The Blue Jays’ biggest need coming into this off-season was starting pitching, and now the last of the free-agent starting pitchers has been spoken for. From the perspective of Jays fans, snatched away from their team.
Two of the biggest free-agent pitchers (Masahiro Tanaka and Ubaldo Jimenez) went to teams within the AL East, possibly improving the fortunes of the teams with which Toronto will find itself most embattled.
It’s truly a lousy state of affairs. But it shouldn’t be unexpected.
This is the game you play when your success is heavily dependent on signing and trading your way into a rotation. There are a finite number of legitimate starting pitchers in MLB, and many of the very best don’t make their way onto the free agent market. With such scarcity, the price of starting pitching is rising to a point where teams have to be prepared to assume significant risk in terms of the money, years or prospects they relinquish to make these deals happen. The cost of mistakes is high enough that it can hamper your ability to compete for years to come.
Like, say, trading for one year of Josh Johnson and crossing your fingers on his health. Think that sounds like hindsight posing as foresight? Here’s what I wrote on November 14, 2012 with regards to the Jays’ monumental trade with the Marlins:
Let’s not mistake this trade for a long term solution to the Jays’ woes. Because the Jays are trading for a single season of Josh Johnson (or his pursuant value) this trade is completely oriented towards success in 2013…
The Jays also moved five players under the age of 24 to Miami, and while upsides of (Henderson) Alvarez and (Adeiny) Hechavarria seem to be as something less than All-Stars, they are still in their ascendance… And all of that is wagered on Josh Johnson being healthy and having a good season next year. That’s the bottom line.
The Blue Jays ended up adding three starting pitchers to their rotation last year, and also got 20 starts out of Esmil Rogers. Before that, they added J.A. Happ and Brandon Morrow.
Maybe the results aren’t the ones you would have liked, but you can’t castigate the Jays front office at this point standing pat or sitting on their hands.
In fact, Alex Anthopoulos has entirely remade the starting rotation since he took on the GM job, all while having to factor in the utterly unpredictable implosion of a player who should have profiled as a front of the rotation starter. Or at least a mid-rotation, 200-inning pitcher. He has had to deal with the perpetual DL stint of Dustin McGowan, the blown elbows of Drew Hutchison and Kyle Drabek, and the unfortunate loss of Jesse Litsch, as young pitcher who provided important rotation depth up until 2011.
I realize that the news of this morning will dominate the thoughts of Jays fans, and I appreciate that some of those angry fans at least have the decency to couch their rage with the notion that Ervin Santana wasn’t a make-or-break signing. But the alternative being proposed today – blowing the team’s budget early and often on any free agent pitcher who’s available – seems nonsensical to me.
Supposing that this year goes as awfully for the Jays as people today assume it will, do we really think that eight-year, $180 million deals for Max Scherzer or six- and seven-year deals at front line starter levels for consolation prizes like Johnny Cueto are really going to be the path to glory for this team? Are we anxious for our next shot at Ervin Santana? Is it worth once again emptying the top of the farm system for someone like Jeff Samardzija?
Put another way: How much better off are the Blue Jays in the next few years with a rotation that features Dickey and Buehrle instead of Noah Syndergaard and Henderson Alvarez?
And how many fans will remember the fuss they made today if Matt Garza and Ubaldo Jimenez have vastly underperformed after the next four years?
There are lots of reasons why the very few legitimate front-of-rotation starters – and the pretenders to that role – choose their destinations. Avoiding the AL East, or the Rogers Centre, or Canada for that matter are just some of the rationales we hear lately.
If this is a game in which the Blue Jays seem unlikely to compete, they need to excel in the drafting, signing and development of young pitchers. I realize that’s a boring conclusion for many of you. But it’s the one from which I don’t waver.
