With the Blue Jays decide not to bid for Jordan Romano tie-up The last remaining player linked to the Alex Anthopoulos era in Toronto on Friday is their first-team All-MLB first baseman Silver Slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr.. Anthopoulos drafted Romano in 2014 and signed Guerrero in 2015.

Even if Romano’s decision is understandable Given a projected arbitration salary of $7.75 million and lingering concerns about the health of his arthroscopically repaired throwing elbow, remember that this is a front office that has taken risks before by signing Kirby Yates to a one-year, $5.5 million contract despite two physical exams that raised red flagsand also signed Chad Green to a two-year, $8.5 million contract while he recovered from Tommy John surgery.

However, after releasing left-hander Tim Mayza in early July, trading catcher Danny Jansen to Boston at the trade deadline and losing utility infielder Luis De Los Santos on waivers to the New York Mets earlier this month, Vlad is the only player on the team. The Anthopoulos era is still enshrined in Toronto.

He is set to earn $29.6 million in his final year of arbitration in 2025 and can then test free agency for the first time if the Blue Jays fail to extend their 25-year-old superstar’s long-term contract. years old, who was an AL MVP finalist in 2021 and finished sixth in MVP voting this year.

The four-time All-Star was originally signed as a 16-year-old international free agent on July 2, 2015, Anthopoulos’ final year in Toronto. Ismael Cruz, the Blue Jays’ director of Latin America scouting at the time, who oversaw Guerrero’s signing after monitoring him for nearly two years, suggested in a Baseball America podcast in 2019 that: “Vlad’s hitting prowess was evident from the age of 11 or 12, when Vlad Sr. pushed his son to face 91 to 92 mph fastballs. This was a recurring theme – Vlad Jr. never hesitated to face older, more mature pitchers.

Post-Jays cumulative WAR of Anthopoulos era players

With Romano now a free agent, we’ve updated our analysis of the post-Toronto war of players from the Anthopoulos era who either left via trade, entered free agency, or were released. We then compared that to the WAR of players that team Chairman and CEO Mark Shapiro and General Manager Ross Atkins either acquired for those players via trades or were signed as free agents to directly replace a player leaving the Anthopoulos era.

We used baseball’s benchmark measurement to calculate wins above replacement (WAR). For example, Edwin Encarnación posted a 7.2 bWAR in his post-Blue Jays career after walking as a free agent. The two players Atkins signed to replace him, Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce, combined for a Blue Jays bWAR of 1.4, creating a talent deficit of -5.8 bWAR that had to be replaced over the course of subsequent seasons.

Among the players and prospects Shapiro inherited from Anthopoulos in October 2015, we calculate a bWAR of 60.5 to have left the door, either via trade, free agency or release through the end of this season . Players that Toronto acquired via trades for these players or were signed as free agents to directly replace them have added a bWAR of 43.5 through 2024. This is obviously still a goal moving given the trade trees for players like Erik Swanson and José Berríos.

We’re simply looking at players that Anthopoulos was drafted, signed or traded for and who went on to play for Toronto. After Shapiro and Atkins were hired. So David Price, who left as a free agent after 2015 and posted a bWAR of 11.1 after leaving Toronto, is not included.

JA Happ, who was re-signed as a free agent last November by Shapiro’s interim general manager Tony LaCava to replace Price (and subsequently posted an 8.7 bWAR from 2016 to 2018), is included. Just like Liam Hendriks, who posted a 10.4 bWAR after being traded by LaCava for Jesse Chavez (-0.1 bWAR with Toronto in 2016) following Shapiro’s hiring.

Josh Donaldson then posted a bWAR of 11.8 after being traded in August 2018. The later-named player they acquired for him, Julian Merryweather, posted a bWAR of -0.2 with Toronto before be designated for assignment before the 2023 season.

But Daulton Varsho, acquired via a trade in December 2022 for Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno, both international free agents signed by Atkins, is not included in the calculation. Nor any of the other players Atkins drafted or signed as international free agents, like Alek Manoah and Alejandro Kirk. Bowden Francis, acquired in the Rowdy Tellez trade, is included.

We also include trade trees in the calculation. For example, the trade of Anthopoulos-era starter Drew Hutchison (+0.1 bWAR after Toronto) for Francisco Liriano, Reese McGuire and Harold Ramírez in August 2016 resulted in Liriano being replaced by Nori Aoki and Teoscar Hernández , who was later replaced by Swanson and Adam. Macko. Adding up the cumulative bWAR of these players in this trade tree over their tenure with the Blue Jays until Swanson yields a talent gain of +13.3 bWAR, primarily thanks to the 10.6 WAR put up by Hernandez.

In another ongoing trade tree, Marcus Stroman (drafted 22nd overall by Anthopoulos in 2012) has a 9.6 bWAR since being moved at the 2019 trade deadline. The return of Anthony Kay (0.0 bWAR with Toronto) and Simeon Woods Richardson (returned for Berríos, who has 5.4 bWAR as Jay) resulted in a deficit of -4.2 bWAR talent, but Berríos remains a key part of Toronto’s core.

Unable to fill the resulting talent gap with prospects from the farm system, the front office has had to sign more expensive free agents since the start of its current competitive window in 2020, starting with Hyun Jin Ryu, who then was followed by Robbie Ray. , Marcus Semien, George Springer, Kevin Gausman, Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Bassitt.

These free agents, who did not directly replace any players from the Anthopoulos era, have posted a combined bWAR of 39.3 in a Blue Jays uniform since 2020, which easily made up for that -17 bWAR talent deficit that we calculated above, and it has helped the team to a 378-330 (.534) record since 2020.

To the extent that these bigger free agent signings have limited their salary ability to fill holes this offseason, excluding what appears to be a player-specific endorsement. spend on Juan Sotothey probably help explain Romano’s non-offer. The front office simply needs money to sign players and does not have the luxury of taking such a risk again, given the immense pressure it is under to field a competitive, contending team in 2025.

Blue Jays’ long-term extensions are rare

The only players Shapiro and Atkins were able to extend for five years or more during their nine seasons at the helm of Toronto’s front office are Randal Grichuk (five years, $52 million) and Berríos (seven years, $131 million). . Both were acquired via trade, meaning they weren’t able to extend a single local talent longer than the three-year, $33.6 million extension they gave Bo Bichette to buy out his remaining arbitration years. This list includes Stroman, Mayza, Jansen and now Romano.

While Blue Jays fans and the players are hoping for a long-term extension for Guerrero ahead of his age-26 season, the longer the extension negotiations last, the more likely it is that he will instead choose to test free agency in a year with Bichette. If he leaves, there will be no players left from the Anthopoulos era.

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