Baseball

Just like the Blue Jays came within a whisker of a playoff spot despite playing scorching-hot baseball down the stretch to win an impressive 91 games, no matter what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did numbers-wise, his MVP candidacy simply could never catch up to what Shohei Ohtani was doing for the first time since the Babe, Scott Mitchell writes.

After winning the 2021 American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday, Robbie Ray is hoping to secure a megabucks long-term deal and where the 30-year-old left-hander lands is the only question at this point. As Scott Mitchell writes, a handful of teams are interested in paying $20-plus million per season for the type of dominance the Toronto Blue Jays just got for $8 million.

A potential Robbie Ray signing is the one the baseball world was waiting on, but the Jose Berríos extension is the deal the Toronto absolutely needed to get done, Scott Mitchell writes.

Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins is playing multiple hands at a time but the general sense this week at the GM meetings in California is that the top end of the free-agent market won’t budge much until the CBA is figured out. As Scott Mitchell writes, the tricky part for the Jays is they can’t act on another move that would rule out stars Marcus Semien or Robbie Ray before they figure out if bringing them back is realistic.

The days of the Toronto Blue Jays not being able to attract free-agent talent north of the border are gone as the club is currently offering high-end free agents what they value above all else: Money and the ability to win, Scott Mitchell writes.

With the Major League Baseball off-season officially underway, the Blue Jays are in win-now mode and will be one of the busiest clubs when it comes to conversations about every name under the sun. But the uncertainty surrounding the CBA expiring on December 1 is sure to make for some anxious moments for everyone. Scott Mitchell has more from California.

Toronto has plenty of assets that could pique another team’s interest in trade talks this winter, Scott Mitchell writes.

We were pretty sure we knew the answers already, but two very important positional questions were emphatically resolved in 2021: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is now fully entrenched at first base, while Bo Bichette made enough strides defensively to continue to call shortstop home.

The intriguing part of trying to figure out the Toronto Blue Jays’ 2022 outfield mix isn’t about the potential for addition. It’s the subtraction that could come along with it.