To say that the 2024 Blue Jays season has been disappointing is a huge understatement. They currently have a record of 43-52, last in the AL East division, 14 games out of 1st place and 9.5 games out of the 3rd and final AL wild card spot. If the Jays were to make a late season run, they would need to pass six teams to make the playoffs.
Understandably, it is widely believed that the Jays will be sellers at the July 30th trade deadline.
Toronto has six players on expiring contracts. (OF Kevin Kiermaier, LHP Yusei Kikuchi, relief pitchers Yimi Garcia and Trevor Richards, C Danny Jansen and 1B/DH Justin Turner). Of that group, Kiermaier might be the one least likely to bring the Jays any significant return, assuming he is eventually traded.
News broke earlier this week that Kiermaier had been put on waivers by the team (later reported that he had cleared waivers). Had one of the other 29 teams claimed him, the Jays would have received nothing in return other than salary relief. Kiermaier is on a 1 year, $10.5 million free agent contract so they would have saved approximately $4 million.
Per Spotrac, the Jays are currently roughly $8.8 million over the luxury tax threshold, and stand to pay just over $2.6 million in penalties. Rogers Communications, who owns the Jays, could have determined that paying a penalty for a postseason club is worthwhile, but not for a team that doesn’t make the playoffs or even seems to have a chance to compete right now. Jays’ GM Ross Atkins may have marching orders from management to get the payroll under the $237 million threshold.
Fair enough.
At the end of the day baseball is a business and like any other for-profit business, the money has to work. The biggest concern for this team, however, has to be improving the on-field product and one step toward doing that is getting the best possible return for players that might not be part of the team after this season (a possibility for the Jays to get the best of both worlds is by getting a good return for someone like Kikuchi and then re-sign him in the off-season but I digress).
Going back to Kiermaier, it’s not that I believe he has a role on the Jays, going forward. He is a 4-time gold glove winner (most recently in 2023 with Toronto) with a career OPS of .709. He currently has an OPS of .524, 16th out of Jays position players, ahead of only Addison Barger and Brian Serven, both of whom are currently in AAA. With Daulton Varsho, another very strong outfield defender, under team control for two more seasons after 2024, Kiermaier’s presence on the Jays is redundant.
I don’t think that letting him go and saving what they can of his salary would be a terrible move for the Jays. The thing I don’t agree with is the timing.
By putting Kiermaier on waivers roughly 2 ½ weeks before the trade deadline, Atkins has let the other 29 MLB GMs know that saving money is at least a significant priority for this organization. The other GMs could in theory use this information to their advantage if they want to trade with Toronto.
Think back to 2016 (as an example). The Jays were prime contenders and wanted to add more firepower at the deadline to make a deep postseason run. The Pittsburgh Pirates had Francisco Liriano in the second year of a 3 year, $39 million contract that they were looking to get out from under. The Jays used the financial flexibility they had back then to acquire Liriano and since they were willing to take on all of this remaining salary, they were in a position of leverage to insist the Pirates also include two prospects (Harold Ramirez and Reese McGuire) in the deal. All they had to give up in return was a struggling Drew Hutchison.
The Jays can’t afford to be in a position similar to that of the Pirates in 2016. Hopefully, they won’t be forced into doing something this extreme but still, this is a significant concern. If a team can afford to take on a player from the Jays who’s making significant money onto their payroll and has an interest in making a trade with the Jays, they might offer to take the rest of the remaining contract, but not give up all that much in return in terms of players/prospects going back to the Jays. This would accomplish Rogers’ short-term financial goal but wouldn’t help the baseball team improve in 2025 and beyond.
If they had a do over and I was able to make the decisions, I would still put Kiermaier on waivers (assuming they can’t trade him) but I would wait until much closer to July 30th. Hopefully, by then, they will have traded away players on expiring contracts for which other teams are willing to part with significant prospect capital.
Jays fans will no doubt be watching closely over the next 2 + weeks to see what moves they make. Here is hoping that (possible) strategic missteps don’t cost them.