This Blue Jays roster decision from the spring looks worse and worse by the day

The Toronto Blue Jays' front office has made some head-scratching moves this season.

Breaking camp with Jacob Barnes and Richard Lovelady on the active roster. Not going into the season with more starting pitching depth. Sending Will Wagner down instead of Nathan Lukes.

But the biggest head-scratcher came before all of those when the Blue Jays didn't offer a roster spot to swingman Ryan Yarbrough.

Now, a little more than two months after the Blue Jays cut Yarbrough, the move is looking like a clear misstep by Toronto's front office.

Ryan Yarbrough would be a key piece on this year's Blue Jays team

Yarbrough's journey with the Blue Jays began last year when the Blue Jays acquired him at the trade deadline from the Dodgers in exchange for Kevin Kiermaier, where he ended up being the Blue Jays' best reliever down the stretch

He went 1-0 with a stellar 2.01 ERA and 0.80 WHIP across 31 1/3 innings. He allowed just seven earned runs and seven walks to go along with 26 strikeouts.

Those stats still weren't enough for the Blue Jays to offer him a contract, however, and he entered the winter as a free agent.

He ended up coming back to Toronto a week into spring training on a minor league contract, and seemed like a lock to make the team due to his skillset and unique contract.

He was signed to a minor league Article XX(b) contract, which gave him the ability to opt out of his contract before the start of the season if the Blue Jays didn't offer him a contract.

Well, Toronto did just that, and he latched on with the Yankees a day later. According to Yarbrough, the Blue Jays decision to not offer him a contract.

“I feel like I had a good camp, everything was trending in the right direction, velocity was up from the off-season,” Yarbrough said in an interview with Sportsnets' Shi Davidi. “And I guess from the front-office side, they just wanted to go in a different direction. I’d envisioned myself, just because of how I did last year with the team and what I brought last year, in a similar role this year. I thought it was a really good fit. I don't know how it all worked out. But I guess from a guaranteeing standpoint, they didn't feel that and wanted to go in a different direction.”

As Davidi pointed out, the "guaranteeing standpoint" is the kind of contract the Blue Jays wanted Yarbrough to sign. The Blue Jays wanted to sign an "advanced consent contract," which would have kept him on the roster for 45 days without guaranteeing his contract.

The Yankees locked him in on a guaranteed $2 million contract with performance incentives.

Yarbrough has a 4.11 ERA in 15 1/3 innings this year with the Yankees, and has gone multiple innings in half of his appearances this year.

While he hasn't been a full-time starter since 2023, he's one of MLB's best swingmen and is a valuable addition to any bullpen.

Expect for the Blue Jays, apparently.

Yarbrough would be valuable in the Blue Jays' bullpen in the best of times, but he'd be especially valuable on this year's team.

The Blue Jays' starting pitching staff is in flux right now thanks to Max Scherzer's injury and Easton Lucas' ineffectiveness. The Blue Jays were working with a four-man rotation before they called up Eric Lauer yesterday.

Lauer allowed four runs in two innings as the bulk man behind Yariel Rodríguez which likely earned him another turn in the rotation.

Still, if Yarbrough was on the roster then the Blue Jays likely wouldn't have had to experiment with Casey Lawrence and Jacob Barnes. They also signed Connor Overton to a minor league contract to do exactly what Yarbrough does.

While it's important to sign players like Guerrero and Santander to long contracts, the biggest moves that can make the difference in winning a World Series are the ones made on the margins. And this marginal move looks like a big loss for the Blue Jays.