The Blue Jays have spent a ton of money this offseason, but there's a reason why it's been necessary.
Through two months, the Toronto Blue Jays have absolutely won the MLB offseason. They've stolen the show completely, signing Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, Tyler Rogers and Kazuma Okamoto to lucrative multi-year deals worth more than $300 million cumulatively.
On one hand, the spending spree shows the kind of urgency that fans crave after the Jays lost Game 7 of the World Series in heartbreaking fashion. On the other hand, the spending spree signals something else: The Blue Jays farm system just isn't very good right now.
Where the spending comes from, in part
Urgency is absolutely part of it. The Jays lost Game 7 is agonizing fashion and they want to do everything in their power to make sure that doesn't happen again. That's absolutely commendable - and appropriate.
However, the part about the farm system is also very valid. The Blue Jays entered the offseason with questions, particularly on the pitching staff. How would they replace Max Scherzer, Chris Bassitt, and Seranthony Dominguez moving forward?
They've answered that with Ponce, Cease and Rogers, but don't you think if the Jays felt they had internal answers to those questions, they would have used them? Let's face it. If teams are given the choice between having good players that cost the league minimum and good players cost several millions, they will always choose the former over the latter.
The Blue Jays have Trey Yesavage and he's absolutely part of the solution for this team, but they don't have another Yesavage, so they had to go out and spend money to cover up holes. Jake Bloss and Ricky Tiedemann aren't ready for prominent roles because of injury. The top position players in the Toronto system are all extremely young, which is why there's a need for Okamoto, and maybe an additional need to bring back Bo Bichette or sign Alex Bregman or Kyle Tucker.
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There's more than one way to win
Spending is absolutely OK and the Jays will clear significant money next offseason when Kevin Gausman and George Springer come off the books, but it's still important to continue to develop an internal stream of answers.
At some point, you're going to need that, like when the Jays developed Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the first place. The goal is to be a team that develops internally and then spends to supplement, rather than spending to build a team in its entirety.
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