Ross Atkins said the Blue Jays “do feel strongly about some upside in the bat.” Counting on the left-handed hitting 26-year-old to deliver on that is the type of measured risk in their wheelhouse.
Sandlin’s career 3.27 ERA and 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings, meanwhile, should help bolster the American League’s worst bullpen, and the price for them wasn’t prohibitive.
Spencer Horwitz, the talented left-handed hitter whose lack of defensive utility made him redundant on the Blue Jays roster, was the primary piece headed to the Guardians, who subsequently flipped him to the Pirates. Outfield prospect Nick Mitchell, a fourth-rounder last summer who debuted at low-A Dunedin, also goes to Cleveland.
Combined with Garcia, who, if healthy, is as reliable as they come and fits the clubhouse tremendously well, the Blue Jays relief corps no longer looks like a wasteland of replacement-level arms.
Gimenez, though, is the key.
“Everything about him was attractive,” said Atkins. “The work that we did on his bat and the offensive impact that can be there. The teammate. We just heard incredible things about the person. The baserunner, adding that level of speed, that level of athleticism and being here for a long time. All of that was very attractive to us. The elite defence speaks for itself.”
Not speaking for itself is what comes next, and it’s here where the Blue Jays’ path veers ever more widely from what was predicted for them.
Gimenez’s yearly CBT hit of just under $20 million, plus Garcia’s $7.5 million and Sandlin’s MLB Trade Rumors arbitration projection of $1.6 million, pushes the Blue Jays’ projected total for 2025 up to $228.4 million, according to FanGraphs’ RosterResource.
The breadcrumbs of clues dropped thus far suggest the Blue Jays’ payroll, without a Soto-like special-opportunity acquisition, is expected to land around the first CBT threshold of $241 million, which means they have roughly $13 million to work with.
Given that they still want to add a starter, another hitter who can provide production and some low-cost bullpen fliers (maybe even one via Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft, in which they pick seventh), that’s a pretty tall task.
Maybe they can push towards the second CBT threshold for the right player and the right opportunity — Teoscar Hernandez is someone who might fit the bill — but otherwise, barring some real roster creativity, the next phase of the Blue Jays’ off-season may very well be patiently playing the market.
Think of how the San Francisco Giants pounced on Matt Chapman and Blake Snell last spring, or Cody Bellinger with the Chicago Cubs. The Blue Jays could now be looking for something like the 2025 versions of those deals, because they’re in a situation where every dollar matters in terms of player acquisition.
In that way, Gimenez may very well have set the Blue Jays’ off-season path, the measured one they were always likely to end up on, even as they were supposedly in on everyone and down for anything.
