The MLB off-season is far from over, but it hasn’t been a great one for the Toronto Blue Jays yet.
You can quibble with that statement if you are incredibly keen on the Andrés Giménez/Nick Sandlin deal and the Yimi Garcia signing, but quibblers would be in the minority. Coming off an 88-loss season, the Blue Jays are reportedly dealing with a massive gap in negotiations with a foundational player and have yet to sign an impact free agent — despite well-documented efforts to do so.
There are still a couple of quality free agents left. The word ‘couple’ isn’t far from literal in that sentence, though. The trade market is always theoretically bountiful, but the Blue Jays’ middling farm system leaves them with limited chips to play at that table.
All in all, it’s a grim situation, but there is one player particularly capable of changing the shape of the team’s off-season in a way few others can: Anthony Santander.
Let’s take a step back here.
Santander is not a perfect player or a cheat code whose presence guarantees a team will compete. He’s likely to provide less overall value than Alex Bregman, for instance, and he’s been the best player on an MLB team.
What we’re talking about here is the idea of team building around strengths and weaknesses and how perfectly Santander — who the Blue Jays have reportedly made an offer to — fits with what Toronto has built so far.
To be fair, building a balanced team is not a universally accepted goal. You could argue that talent accumulation is all that really matters. The Blue Jays’ mini pivot between 2022 and 2023 that swapped defensively-limited right-handed power for more lefties in the lineup and better glovework was arguably done in the name of balance.
It didn’t draw rave reviews.
On the other hand, when the Blue Jays acquired Giménez, they were scrutinized for adding a player who has objectively provided plenty of value in recent years but had a similar profile to other defence-first players in the lineup.
The way that move might be perceived could be altered significantly if the Blue Jays added Santander to the mix, as he’s almost the polar opposite of Giménez. Among 129 qualified hitters last season, the former ranked third in home runs (44) only six players hit fewer than the latter (9). Meanwhile, Giménez ranked ninth in total defensive value (+15.7 runs), and Santander came in 96th (-9.5).
If you were told the two major additions to the Blue Jays in the offseason, a guy with no power and a suspect fielder, you probably wouldn’t be thrilled, but a Giménez/Santander combo is solid.
Here’s what it’s looked like in each of the last two seasons:
Those aren’t superstar numbers, but together they were a pair of above-average starters averaging home run totals in the low-to-mid 20s and giving above-average contributions both offensively and defensively.
In 2023 the production resembled two Matt Chapmans…
… and last year, it wasn’t far off from having two Taylor Wards with better defence:
Considering Chapman earned himself a $151 million deal coming off that 2023 season, and Taylor Ward has been much sought-after this off-season for the boost he could give a contender, a GM able to clone either one of them and add both to their roster would be receiving significant plaudits.
More of those plaudits would be related to the successful cloning than the baseball transaction, but it’d still be a good bit of business.
This thought isn’t about congratulating the Blue Jays for a move they haven’t completed or making broad claims about an off-season that isn’t looking promising with time ticking down. It’s just interesting that there is a free-agent target out there who moderates what Toronto has done so far in such an obvious way at a position of need in the outfield.
Because the team is arguably over-indexed on glove-first players, the door is wide open to explore players who might otherwise have their appeal lessened by a lack of defensive value. Santander is the cleanest fit remaining and arguably has been for some time.
There’s a big difference between identifying a player who would look good on your team and agreeing to a contract with him. The Blue Jays have been living in that gap all winter.
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