Blue Jays sticking with a defence first approach to turnaround

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Bet the under, baby!

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If 3-2 ball games are your thing, get your Blue Jays tickets now before the team’s marketing thrust for the 2025 season goes into full desperation mode.

With Tuesday’s trade that brought elite defender Andres Gimenez to Toronto, general manager Ross Atkins has sent a signal in the wake of failing to land elite slugger Juan Soto. With limited money left to spend, the message is clear: The run-prevention mantra he introduced after the 2022 season is apparently still in play.

While it’s still early days this off-season and there’s time to add, it certainly seems as though, in terms of improving the offensive output, the team will rely on the other maddening buzz phrase of late: Internal improvement.

In speaking to reporters at the baseball winter meetings in Dallas, Atkins said the team believes it can unlock some production from the bat of Gimenez. There is also the desperate hope that Bo Bichette’s miserable 2024 was a clear career outlier.

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The bottom line remains the bottom line, however. The core of this 88-loss, last-place team is still the one that managed to score just 671 runs in 2024, its lowest output since 1997.

Some more takeaways as the annual flashpoint of the off-season wraps up Wednesday deep in the heart of Texas.

TRADE VERDICT

While there are some concerns about the Gimenez deal — namely, his indifferent results at the plate and the cost of a contract that may hinder the Jays front office in other pursuits — there is plenty to like.

He is clearly an elite defender, a three-time Gold Glove Award winner that immediately and dramatically enhances the Jays infield defence.

With an annual salary of $7.5 million US, Gimenez isn’t coming cheap, of course, but his speed is an asset, especially if he can find a way to get on base regularly.

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As a bonus, should Bichette walk in free agency, Gimenez could easily slide over to shortstop.

What could be a clear bonus in the deal with the Guardians is reliever Nick Sandlin, who will be counted on to help a Jays bullpen in need of multiple arms. Sandlin has a tidy 3.27 ERA in his career, making him much more than a throw-in of the deal.

While fans will miss the key piece going the other way in Spencer Horwitz (a valuable left-handed hitter who was subsequently dealt to Pittsburgh) he was far from reliable defensively. As much as the young fill-in players that saw so much playing time in September were exciting, at times their defensive play was atrocious.

Far from a steal, score this one a cautious ‘W’ for the Jays front office. And if Gimenez can return to the form of the 2022 season when he hit .297 for the Guardians, it looks that much better.

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JORDAN VERSUS YIMI

The other notable move at the winter meetings was the Jays bringing back reliever Yimi Garcia to help revive a bullpen that was woeful in 2024.

Garcia, who was dealt to Seattle at the trade deadline last summer, was popular in the clubhouse and with pitching coach Pete Walker. When he was healthy, he could be exceptional.

But bringing him back on a two-year, $15-million deal brings on inevitable comparisons with now former closer Jordan Romano, who was non-tendered rather than offered a contract in the $7.75 million range.

Cynical fans won’t be able to avoid comparing former teammates Garcia and Romano in 2025 especially after both are coming off of seasons in which they experienced lengthy time on the injured list with elbow issues.

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A 10-year veteran, who spent parts of three seasons with the Jays, Garcia went on the injured list in mid-August with elbow inflammation and didn’t pitch for the Mariners for the remainder of the season.

Clearly the Jays have checked out that arm and aren’t concerned — or less concerned than they were with Romano’s arm, anyway. And in the flame-thrower who had five saves while filling in for an injured Romano in 2024, they have a potential closer.

DRAFT AND DEVELOP

Rarely have the Jays been so desperate to have a flow of major-league ready players in their farm system after a handful of lean years in that area.

The process of replenishing is never easy, given the nature of the MLB draft, and it didn’t get any easier on Tuesday when the Jays slipped to eighth in the draft lottery.

In just the second year of the lottery format, the Jays had the fifth-best odds to get the No. 1 overall pick. Instead of moving up, they regressed three spots for new scouting director Marc Tramuta.

The big winners in this year’s lottery were the Washington Nationals, who jumped from the fourth-best odds to first overall.

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