SAN ANTONIO — The Toronto Blue Jays are believed to have slid under the competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold of $237 million in 2024, resetting both their tax rate and penalty for signing a free agent to have received a qualifying offer.
Although official confirmation won’t come until Major League Baseball finalizes calculations of club payrolls in the coming weeks, the indications are that last summer’s selloff did enough to get them under the line.
The Blue Jays, who in a franchise first paid a $5.5 million CBT penalty in 2023, would have been hit with a 30 per cent tax on any overages this year as a club exceeding the threshold for a second consecutive season.
The penalty for teams exceeding the CBT in three consecutive years is even higher at 50 per cent, but more significant is the difference in penalty for signing qualified free agents.
Tax-paying teams who sign such a player lose their second- and fifth-highest picks in the next draft, while also sacrificing $1 million in bonus pool space during the next international signing period.
For non-tax teams that don’t receive revenue sharing — like the Blue Jays — the penalty is losing their second-highest pick in the following draft, as well as $500,000 from their bonus pool in the upcoming international signing period.
Now, precisely how relevant all that will be for the Blue Jays in 2025, when the CBT threshold rises to $241 million, is a matter of intrigue as clubs began gathering Monday at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa on the eve of the GM Meetings.
On Oct. 2, club president and CEO Mark Shapiro said he didn’t see the payroll for next year “either growing or decreasing in a big way.” To be conservative, then, let’s estimate that to be in the $230-million to $235-million range.
As things stand, FanGraphs’ RosterResource projects the Blue Jays at a CBT payroll of $211 million for 2025, with $115 million in guarantees to seven players plus estimates for arbitration-eligible players and salaries for pre-arbitration players.
That would give GM Ross Atkins some $20 million to $25 million to work with this off-season if that 2025 payroll estimate is accurate, which might help explain the Blue Jays’ decision to put Genesis Cabrera, projected by MLB Trade Rumors to earn $2.5 million in arbitration, on waivers, with the lefty electing free agency after clearing.
If the club’s financial flexibility is indeed that limited, then every dollar matters and the Blue Jays could look at lefty Brendon Little and project similar performance to Cabrera for less than half the price.
Similarly, between now and the Nov. 22 tender deadline, the Blue Jays will also be reading the relief market to assess whether the nearly $14 million MLBTR estimates for Jordan Romano ($7.75 million), Erik Swanson ($3.2 million), Dillon Tate ($1.9 million) and Zach Pop ($1 million) in arbitration can be better leveraged elsewhere.
Given the need to repair a bullpen that had the second-worst ERA in the majors at 4.82 this past season, solidify the starting rotation and add impact to a lineup in desperate need of thump, the Blue Jays don’t have much margin for error in how they use their available money.
Signing one of the 13 qualified free agents, then, might be a tall task under those parameters, even if several of them are exactly what they need.
Regardless, even as their budget is somewhat fluid depending on the quality of opportunity that arises during the winter, the Blue Jays seem like a team positioned to react to the market rather than drive it.
Other news and notes:
The Blue Jays filled the most glaring hole on their coaching staff when they hired David Popkins as their new hitting coach Oct. 21, but much work remains. They’re still looking for two coaches to work alongside pitching coach Pete Walker after the firing of bullpen coach Jeff Ware and with assistant pitching coach David Howell to be reassigned if he returns to the team.
The team is also mulling whether to fill the field co-ordinator position of Gil Kim, whose contract expired. One possibility is that his duties could be split between Don Mattingly, who returns to the bench coach role after spending last season as offensive co-ordinator, associate manager DeMarlo Hale and front-office staff.
Another focal point in recent weeks has been the Blue Jays’ search for a new amateur scouting director to replace the departed Shane Farrell. It’s a role they’re seeking to fill sooner than later ahead of a pivotal draft in which they hold the fifth-best odds of landing the top pick in next month’s lottery. They are looking at both internal and external candidates.