Why clock is ticking on Blue Jays' potential top prospect contract extensions

The Seattle Mariners and the Milwaukee Brewers got a neat bit of business done this week, with each team individually signing a young up-and-coming prospect. The Mariners signed promising shortstop Colt Emerson to an eight -year deal that is worth a minimum of $95 million and can exceed $130 million. That's the largest deal ever given to a player who has yet to make their MLB debut.

Meantime, the Brewers landed Cooper Pratt, also a shortstop, to an eight-year deal that will pay him just over $50 million. A lot of dough to give to a kid who has only played three games at Triple-A. But there may be one big reason why this is happening and the Toronto Blue Jays might be better served signing a couple of their own prospects to long-term deals now, before a new rule comes in that could change everything - the salary cap.

Looming CBA changes could force the Blue Jays to make some long-term signings of their own

If you haven't heard, the Collective Barganing Agreement is up for renegotiation beginning in December and it is widely speculated that the Players Union and the Owners are incredibly far apart on reaching a deal that will satisfy everyone. We won't get into the nitty gritty of it here, but one of the crux of the issues is how much money the top tier teams are spending on players. How could those poor bottom teams, that also are run by billionaires, ever keep up?

So it's looking like baseball is heading to a lockout so that 80% of the owners can tell the other 20% of the owners that they don't like how they are spending their money and that they are making the 80% look bad because they don't want to spen their money like th 20%, meaning everyone else suffers. A salary cap is expected to be introduced and could very likely get approved by the time it's all said and done.

But how would current contracts be handled if there is a salary cap? That remains to be seen, but one proposal would be to grandfather in all current contracts. It would be hard to suggests that under any new CBA, teams will be forced to rip up existing deals. Crazier things have happened, but that seems like it will be a stretch. Therefore, teams are hoping to sign younger players now to long-term deals so that they will remain their property no matter what the cap ends up being.

That brings us to the Blue Jays who have been spending like major market players over the last few years and would be better served to continue spending that way - unless the rules dictate otherwise. And while this current front office has long been a proponent of the wait and see approach with some of it's players - extending franchise superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. during his final season with the club before free agency - there are some players on the farm that they might want to hang on to, but could be at risk of losing them under new CBA rules.

Some of those players could include Arjun Nimmala, JoJo Parker, and Juan Sanchez. While there is always inherrently way more risk with pitchers, they might even want to think about locking up Trey Yesavage, Johnny King and Gage Stanifer. Throw Ricky Tiedemann in just for good measure, in case he ever recovers from his injury woes.

That is the gamble though, that a young player gets signed to a big money deal and then never pans out, but it may be even riskier to develop them into stars only to lose them to whatever type of free agent market may exist after 2026. The Blue Jays right now are in a good position though to sustain some long-term success, with a majority of their roster either locked up longer term, or they are still in their pre-arbitration / mid-arbitration years.

So really, there is no real rush for the Blue Jays just yet, but when other teams are inking guys so that they can make sure they hang on to them for years down the road, the Blue Jays might want to pick a few they really like and make sure they don't become property of another club.