Blue Jays Need to Act Aggressively in Getting Another Starting Pitcher

The Toronto Blue Jays are in the midst of their contention window right now and in fact, it appears as though that window could be closing sooner than later depending on how the team plays this coming season. While the Blue Jays have fallen short to this point and have been unable to make it out of the ALCS in recent years, they still have a lot of potential and the ability to stay competitive which is all the more reason why Toronto needs to keep its window open for longer and be aggressive in acquiring another starting pitcher.

At the start of this offseason, the Blue Jays released their second baseman, Ryan Goins, and acquired, Yangervis Solarte, in a trade with the Padres before also acquiring infielder, Aledmys Diaz, from the Cardinals. Both Solarte and Diaz gave Toronto some much needed versatility at almost all four infield positions and helped to upgrade their defense somewhat.

Following those moves, the Blue Jays signed free agent outfielder, Curtis Granderson, to a one-year, $5 million dollar deal. After that, Toronto didn't stop upgrading their outfield, as they were able to make a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals once again and bring in rightfielder, Randal Grichuk. While it might seem as though these moves don't make much sense in terms of making the team right now, every move basically extends Toronto's window out further.

General Manager, Ross Atkins, and his entire staff remain focused on the field as apparent by what they've said to this point about building up the farm and focusing on building up depth at every level throughout the organization. Atkins and his staff plan to do this through the draft and amateur scouting in hopes of keeping Toronto competitive for as many years as possible. However, that doesn't mean that the Blue Jays aren't going to lose some necessary pieces for contention over the next year or that they should settle for what they currently have on their big-league roster.

After this coming season, third baseman, Josh Donaldson, who is arguably the best offensive player that the Blue Jays have, will hit free agency along with right-handed starting pitcher, Marco Estrada, and left-handed starting pitcher, J.A. Happ. Both Estrada and Happ have combined to the tune of a, 3.81 ERA over 702.1 IP, the past two seasons and provided some much needed stability to Toronto's starting rotation.

Losing any of those three players will make a dent for the Blue Jays roster, but that doesn't mean that doomsday is headed for Toronto or that a black cloud will soon overtake, Rogers Centre. Rather, it means that Toronto needs to remain focused on extending, Josh Donaldson, past this season and remain aggressive in acquiring another top of the rotation starting pitcher either via trade or free agency, although, free agency looks like the better route.

Given how the market for free agents has played out to this point this winter, the Blue Jays need to make it a point to go after one of the top four free agent starting pitchers (Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, or Lance Lynn) now and solidify their rotation for this coming season as well as into the future. After all, the Blue Jays had the best starting rotation ERA in the American League during the 2016 season (3.64 in 995.1 IP) before going the opposite direction last year thanks to some bad luck and a dreadful injury to their star pitcher, Aaron Sanchez. Without Sanchez, for a majority of last season besides 8 starts, Toronto raked up a 4.57 ERA in 868.1 IP, which ranked 7th in the American League behind the Angels. That just goes to show how powerful the Blue Jays rotation can be with both Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez healthy at the same time.

With that being said, last year also illustrated how much Toronto needs another arm with stability in their rotation. Yes, Marcus Stroman, J.A. Happ, Aaron Sanchez (during the 8 games that he did start), and Marco Estrada did fine, the problem was primarily at the back of the rotation. Joe Biagini, who the Blue Jays relied on as their fifth starter last year, finished the season with a 5.73 ERA over 18 starts and continued to prove why he belongs in the bullpen in a longman role moving forward.

Looking towards the future and knowing that Toronto will likely lose Happ and Estrada following this season, that means that if the team was able to sign either Darvish, Arrieta, Cobb or Lynn, it could ultimately have a solid 1-2-3 punch to rely on in the future. If Toronto is able to get Darvish or Arrieta, they could slide Stroman and Sanchez to the 2 and 3 spots or if they get Cobb or Lynn, they can continue relying on Stroman as their ace with Sanchez and either Cobb or Lynn in the 2 and 3 spots. Outside of potential payroll limitations, there should be no reason why the Blue Jays don't at least explore this idea and try to keep their window open longer.

As it stands right now, Toronto projects to have an Opening Day payroll a little north of $141 million dollars ($141,241,071 dollars) to be exact. That would put them above the league average and 11th in the MLB which given their market size is probably where they should be. However, with the money that the Blue Jays have coming off the books after this season (around $55 million dollars), they should be able to find a way to make an extension for Josh Donaldson work and still have enough money left to acquire one of the four big free agent starters. In fact, come 2020, Toronto's payroll dips to about $39.5 million dollars before dropping to around $21.4 million in 2021.

Even if payroll is a concern, it is something that the front office shouldn't use as an excuse. After all, the Blue Jays finished the season last year with the highest attendance out of any other team in the American League at a little more than 3.2 million people. That averaged out to about 39,554 fans per game at the Rogers Centre.

Therefore, even though it looks like Toronto's window of competitiveness is likely to close sooner than later, the front office has made it a point to keep the window open for as long as possible and needs to remain committed to that goal by not only doing everything possible to extend, Josh Donaldson, but also by remaining aggressive in trying to get one of the four free agent starting pitchers still on the market. If the Blue Jays are able to do both of those things, then you like their chances of contention much better, moving forward beyond this season, and hopefully it will finally lead the Blue Jays back to playing in a World Series for the first time since winning a Championship, against the Philadelphia Phillies, in 1993.