After seven seasons in Toronto, Bo Bichette decided that his future lay in New York with the Mets.Lindsey Wasson/The Associated Press
That was a seriously terrible 24 hours for the Blue Jays.
Despite what looked like a good effort, they lost the race to sign free-agent Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers, who really don’t need him but enjoy a good ransacking every now and then. Now reeling, Toronto experienced a double whammy when Bo Bichette, its all-star infielder, agreed to be massively overpaid for three years by the New York Mets.
Bo’s a beauty, but not a US$42-million-per-year beauty.
How could an off-season that looked so fabulous conclude so poorly for Toronto? There still may be time to collar Cody Bellinger or snag a pitcher before spring training begins on Feb. 12 but two weeks ago management was celebrating and now looks like it was face-washed by Brad Marchand.
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Fans started to become mutinous late Thursday when it was suggested that the Blue Jays were on the verge of being ka-bobbed by Los Angeles again. This one may have stung even more than the snub by Shohei Ohtani in December, 2023. Toronto offered Tucker a bag of gold and the term he sought but he said no anyway. The Dodgers looked in their couch cushions and won him over with US$60-million a season for four years.
Social media was ablaze. Toronto followers called Tucker almost every imaginable invective as well as a disgusting human being, a fraud and a weiner. One suggested he had a punchable face.
Just a few days earlier some of these same people were giddy over the idea of finding true baseball love with one of the game’s most productive batters. They cautioned one another not to post pictures of snowy sidewalks in case Tucker didn’t know that it snows in Canada.
The next major target for scorn was general manager Ross Atkins, who after having been spanked by fans and the media for years for not building a World Series contender, did so in 2025 and was even lauded for it. The Blue Jays had the best record in the American League and came within a hair’s breadth of winning their first World Series in more than three decades.
They fell to the Dodgers in Game 7 in extra innings. Yes, those scurrilous scoundrels again.
One fan demanded on X that Atkins should resign immediately. Others called him a miserable failure and a pushover and asked why he still had his job.
Tough crowd.
In November, Toronto was extremely aggressive when the free-agent signing period began. It leapt in and got Dylan Cease, the best pitcher available, to agree to a seven-year US$210-million contract. The only larger contract in franchise history was Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 2025 extension for US$500-million. It is noteworthy that Guerrero was not a free agent. Which makes Cease Toronto’s largest free-agent signee ever.
The Blue Jays then added submarine reliever Tyler Rogers and took a flyer on Cody Ponce, a hard-throwing starter who was the best pitcher in 2025 in South Korea, and Japanese slugger Kazuma Okamoto.
So far they have spent more than US$312-million on free agency which ranks third in the major leagues. Just a few days earlier it was a good bet to assume they would get Tucker, and it was not unreasonable for them to have a shot at Bichette, too.
Now they head into camp in Dunedin, Fla., perhaps a bit better than last spring. That isn’t bad, but it is not where eagles fly.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that spring training would begin on Feb. 11. Spring training is scheduled to begin on Feb. 12.