While the market is starting to heat up with Blake Snell, Frankie Montas, and Matt Boyd now off the table, the Blue Jays are one of many teams that need to start thinking about acting with some urgency. There are several items on GM Ross Atkins’ offseason checklist this time around, and if the Jays are truly intent on contending in 2025, then they can’t afford to miss out on many of their available opportunities.

When I say “available opportunities”, that could mean a lot of things – whether that’s the free agent market, or potential trade options that are often even more finite, depending on what you’re looking to sell of course. For those reasons and more, I hope Atkins and his team are ready to move some chess pieces in the next couple of weeks here.

One of the better opportunities to do just that could be coming up at the Winter Meetings, which are scheduled to take place in Dallas from Dec 9-12. This annual gathering hasn’t been quite as exciting in recent years, but it’s still a potential opportunity for the Blue Jays to connect with other teams, and also to sit down with a handful of free agents and/or their agents that are usually kicking around as well.

They won’t be able to finish all of their offseason work in one weekend, but what should the Blue Jays realistically hope to accomplish with their December stop in Texas?

I would argue that the Blue Jays need to be moving forward on plans for next season whether they can sign Juan Soto or not, but I understand that the market is somewhat on hold until the top free agent makes his choice, which sets dominoes falling in several different directions. As for the Jays, we’ve heard reports that signing Soto would come from a special fund of some sort like we heard about last season during the bidding war for Shohei Ohtani, and that the Soto fund wouldn’t necessarily apply to adding other players.

All that said, I understand that the Jays are among the teams waiting to get an answer from Soto, or at least for this process to fully play out. They’ll want to keep their left field job open for now just in case, and that probably means they’ll wait on making final offers for the likes of Anthony Santander, Teoscar Hernandez, Tyler O’Neil, or other outfielders currently looking for their next contract. Those players and many more are also likely waiting for Soto to set and define that market, especially in terms of the big-budget teams that are out shopping.

Whether Soto makes his decision before or during the Winter Meetings is out of their control but the Jays can choose to set their own deadline to start operating as if the decision has been made. My guess is Soto will sign with his new team sometime in the next two weeks anyway, and the market could move pretty quickly from there.

Some would argue, myself included, that signing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to an extension is the first step that the Blue Jays need to take this offseason. We don’t know how those discussions have gone at this point, and maybe there’s a “chicken and egg” situation going on with Soto to some degree as well. Regardless, Guerrero feels like the real linchpin to defining the direction of this franchise for the next several years.

As exciting as it is to talk about signing free agents like Soto, or chasing others like Max Fried, Alex Bregman, and more, the Blue Jays are in a dangerous spot at the moment depending on what they can accomplish over the next month or so. Guerrero and his co-star Bo Bichette are both entering the last season before they can test the free agent market themselves, and it’s pretty hard to imagine this team being a contender in the near future without at least retaining one of them. I hope that they’re also making the same effort to continue talks with Bichette as well, but in my view, Guerrero is the top priority for several reasons.

If you ask me, if the Blue Jays truly intend on trying to keep their competitive window open rather than starting a rebuild, they’ve gotta find a way to commit to Guerrero for the long term. That commitment would make it far more attractive for potential free agents to join forces in Toronto for the next 5-10 years, just as it did when George Springer chose the Blue Jays back when he was a free agent in 2021 and saw the potential in this young core. Without that selling point, the whole situation is a lot tougher to act upon.

It’s possible that Guerrero’s camp wants to wait and see what else happens (especially with the Soto free agency saga), or maybe they’re leaning toward testing the open market a year from now. Whatever the case may be, an extension hasn’t happened yet. In a perfect world for the Blue Jays, they can at least answer that question for now over the next week or two, if they don’t have that answer already.

While I do believe that the Jays need to take care of the big questions like Guerrero, Soto, and more to begin with, there is always work to be done around the edges of building a roster. This time around I would argue that the Jays have some depth that could be useful in trade talks, especially as they look to rebuild a bullpen with just a handful of familiar faces set to return.

The biggest area of depth is arguably in their infield, and I believe that depth could be an asset to use to their advantage. Guerrero is a lock to return at first base and occasionally at third as well, and Bichette will be the starting shortstop as long as he’s healthy. As for second and third base, the potential group of candidates includes Ernie Clement, Will Wagner, Davis Schneider, Spencer Horwitz, Leo Jimenez, Addison Barger, and maybe even Orelvis Martinez. The reality is that they won’t be able to carry all of those players anyway, and while it’s always nice to have quality depth in Buffalo, other areas of the roster that need to be addressed. If there’s an opportunity to turn a depth infielder into a solid bullpen arm, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a smaller deal like that come together. At the very least, the meetings should be a good opportunity to get a better gauge of which teams could emerge as the best trade partners.

As always, the MLB offseason has a lot of different directions it can go and is usually dictated by a handful of people. The Blue Jays can do their part, and from all reports, it sounds like they’re making a strong effort in trying to make this roster better ahead of the 2025 campaign.

Hopefully, that work will translate into a few impact players joining the Blue Jays, and while I don’t have a crystal ball, I’m pretty confident we’ll know a lot more by the time the Winter Meetings are through.

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