Gauging where the Blue Jays plan to dine in a ‘carnivore’s market’

LAS VEGAS – Scott Boras is many things – power agent extraordinaire, master provocateur, cringy comedian – but through all of his bluster, showmanship and grandstanding his reads on what’s happening around the game are generally bang on.

Notable, then, is that based on what he’s seen and heard after two days of the GM Meetings, he believes that “the free-agent market is very much a carnivore’s market.”

The metaphor didn’t stop there, of course, with Boras drawing guffaws from the large throng of media surrounding him when he added that “there are many, many grades available for owners’ menus. Those are more leaning to the filet mignon and the Wagyu than they are to the hamburger and vegan. Different than what we normally see.”

“Our game is very healthy,” he added, in a more serious turn. “We can definitely see from the early meetings here today that that there is an aggressive design by a number of teams with the advance of the new playoff positioning, where they feel that once they’re in, they have an opportunity to achieve their goals of championship play.”

One general manager echoed those sentiments later, saying that this off-season it feels like “no one is stepping back and everyone is trying to get better.” As a result, there may very well be fiercer competition for talent, as teams that have largely sat out recent winters, like the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs, re-enter the fray.

All of which makes the Toronto Blue Jays uncertain carnivores on Boras’s creative diner scale. Having picked off the filet mignon and Wagyu menus the past two off-seasons, they seem to be financially more locked into the hamburger and vegan options right now.

Their priorities are in adding a starter and a back-end reliever and to help frame who they’re looking at, starters Kodai Senga and Drew Smyly and relievers like Taylor Rogers, and as colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith mentioned, Robert Suarez are among the players they’ve at least checked in on.

The Blue Jays will do the same on nearly everyone, and how they do there will go a long way in deciding their 2023 fate. Yet some of their more interesting opportunities may very well end up coming via trade and while GM Ross Atkins said Wednesday “there are teams that are extremely interested in all three” of his big-league catchers, there are some in the industry who feel it’s even likelier that they trade an outfielder.

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Both Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., are eligible for free agency next fall, which could leave the Blue Jays with two substantial holes to fill. Addressing that now is one way to both alleviate the pressures on what has the potential to be a very significant off-season next year and create some change within the current group for 2023.

Notable is that during his season post-mortem discussion with media, Atkins said “there is something to having similar types of hitters and game-planning for them that we need to dig deeper into and how we can account for that and offset that,” a seeming admission that the lineup wasn’t diverse enough.

Asked Wednesday what they had concluded, Atkins said, “we actually feel really good about the balance of our lineup as it relates to different types of hitters, some more contact-oriented, some more disciplined, some more aggressive. Thinking about just improving that balance probably points the finger a little bit towards the handedness. Our better hitters are right-handed. I love Cavan Biggio. He’s had some really strong performances for us and will continue to. We’re in a situation where it’s hard to make our team better, we are very fortunate to be in that situation. But thinking about handedness is something we’ve spent some time on.”

Free agents Michael Brantley and Joc Pederson have both been Blue Jays targets in the past and are the type of left-handed hitters they’ve missed the past couple of years. While spending on pitching is the priority, between their outfielders and catchers, the Blue Jays could also leverage some big-league surplus to both fill needs and reallocate the money to pay for it.

Being judicious in that regard matters because next year the Blue Jays will have a chance to get back on Boras’ finest cuts of beef.

Between Hernandez, Gurriel, Hyun Jin Ryu, Matt Chapman and Anthony Bass, the Blue Jays could have $55.5 million coming off the books, which gives them all types of opportunity to be creative. They’ll need to replace the talent if the players depart and Chapman stands out as the most significant potential subtraction there, and given the package of defence, high-on-base and big-power offence and leadership he brings, trying to extend him early makes sense.

Then again, he’s a Boras client and Boras tends to urge his players to put themselves on the off-season menu. Chapman is slated to earn $12.5 million next year as part of the $25 million extension he signed last spring and barring a surprise should command a significant raise.

“We have another season there with Matt and he’s certainly enjoying being on a competitive team, loves the city,” said Boras. “He’s just really looking forward to probably feeling as though he can play at a higher level even than what he did last year. … He’s an extraordinary talent that really added a lot to the Blue Jays and put together, for the team, a really good season. But I think that they can get more out of the players they have for sure.”

The last bit may have been a reference to Yusei Kikuchi, another Boras client who may or may not be part of the Blue Jays rotation next season and is one of the reasons the team is in dire need of a starter right now. His performance is a reminder that no matter which part of the menu teams order from, there’s no guarantee on what they’re going to get.

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