Teoscar Hernandez signed yesterday, as did Corbin Burnes. Both deals look entirely reasonable. Teo will get $66 million over three seasons, with about a third paid up front as a signing bonus and a third deferred, while the Dodgers hold a $15 million option for a fourth season. Burnes will go to Arizona for two years and $60 million, and then have the choice of whether to opt into four more years and $150 million.
The Blue Jays, if you buy the reports, were in on both players, as they were on Juan Soto earlier in the month. Unlike Soto, however, neither Hernandez nor Burnes greatly exceeded expectations in their deals. So while they might have been “in”, it’s hard to believe they were really serious if they were unwilling to top the unremarkable offers that won the bidding.
Maybe other factors tied their hands. Hernandez clearly wanted to stay in LA, where he’d just won a ring and would have the prospect of winning more, and Burnes probably values living full time in the city where his wife and kids are. The fact remains that yet again the Jays failed to land players they clearly wanted and needed.
It’s now late in the offseason, as far as free agency goes. 16 of the top 25 free agents by Fangraphs’ contract estimates have now signed. Most of the remaining high end options are questionable fits for the roster (Pete Alonso, Ha-Seong Kim) or look like questionable investments (Alex Bregman especially, and I would argue Anthony Santander). Maybe a couple of B options, like Nick Pivetta and Jurickson Profar, would be enough for the front office to claim with a straight face that they’ve addressed the roster’s issues this winter. The ceiling on a grade for the offseason is probably a C+ at this point, though, and in a year where most of the fanbase is already disenchanted with the club’s direction that isn’t going to cut it.
Which brings me to the one resolution I want Ross Atkins to commit himself to when the calendar ticks over on Wednesday: Ross, pay Vladimir Guerrero jr. Pay him too much, just throw large cartoon burlap sacks of cash at him until he asks you to stop. Take whatever value your internal model spits out for him, then add on the cost of a fighter jet (one of the good ones, not one Canada would buy).
I can hear the objection already. “That would be a bad contract, it would hurt our flexibility in the future and make it harder to surround Vlad with talent. It’s not the smart move.” Maybe, although I think the standard for superstar contracts changed clearly and irreversibly when the Mets gave Soto three quarters of a billion dollars.
More importantly, though, however you feel about their ability to afford keeping Guerrero, they really can’t afford to lose him. Attendance was down by 340,000 in 2024 over 2023. It was still 930,000 higher than 2019, though, and 1.2 million higher than the recent nadir in 2010. The Jays are also the most watched team in the league, although viewership can swing wildly. They averaged 900,000 viewers in 2022, a 39% increase over the yeap before. What this shows is that the fanbase is huge but can be fickle. Toronto isn’t Chicago, where the Cubs routinely draw 3,000,000 fans to watch 70 win teams. The Blue Jays need to earn attention.
Under Alex Anthopoulos and Ross Atkins they’ve done that by finally winning, going to the playoffs 5 times in a decade following a 21 year drought, and as a result routinely surpassing 2.5 million in attendance after not really approaching that mark between 1997 and 2013. The dip in 2024 raises the possibility that the new level won’t automatically be sustained, though.
If they want to cement the gains of the past 10 years, they’ll have to earn fans’ trust that they’re serious about regularly mattering in the AL East. Spending into the luxury tax in 2023 was a good start. It showed that the club is willing to act like the big market team it is and contend at a level at least close to what the Red Sox and Yankees can do financially. If they let themselves be outbid for their charismatic, homegrown, Canadian(ish) superstar, it will all be undone. They couldn’t lure Shohei Ohtani, although they claim they were willing to match the Dodgers’ bid. They got beat for Soto, although they were reportedly in the bidding until late. They’re out of excuses with Vlad. He says he wants to be here, they have exclusive negotiating rights, there’s no reason not to get a deal done except that they’re afraid of the price tag. That’s understandable for a team like the Guardians, who need to squeeze value out of every dollar ownership lets them spend. It’s not the way the Yankees, Mets or Dodgers live, though. They don’t throw money around without thinking, but when there’s something they really need they’re willing and able to pay premium prices. If the Jays mean it when they claim they can operate on that level, they need to do the same. Or keep running the show like they’re still in Cleveland, and get used to Cleveland attendance.