Blue Jays: Predictions as Free Agency opens

Now that free agency has officially opened, I’m going to take a stab at how I believe the Blue Jays’ offseason needs will be filled. Feel free to bookmark this article for future mocking.

I feel like I’ve been a bit of a broken record here lately, but that’s because we’ve been waiting for free agency to open since the Blue Jays’ regular season concluded over a month ago. It’s time to look ahead to the future and with several roster needs for the Blue Jays in 2018 and beyond, it should be a fairly busy offseason for Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins.

Among the needs are a back-up catcher, a utility infielder, bullpen help, a fifth starter, and likely another outfielder. Atkins was notably quoted as saying he’d like to, “bring in at least one impact arm, and one impact bat”, and the front office should have a little bit of money to work with. The fans continued to come out in droves despite the struggling team in 2017, and the club announced that ticket prices would raise for next year, so they’ll have to spend a bit of money to keep the fans happy.

However, they already have approximately 142 million committed to 19 players, and they had a payroll of roughly 163 million to open last season, so the new additions likely won’t be of the “premium” variety.

There are a bunch of different ways Atkins and Shapiro could choose to spend their dough this winter, and here is my predictions about how things will play out. I did something similar a month ago, but I figured that now that free agency is set to open, it might be fun to make an annual tradition of a “Top 5 predictions”, and then look back and laugh at myself every Opening Day.

Without further adieu…