The Toronto Blue Jays have dug themselves into a pretty deep hole.
Coming off a last-place finish in the loaded American League East, the Blue Jays have just one year left with their young core in place. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are set to become free agents next winter, and losing them would kickstart another rebuild.
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Last winter, the Blue Jays whiffed on Shohei Ohtani in free agency and wound up doing little else to revamp their roster. This year, they whiffed on Juan Soto, and they absolutely cannot afford to let history repeat itself.
Fortunately, there are still big names to be had in free agency. Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Anthony Santander, and Corbin Burnes are just some of the former All-Stars that have yet to sign with new teams.
On Monday, Jim Bowden of The Athletic urged the Blue Jays to go out and get two of those remaining All-Star free agents, in a last-ditch attempt to convince Bichette and Guerrero to stay in town.
“The Blue Jays’ best moves right now would be to sign Anthony Santander and Alex Bregman, or Bregman and (Corbin) Burnes, or Santander and Burnes, then just try to contend this year and hope it helps them re-sign Bichette and Guerrero, even if that’s next offseason on the open market,” Bowden said.
“Their farm system can’t help much in the short term and they have little to trade so playing checkbook baseball is the only way out of this mess.”
Bowden’s current contract projections for the trio are $142 million for Santander, $185.5 million for Bregman, and $247 million for Burnes. The cost to the Blue Jays to acquire two of them, therefore would range from $327.5 million to $432.5 million.
It might sound like a big risk for a team facing as much uncertainty as the Blue Jays are to shell out that kind of cash right now. But what alternative do they realistically have, apart from a full-on teardown?
