Major League Baseball

Quiet the rumors: History suggests Jays won't land big free agent

Published Nov. 11, 2014 10:39 p.m. ET

foxsports

Pablo Sandoval, Victor Martinez and Russell Martin have been mentioned in reports as free-agent targets of the Toronto Blue Jays.

If recent history is any guide, the Jays won’t land any of them.

The Blue Jays mostly have avoided the free-agent market under GM and senior VP of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos, who was named to the position in 2009. In five full offseasons under Anthopoulos, here’s the complete list of multiyear free-agent contracts signed by the Blue Jays:

That’s it.

Anthopoulos has yet to guarantee a free agent more than $16 million — barely more than the one-year, $15.3 million qualifying offers Sandoval, Martinez and Martin rejected from their previous teams earlier this week.

There are multiple theories behind the Jays’ aversion to free agents. Most notably, under club president Paul Beeston the team has a policy of not issuing contracts of longer than five years. (Sandoval, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is looking for “at least” a six-year deal.)

Anthopoulos has shown plenty of aggressiveness in trades. He traded Roy Halladay when he was only months into the job, and you may recall the frenzied winter of Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey. But Anthopoulos has looked upon the free-agent market as an inefficient place to spend his time and ownership’s money.

It’s difficult to know whether that conservatism is solely Anthopoulos’ philosophical bent, or if ownership has encouraged him to take that approach. For the record, no one can accuse the Blue Jays of being cheap. According to USA Today figures, the Blue Jays had the ninth-largest Opening Day payroll this year: $129.4 million, just ahead of the Los Angeles Angels.

In early October, Beeston told Sportsnet 590 The FAN radio in Toronto that the Blue Jays’ largely quiet trade deadline was not because of financial limitations. (The FAN, like the Blue Jays, is owned by Rogers Communications.)

“For a Jon Lester, or for a David Price, and you are picking up those contracts, I will flat-out guarantee you we’d get the money from Rogers,” Beeston told host Jeff Blair, referring to the most prominent starters traded in July. “Rogers has been very supportive, very understanding. But if you’re not prepared to do the deal, it’s not going to happen. It had nothing to do with money.

“We do believe in the term of the contract. People can take issues with it. The five-year deal is where we stand right now. ... If we can make the case next year for getting somebody that falls within those frameworks, I don’t have any problem ... getting the money (from ownership). You may laugh at it. You may say, ‘You’re going to have to prove it.’ Well, they’ve proven quite a bit so far with what they’ve given us. And they haven’t said no.”

Beeston told Blair that the Jays’ final payroll figure for this year was $137 million (US) and will be “higher” in 2015. It probably would need to be substantially higher to accommodate a major free agent like Sandoval, Martinez or Martin. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Blue Jays’ commitments for 2015 already total $102.2 million, with several arbitration-eligible players still unsigned.

A homecoming for Martin — a proud Canadian, born in the Toronto area — would be a particularly compelling story for the franchise. But to make that happen, the Blue Jays must spend in free agency as they never have under Anthopoulos.