Why the Blue Jays enter the Winter Meetings with more pressure than anybody else

The day has finally arrived: the 2024 Winter Meetings are upon us, and the transactional dam is about to burst. Multiple high-level free agents, including the Blue Jays' top target in Juan Soto, will be picking their next home for the foreseeable future over the next few days.

The Winter Meetings will go from Monday, Dec. 8 through Thursday, Dec. 12. In last year's installment of this annual event, Soto was traded from the Padres to the Yankees while Aaron Judge, Xander Bogaerts and Trea Turner all inked long-term contracts of their own.

This year, the Blue Jays and their front office are going to have more pressure on them than any other club in the game. Sure, there are a bunch of different organizations with long to-do lists, but the Jays need to pull off a miracle in the absolute worst way.

The fact of the matter is that if the Blue Jays fail to come away with any new players of importance, they're going to need to seriously reconsider their stance on an immediate rebuild. For reasons currently unknown, they believe they have one last shot at a deep playoff run during the Bo Bichette-Vladimir Guerrero Jr. core days, but that's going to be impossible to accomplish without considerable external reinforcements.

It starts with Soto

Of course, the Blue Jays are going all in on one of the best free agents in MLB history. Sound familiar? Just last year, the club was swinging a big stick in their quest to land Shohei Ohtani, but they came up short. This winter has all the fixings of a similar scenario playing out, but there are multiple ways they can bounce back if they miss out on Soto.

Max Fried and Corbin Burnes both remain available as the free-agent market's top starting pitchers. A deal for one of them would allow the Blue Jays to shift Yariel Rodriguez to a sixth-starter/relief pitcher moving forward, which has been their intention with him all along.

There's also Alex Bregman, Anthony Santander and old friend Teoscar Hernandez. The Athletic already floated a scenario where the Blue Jays miss out on Soto but go on to land one of Fried/Burnes and Hernandez/Santander. Those two moves alone would go a long way to filling the Soto-less void.

The roster needs don't stop there

It's simple, the Blue Jays need one or two big bats added to their lineup, a starting pitcher and three or even four relief pitchers. Yes, that covers just about every facet of their 26-man roster. Their needs are roster-wide and there's going to need to be multiple transactions made over the course of the offseason to bounce back from last year's dud of a performance.

Nearly every single team in the league that is entering the Winter Meetings with both a long to-do list and hopes of contention in 2025 are closer to ... actual contention than the Blue Jays are. Ross Atkins and Co. will have to hope for multiple high-caliber dominoes to fall their way if they're going to leave this event feeling like winners. They need things to swing their way, or they're doomed for another abysmal showing in the upcoming season.