NEWSLETTER
There we have it. The first real free agent signing of the offseason, and it’s not surprising – given the climate – that it’s a free agent RE-signing.
The Blue Jays are bringing Robbie Ray back on a one-year deal:
First free agent deal of the offseason is done. Left-hander Robbie Ray and the Toronto Blue Jays are in agreement on a one-year, $8 million deal, a source familiar with the contract tells ESPN. Good start to the hot stove for Toronto, which will use Ray as a starter, and for Ray.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 7, 2020
That price tag isn’t FAR higher than was projected, but there were some that had all this tier of starting pitcher in the one-year, $3 to $5 million range. This is definitely at the high end of what I thought would be possible for Ray. He’s just 29 and has had some great years in the past, but he’s working on several consecutive seasons of worsening trends, and is coming off a brutally bad 2020 season where he could not find the strike zone. Not only was his walk rate and obscene 17.9%, his 27.1% strikeout rate was the lowest since 2015.
Maybe the best context I can put on this deal? It’s not that much lower – if at all – than I would have expected a guy with Ray’s profile to get in a completely normal environment. A one-year shot-in-the-dark to see if he can bounce back, and his own attempt to have a better walk year as he approaches age 30.
The deal, and the very early timing on it, seems like a big bet by the Blue Jays on one or two things:
1.) They are the club that can untap Ray’s huge talent and actually translate it to consistent starting success (given their time with him before the offseason, I’d say this is pretty obviously at least one bet they’re making); and/or
2.) Price tags for starting pitchers, even in the middle-to-lower-tier aren’t actually going to be hit as hard as people think.
It doesn’t have to be both of those things – it could be that the Blue Jays know Ray might do worse than this if he lingered on the market, but they don’t want to risk him signing elsewhere on a similar or lower deal in a few months. So, to that end, I don’t want to take away TOO much from the value on this signing. Ray is kind of a unique cat given the upside, and the Blue Jays – who have a young and talented club with a decent amount of money to spend – much just have a unique affinity to bring him back.
Guys like Jose Quintana, Jon Lester, and Tyler Chatwood, wherever they land, are likely to fall into this kind of range of starting pitcher, for what it’s worth, though I’d be surprised if any other than Quintana tops Ray’s deal. And even that, for Quintana, would be a surprise.
