Olney: Blue Jays need to make Guerrero Jr. the priority after missing on Soto

Late Sunday night, Juan Soto signed a 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets, the largest deal in professional sports history.

It ended another long free-agent courtship that left the Toronto Blue Jays empty-handed and searching for plan B after missing out on baseball’s prized off-season acquisition.

While Soto ended up choosing the Mets’ massive offer, ESPN’s Buster Olney says the Blue Jays were in the same ballpark financially, and that the team’s roster was likely a factor in Soto’s decision.

“I have heard from multiple sources that [the Blue Jays] were in the same neighbourhood,” Olney said on TSN Radio. “In some ways, you can understand the Blue Jays doing this more than the New York Yankees. They have Judge for seven more years. They've got Giancarlo Stanton. They've got Gerrit Cole for four more years. The Blue Jays have a blank slate, essentially, after next year. So, they could go to Juan Soto and say, 'You're going to be the centrepiece of what we do.'

“What I do wonder is, and I've heard this, in the conversations with the teams a lot of what Soto was focused on is 'What's your plan going forward? What's your sustainability?' And if you're looking at where the Blue Jays are, with what's considered by other teams to be a subpar farm system, and you have an aging core of major leaguers, and you need to fill with free agency in the near future, I never thought that the Blue Jays were serious contenders in this.”

Soto's massive contract comes one year after Shohei Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season.

After missing on Ohtani and Soto in consecutive off-seasons, the Blue Jays must once again regroup. However, Olney says the Jays’ top priority should not be signing free agents, but working out a contract with homegrown superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is set to hit free agency following the 2025 season, at all costs.

“From the Jays' perspective, you've got to call Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ASAP and make the deal that you need to make,” said Olney. “They were clearly trying to make Ohtani the face of their franchise and it didn't work. They clearly were trying to make Soto the face of their franchise and it didn't work.

“They've got Guerrero Jr., a player who they value. From what I've heard, he's looking for a significant deal. When you think about the position aspect of this and what first basemen are being paid, it's been a decade since a first baseman got $200 million dollars. Because of how this has all played out, if you're Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and you're thinking about $300 million plus? You're feeling better about that request today after seeing what Soto got. And the Blue Jays at some point have to pay somebody. They already have Vladdy there. They have to figure out what that blank-cheque number is and get it done. That's the priority.”

Guerrero, 25, is coming off one of the best seasons of his career in 2024, where he hit .323 with 30 home runs, 103 RBI, and a .940 OPS while being named an All-Star for the fourth-straight season. He finished sixth in MVP voting and won the Silver Slugger award for the second time in his career.

Outside of the organization, Olney says three free agents have been connected to the Blue Jays all winter, including a former fan favourite in outfielder Teoscar Hernandez.

“The three names are Anthony Santander, Hernandez, and Alex Bregman. In the end, they've got competition for all those guys. The Yankees are going after one or two of those guys. The Boston Red Sox are going after one or two of those guys. I don't know who they pivot to, but the bottom line is, you're going to look at the lineup and go 'Oh' when you see it, because they didn't get Juan Soto.