Toronto Blue Jays: Four Keys To A Successful Offseason

Despite sweeping their season-ending series against the Baltimore Orioles, the Toronto Blue Jays fell short in their bid for a postseason berth.

It felt like a setback and a disappointing end to a wildly entertaining season. As much as 2021 felt like a step in the right direction, some key pending free agents give it the feel of opportunity lost.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is coming off perhaps the best season ever for a player in their age-22 campaign. Bo Bichette drove in over 100 runs and finished second to Vladdy in runs scored. Outfielders Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. are in their primes and under team control for the foreseeable future.

Blue Jays – Supplementing Young Stars with Productive Veterans

As exciting as the young players have been, adding vets like Hyun-Jin Ryu, George Springer, Marcus Semien, and Robbie Ray has been a formula for success. Ryu is signed through 2023, and Springer still has five years remaining on the six-year, $150 million contract he signed last November.

There’s no doubt the market for these two players will be red-hot. As hyped-up as this year’s class of free agent shortstops is, none of them can boast of having the type of power season Semien just had.

Ray was the first player to sign a contract when free agency opened last year. The one-year, $8 million deal seemed like an act of faith by both sides. The Jays were confident, working with Pete Walker could bring Ray back to his 2017 All-Star form, or better. Robbie showed virtually no hesitation in “running it back” after being acquired in a trade in 2020 and made himself a bundle this season.

Reload the Cavalry, Bring Back the Big Guns

For Jays’ fans to truly be optimistic about progressing through the minefield that is the AL East, one, if not both of Semien and Ray must be retained.

Detractors of the front office duo Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro will say that they will do anything to avoid shelling out a big payday but that’s not true. The Springer and Ryu contracts showed they are willing to be generous with both term and dollar value if the shoe fits.

Obviously, the fit with both players is there. Ray transformed himself from a pitcher with control issues to a dominant power arm with minimal walks.

Semien has expressed his desire to return to his natural position of shortstop but that really shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.  He’s coming off a season in which he smashed his career-high for homers with 45 (previous high 33) and his swing and Rogers Centre seem to be a match made in heaven.

The other thing that’s so valuable about both Ray and Semien in addition to their production and leadership is their durability.

After suffering an elbow bruise and missing his first outing of the year Ray went on to start 32 games and pitch a career-high 193.1 innings. Semien comes to the ballpark to work every day and was one of only two players (Whit Merrifield was the other) to play in all 162 games. During a season that saw a ton of injuries around the game after a shortened 2020 campaign, the durability of the veterans was significant.

Contingency Plans

Obviously, in a perfect world, the Blue Jays would be able to retain Ray, Semien, and Matz. I’m not saying that won’t happen but the amount of money it will take could make that difficult.

Either way, the Jays need to be prepared if one or more of these players signs elsewhere. In the pitching department, I’ll throw out a couple of familiar names that the team could potentially at least kick the tires on.

Marcus Stroman had an up-and-down, five-year run in Toronto. It ended in 2019 when he was shipped to the Mets in exchange for Simeon Woods-Richardson and Anthony Kay. He’s coming off a solid 2021 campaign and will be a free agent.

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Noah Syndergaard was once in the Blue Jays organization but was traded away in the R.A Dickey deal prior to the disappointing 2013 season. He’s gone on to have success in New York but has had a hard time staying on the field as well.

He’s also a pending free agent and the fact that he’s only thrown two big league innings since 2019 could decrease his market value. He’s still young enough to bounce back, but that injury history won’t help his cause.

If Semien defects it will be a stinging blow. The Jays could attempt to rebound by pursuing Javier Baez, Trevor Story, and Corey Seager. However, all of those guys are primarily shortstops. Another cheaper option that wouldn’t require a position change? How about Josh Harrison, who could also play third base.

Fix The Bullpen

The Achilles’ heel of the Blue Jays all season long was their bullpen, which just blew too many games for the team to recover from. In-season pickups Adam Cimber and Trevor Richards helped stabilize the unit, but it may have been too late.

Those two, along with Tim Mayza and Jordan Romano, saw the bulk of the high-leverage situations in the last two months or so in 2021.

Cimber, Richards, and Mayza are all arbitration-eligible for the first time in 2022 so they should all be back in the fold. Nate Pearson was called up in September and looked impressive in a few outings. If the club can add a couple more solid options, it would go a long way to turning this weakness into a strength.

Ryan Tepera, who enjoyed four good years with the Jays from 2015-2019, is coming off perhaps his best season. Andrew Chafin was one of the best relievers in baseball in 2021 (0.93 WHIP, 1.83 ERA over 68.2 innings) and would be a great addition.

The Jays could also use at least one more left-handed reliever and Sean Doolittle could be a good fit. He’s a two-time All-Star, World Series champion, and has pitched in plenty of big games.

Executing some of these moves could go a long way towards turning the Blue Jays from a very good team to a great one.

The front office will need to be aggressive and willing to spend freely in order to secure a World Series caliber team.