TORONTO – Faced with the choice of spending big on David Price or spreading the money it would have taken to re-sign the ace lefty around the roster, the Toronto Blue Jays opted for the latter, an easy decision according to new president and CEO Mark Shapiro.
“Not that aggressively,” he replied when asked how aggressively the team pursued Price, who this week reached agreement on a $217-million, seven-year deal with the Boston Red Sox. “For me with David Price, it’s never a question do you want David Price. That’s silly. Of course, yes, we want David Price. It’s a question of how do you build a championship team within the parameters you’re given. It’s as simple as that. We have all the resources necessary to build a championship team, but they’re not unlimited, it’s a business like any other business. We had multiple holes to fill, and putting all those resources in one player really would have created a team with one complete hole in the rotation with nowhere to fill it. It really wasn’t much of a choice.”
Faced with a barren rotation behind Marcus Stroman and R.A. Dickey, the Blue Jays re-signed Marco Estrada to a $26-million, two-year deal, acquired Jesse Chavez (estimated to earn $4.7 million in arbitration by MLB Trade Rumors) and signed J.A. Happ for $36 million over three years.
That leaves the Blue Jays with about $130 million in payroll commitments and arbitration projections, with another $5 million or so due for 0-3 service time players. On a payroll of $140 million, that leaves about $5 million to address the bullpen, find a backup catcher and likely add a backup middle infielder.
“We’ve still got work left to do,” said Shapiro. “Albeit not some key roles, we still have holes left to fill. As Tony (LaCava) said earlier, because we have filled the largest holes, we are open to being very creative the rest of the off-season. We have the ability to examine a lot of scenarios as we head to Nashville and as we go through the off-season, and we’ll see what comes.”
As for whether a contract such as the one Price agreed to with the Red Sox fits within his philosophies, Shapiro said: “Every contract decision is due to individual circumstances, you have to be in that situation to understand the variables that factor into that decision and what you offer. Contracts are always about assessing level of risk and risk-tolerance. Your situation is going to dictate your tolerance to risk and that’s the bottom line.”
