Toronto Blue Jays choose your own adventure- Option 1.1

Welcome to the Blue Jays choose your own adventure series! If you’re here and you’re confused, may I suggest starting at the beginning?

So you’ve chosen to stick with the free agent market even after spending 127.5 million to retain Robbie Ray? Bold move, Cotton. Fortunately for you, it still works out pretty well.

With somewhere between 23-25 million to spend, you decided to take another big free agent swing and bolster the bullpen. It required Jordan Romano to accept more of a fireman/set-up role, but he was okay with the idea when it meant signing Raisel Iglesias to a four year, 54 million dollar contract.

The last time the Blue Jays signed a closer to a big money deal it didn’t work out so great (see: B.J. Ryan), but the hope is that Iglesias can give the Blue Jays what they were missing in 2021, and that was having enough reliable late inning arms.

Spending an AAV of 13.5 million on Iglesias didn’t leave you with a lot to work with to fill out the infield, but fortunately you found a pretty solid solution anyway. Eduardo Escobar’s market wasn’t what he hoped it would be, so you were able to get him for two years and 20 million. You were pressing the budget limits a bit, but then you found a taker for Randal Grichuk’s last two years of his contract, and only had to send four million and accept a pretty small return package from San Francisco.

In the end bringing back Ray means you’ll have rotation led by the southpaw and reinforced with the newly extended Jose Berrios, two more years of Hyun Jin Ryu, and the sophomore season of Alek Manoah. Oh, and I forgot, because you didn’t really add a 5th starter Nate Pearson had a chance to win the job, and he ended up running with it. That really worked out well, wouldn’t you say?

As for the lineup, it now looks like this:

1- Springer (CF)
2- Bichette (SS)
3- Guerrero Jr (1B)
4- Hernandez (RF)
5- Gurriel Jr. (LF)
6- Esobar (3B)
7- Kirk (DH)
8- Jansen (C)
9- Biggio (2B)

The lineup might not be quite as powerful as it was in 2021, but you have to remember that a lot of these young players still haven’t hit their full potential. Escobar’s ability to switch hit gives Charlie Montoyo’s lineup card a tiny bit of balance, and Biggio does the same on the days that Santiago Espinal isn’t starting at second.

Overall, I’d say you’ve done a good job with the offseason there General Manager. How do you feel about it?