Time for Blue Jays to go all-in on top targets, or risk missing out

Baseball insiders Shi Davidi, Arden Zwelling & Ben Nicholson-Smith react to star infielder DJ LeMahieu choosing to stay with the Yankees and what it means for the Blue Jays off-season plans.

TORONTO – Prying D.J. LeMahieu away from the New York Yankees was never a likely proposition for the Toronto Blue Jays. The star infielder prioritized a return to the Bronx, baseball’s Goliath felt the same way about bringing him back and the number it would have taken to bring him north was surely far beyond the $90 million over six years they settled on.

Good on them for making a real run at someone described by people within the organization as the perfect fit, and there’s some value in perhaps making him more expensive for the Yankees. As they try to tuck under the $210 million competitive balance tax threshold, every dollar out makes the rest of their work this winter that much tougher, even after LeMahieu helped them lower the average-annual value on his pending deal.

Still, there are no silver medals in this – your team is either better or it’s not – and the moment of truth looms for the Blue Jays.

Options remain on the market even after they missed on Francisco Lindor, dealt by Cleveland to the New York Mets; Liam Hendriks, who signed with the Chicago White Sox after visiting the new complex in Dunedin, Fla.; Tomoyuki Sugano, who didn’t like what was on offer and returned to Japan; Ha-seong Kim, who opted for the San Diego Padres; and Kevin Gausman, who spurned them for the qualifying offer from the San Francisco Giants.

George Springer, Trevor Bauer and J.T. Realmuto are all targets, and the vast majority of free agents remain unsigned. There is still money to be moved on the trade market, too.

Regardless, the Blue Jays are going to keep missing the top targets on their preference list if they aren’t willing to veer from their off-season script and put up some high bids, either in dollars or prospects. They can sit on their valuations all winter long, but that’s a recipe for allowing players to fall to them, rather than going out to get the players they really want.

Such an approach could very well allow them to have a nice off-season, but it sure seems like a passive way to augment the current core.

If the Blue Jays had full conviction in LeMahieu, then they should have forced the Yankees to do better than, say, $95 million over five. It’s an extra year than the $78 million over four years Pat Ragazzo and Jon Heyman reported they put on the table, but that’s the cost of doing business.

Better to overspend on the player you really prefer than to get hung up on value and then hitch yourself to a less appealing option, at least in my opinion. That way you don’t end up with a Kendrys Morales, when you really wanted an Edwin Encarnacion.

And if they’re not willing to eat an extra year of bad money on the back-end of a free-agent contract, then they need to move on and focus on the tier of the market where they’re comfortable shopping.

They can bring closure to their own pursuits of Springer, Bauer and Realmuto by making their best offers and moving on if they’re not good enough to get a "yes." That’s worth doing before other options begin to close themselves off, costing the Blue Jays opportunities in other areas of the market.

For example, Ken Rosenthal reported the Mets were making progress with left-hander Brad Hand, another closer the Blue Jays have had interest in. Should he join Hendriks off the board, and with Archie Bradley going to the Phillies, and Hansel Robles going to the Twins, the closer market is thinning out.

The Blue Jays must address their rotation and bullpen, as Arden Zwelling wrote here, to be credible threats in the division, and it’s risky for them to keep waiting for Springer, Bauer and Realmuto to land before acting.

Especially if they’re not in it to win it in free agency.

For all the consternation about players not wanting to come to Toronto, rarely does high bid not win the negotiation. There’s no grey area with dollars, but trades can be a crapshoot since every team evaluates prospects differently and value is in the eye of the beholder.

The Blue Jays are reluctant to trade from their group of young players near the big-leagues, at this point preferring to see what they become. Understandable, but given the lack of a minor-league season last year and the limited participation at the alternative training site, trading down system is both difficult since players typically carry less value the further they are from the majors, and risky since the team can’t be as sure what’s being traded away.

To that end, the Blue Jays will probably have a tough time making a consequential deal without including, say, a Jordan Groshans or Alek Manoah. Would they be able to tempt the Chicago Cubs with a package built around one of them for Kris Bryant or Javier Baez plus Kyle Hendricks?

That would hurt, but farm systems can be replenished with good scouting, and that’s where their work landing six international free agents Friday, headlined by a $2.35-million bonus for shortstop Manuel Beltre, becomes essential.

With faith in their player procurement and development projections, they can identify who they have to keep and who they can afford to trade, and leverage that into big-league help.

That and spending money are the options if they want to get better.

Either way, the price for top talent will cost more than they’d like, and the Blue Jays have to get comfortable with getting uncomfortable. Because if they don’t make meaningful adds now that the market is moving, pretty soon the Blue Jays won’t only have to answer to their fans, but to their highly competitive and deserving players, too.

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