Scott Boras offers insight on Blue Jays' tie-ins at GM Meetings

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Scott Boras’ annual exit from the GM Meetings is always a scene.

No other agent assembles media to deliver a sermon on the baseball industry and bluster about his clients on his way out the door, let alone does it all in front of his own corporate backdrop.

Yet year after year, the dominant force in the sport’s player representation business puts on a show, trying to trigger interest around issues he deems vital. This edition, as he bounced from Omni Scottsdale Resort and Spa on Wednesday, included the all-star week timing of the draft impacting the health of high school players, a suggestion that pitchers working beyond three innings get more time between pitches and, of course, how teams should follow the Texas Rangers’ lead by simultaneously building up from within while spending big on free agents.

Then, of course, came the one-liners about his clients on the open market, featuring gems such as this one on headliner Cody Bellinger: “When he came to Chicago he just feasted on major-league pitching and really, Chicago got the comforts of a full Belli, so they're going to have to loosen their belts to keep Bellinger.”

Roll your eyes at the dad-joke energy, but good on him for bringing some levity and fun to the quarter-zip fest.

Whether you’re entertained by the spectacle or not, there were tie-ins for the Toronto Blue Jays, with third baseman Matt Chapman and lefty Hyun Jin Ryu among Boras’ free-agent class. And beyond the obvious fit of Bellinger, whom the Blue Jays pursued last winter before landing Kevin Kiermaier, Rhys Hoskins and J.D. Martinez offer the type of production their lineup needs.

Chapman swung by the GM Meetings on Tuesday to visit with “a number of teams that wanted to meet with him for a minute or two and ask him questions,” said Boras. While the Blue Jays extended Chapman the qualifying offer of $20.325 million on Monday, ensuring they’ll receive a compensatory draft pick should he sign elsewhere, they were also examining other options, having met with the reps for infielder Jeimer Candelario, the clear second option on the hot corner available in free agency.

Boras was ready to ham it up on Chapman, saying that “when you think of bronze, you think of third, but when it comes to Chappy at third, you're always gold,” before adding, “as far as his bat, I'm not giving you lip service, either, but the Chap-stick really has a lot to do with the potential and advances of the core lineup.”

Badum tss.

Turning more serious about the Gold Glove winner’s impact on the Blue Jays, Boras said that “when you look at their organization leadership-wise, what he means to them in a defensive and offensive mould, particularly with the home runs hard to come by at that ballpark for a very good offensive lineup, having players on the dirt that give you Gold Glove defence and give you middle of the lineup, 25 home-run power, is very necessary to their success.”

Very much so, and replacing the 30-year-old won’t be easy in a thin market for third baseman, although Justin Turner is one possibility as someone who the Blue Jays pursued in the past.

One consideration is that the 38-year-old played only seven games at third a year ago and 66 back in 2022, making it reasonable to wonder how much work he could handle at such a demanding position. At the same time, even if he’d likely need a substantial number of reps at DH, the discipline and tenacity of his approach at the plate and ability to positively influence others would be a vital contribution to an offence that lacked identity a year ago.

Within the push-and-pull there, however, also lies a larger question for the Blue Jays in how much defence can they sacrifice in the push to add more offence?

Chapman, Kiermaier and Jose Berrios gave the Blue Jays three Gold Glove winners in the same season for the first time in franchise history and two of them are on the open market now. Daulton Varsho, a finalist for the defensive prize, will be back and is expected to take over in centre field next year, meaning they’ll continue to get elite coverage there.

That’s likely to mean a downgrade defensively in left field, though, while replacing Chapman’s dynamic play will be next to impossible. In turn, that could mean some outs from a year ago turn into hits in 2024, making life more difficult for a pitching staff that was a prime strength this year.

As Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins noted, “we've made some progress and some strides in preventing runs and have some really good defensive players on our team. You can't lose sight of that and overcompensate to what have been some recent deficiencies that you've seen.”

So there’s a needle to be thread here between maintaining a hit-stealing defence while bolstering an oft-thumpless lineup, Atkins saying that “even with a lighter free-agent market, we're confident we will be able to do (that) without compromising our defence, as a lot of our defence is going to come in the form of our players continuing to improve, as well.”

Brandon Belt’s free agency does give the Blue Jays room at designated hitter for bat-only or positionally redundant players.

Like Turner, the DH-only Martinez offers up qualities of helping “to prepare individual players to play and to optimize their performance. It's really a skill he has,” according to Boras. “And I think this time around in his free agency there's a lot of recognition of that because you're seeing teams that have a lot of young players are also interested in J.D. to help them in the way he did back in Boston and L.A.”

He'd be one option for the middle-of-the-order production the Blue Jays need, while another is Hoskins, who missed the season after tearing the ACL in his left knee during spring training.

Unlike Martinez, he offers some defensive utility as a first baseman who could spell Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the way Belt did this season. And he’s a candidate for the type of contract Bellinger signed last winter with the Cubs, which paid him $12.5 million but included a $5 million buyout on a mutual $25-million option for 2024.

That creative structure gave Bellinger some security as he tried to rebuild his value after a down 2022 and return to the market strong the way he has this year.

A model for Hoskins?

“Certainly there is potential for a pillow contract,” Boras said. “Basically, Rhys got a chance to really get ramped up almost to be World Series ready in Clearwater because the Phillies wanted to add him to their World Series roster. So he is way ahead in his conditioning and really very much back to full speed. The power of Rhys, his leadership, all those things are to be really, really demonstrated in a major market and on championship levels, hitting championship pitching. So I think Rhys's pieces fits all teams' puzzles.”

Ryu, meanwhile, will definitely be signing with an MLB team and not returning to South Korea just yet, Boras said, adding that the appetite for pitching is voracious.

"I would say for every pitcher I've had in free agency, it's almost times twice the interest level,” he said. “You can be a four or five, you can be a reliever .. it's a process where all the healthy starters are receiving interest (from) 10 teams and above.”

It’s a good time to not need a lot of pitching, then, even if it’s a leaner market in terms of offensive impact and as usual, Boras is in the middle of it all.