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The 2024 season was a major disappointment for the Toronto Blue Jays. After posting a winning season in each of the past four seasons heading into 2024, the Blue Jays fell all the way down to fifth place in the AL East with a subpar 74-88 record. This makes all their whiffs in free agency all the more heartbreaking, as managing to secure the services of one of their top targets, such as Shohei Ohtani, would have drastically altered their fortunes.
Heading into 2025, the Blue Jays have renewed hopes of crashing the playoff picture in the loaded AL East. With that in mind, the Blue Jays are once again taking aim at the top free agent on the market in Juan Soto. However, things aren't looking good for the Blue Jays on the Soto pursuit front if the prognostications of famous MLB insider, Ken Rosenthal, are any indication.
According to Rosenthal, the Blue Jays aren't exactly in a position to land the services of Soto considering the uncertainty of the roster from a long-term perspective. For instance, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is entering the final year of team control, and it doesn't seem as though an agreement on a contract extension is imminent between him and the Blue Jays.
Thus, this lack of long-term certainty in terms of roster quality may dissuade Soto from joining the Blue Jays. Now, it's still possible that Soto heads north of the border if the Blue Jays put forward the best offer, financially-speaking. But Rosenthal believes that Soto, “surely”, won't want to get “stuck in a bad situation”. If the Blue Jays' current best player (Guerrero) leaves, they don't have much in the way of top-end young talent to call up to the big leagues.
While Rosenthal's opinions aren't gospel, it is certainly not a promising thing to hear for Blue Jays fans that their team may once more whiff on a major free agent — thus making it difficult for them to return to contending ways in 2025.
Blue Jays need major bounce-back campaigns in 2025
The Blue Jays still had most of their major producers over the past few years on the roster in 2024. But a few of their lineup mainstays struggled mightily last season. In particular, Bo Bichette, who was one of the most productive middle infielders in the MLB from 2021 to 2023, fell off a cliff in terms of production in 2024. Bichette put up a WAR of just 0.3 in 81 games, and his OPS of .599 was such a far cry from his previous level of play.
Moreover, their pitchers weren't quite in top form as well, and it contributed to an overall decline in play for the entire team. Now, some of that is due to age; the likes of Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt are over 30 years of age, so some drop-off in play isn't too unprecedented.
Toronto can shoot for the stars all they want, but if their roster holdovers don't play better, then their big-game free-agent hunting may all end up being moot in the end.
