Blue Jays: Don’t expect contracts for Ray and Semien before free agency

While it would be great if the Blue Jays could re-sign Robbie Ray and/or Marcus Semien before they reach free agency, I don’t expect that to happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that all parties involved in those two negotiations are keeping in touch and maybe even having some early conversations, but it’s going to take a while to figure out. That’s mostly because it’s really hard to predict what the next contract will look like for either of the two stars.

Starting with Robbie Ray, he’s coming off a season that was by far his top performance as a big leaguer. He’s the leading candidate for the American League Cy Young award, and he led the AL in ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, innings pitched, and bWAR. Having just turned 30 at the beginning of October, there should be plenty of quality miles left in that golden left arm of his.

That said, I wouldn’t blame GM’s around the league from having their doubts that he can repeat that level of performance. To be fair, he may never win another Cy Young award in his career so that’s a pretty tough bar to try and meet. However, for those of us that had a chance to watch him pitch every five days this year, there’s a greater degree of confidence that he’s found another gear at this point in his career, and it very much looks real.

Earlier in the year I predicted that Ray’s next contract would land in the 4-year, 70 million dollar range, but then he turned it up another notch to finish off the regular season, even surpassing guys like Gerrit Cole of the Yankees and Lance Lynn of the White Sox as the frontrunner for the top pitching award. He’s all but certain to blow my initial prediction out of the water now, but by how much? I’m very confident that the Blue Jays would pay more than that to retain him, but I have no idea of what he could fetch on the open market. 100 million seems very likely, but how much higher will other teams, or the Blue Jays, go than that? It may take a few weeks of conversations between Ray’s agent and the rest of the league before we have a better idea.

Semien’s situation is very different as a more established veteran and a position player as well, but the same question surrounds his potential free agency. There’s no doubt that Semien will secure more than the one-year, 18 million dollar contract he signed to play with the Blue Jays this year, but there are a lot of variables in play when it comes to his potential market.

At 31, there’s no way to argue against the fact that Semien is still in his prime, but baseball has been getting younger in recent years, and really long-term deals for players over 30 have become the exception rather than the norm. There was a time when a player like Semien would be set to receive at least a seven-year deal, but now my guess is that market could be capped at five, or maybe a max of six. Look no further than the Blue Jays’ own George Springer, who was 31 when he signed his current six-year pact.

Another wrench in Semien’s potential offseason is the strength of the middle infield market, which could be a significant factor. It’s a strong free agent group that includes the likes of Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, Trevor Story, Javier Baez, and more, and it’s hard to say how many teams will be looking to spend that kind of dough. After the way teams kept their chequebooks close to their chests last year, there is some potential for the market to work against Semien in this way. Don’t get me wrong, I still think he’s going to secure a big contract, but it may take some time.

Unless the Blue Jays decide to get very aggressive ahead of the start of free agency, I expect that we’ll be waiting a while before we know if we’ll see Ray or Semien back next season. I’m sure it’ll be a nerve-wracking time for Jays fans, but hopefully it’ll conclude with a big offseason and a happy ending.