Blue Jays fandom needs to have serious conversation on who exactly would Rogers pay a lot for.

Until we know what the FO offered and what Vlad asked for we will remain in the dark with the questions that we need answered (the unfortunate reality is that we will probably not know what was offered until after the season is over)

I am making this post because our inability to extend Vlad has shown us all a glimpse into the reality of how our franchise is ran and viewed by the ownership.

I know that people are going to mention Mark and Ross and trust me they are not getting off the hook with me but this post isn’t about our front office. This post is about the people above them. The guys who really make all the decisions.

In the year 2000 Rogers would buy the Blue Jays, Rogers is a titan of telecommunications in Canada, to put it simply. The Toronto Blue Jays have a top 5 richest ownership is baseball and since the sport is heavily reliant on money you would think that we would flex our financial muscles and dominate the markets similar to what the Yankees or the Mets can do. Yet we don’t, why?

In the long history of the Blue Jays these are the biggest contracts handed out

George Springer: 6/150M/2021 Jose Berrios: 7/131M/2021 Vernon Wells: 7/126M/2006 Kevin Gausman: 5/110M/2021-2 Anthony Santander: 5/92M/2024-5 Hyun-Jin-Ryu: 4/80M/2020

Now that’s quite a lot of money, their are teams in the MLB that wish they could spend that money but to be blunt, these being are biggest signings is an embarrassment when you consider the money we have.

The Toronto blue jays are one of the very few teams that are not owned by a “Guy”, we are instead owned by an emotionless corporation who don’t do anything if it’s not profitable. Ed Rogers is the main face behind the machine but he doesn’t have complete full say or control over what happens to the team. Rogers is a collective of suits who make business decisions that are most profitable for the company and if it involves the Blue Jays every move is determined by if this will put more money into their pockets.

I know it’s on Ross and Mark to negotiate the deal but the reality is that a deal as massive as Vladimir would be in the hands of the board. It’s clear that the board has a budget and they decided that Vladimir did not bring in enough money to be worth what would be needed to pay him. Why do I say this, because if the board did value Vladimir they would make sure to bring him back.

This now cycles back to the question I posed in the title, If Vladimir is not worth the price then what players are Rogers willing to pay for.

It’s clear by their past purchases that the board at Rogers are willing to pay all star players contracts up to 200 million dollars. Most likely because the added talent help the team become better, which in turns makes more ticket sales. After that they start to get hesitant. If I remember correctly the Jays offered Corbin Burnes 250 Million dollars which I guess is the max amount of money the Rogers board of committee are willing to pay.

Everyone wants Ross and Mark gone and I do too but we need to ask the question, how much does it really matter who the FO is when the ownership determines everything the FO can do. Rogers has been the owner of the Jays for 25 years now, we know what they value and what lengths they are willing to go to and any new guys in charge are helpless to appose it.

Unless their is a drastic approach change the blue jays will only ever sign a player over 400 million if that player is a mega superstar that prints money. That means the only way we can really be competitive in the future is to develop star players on the cheep and fill out the holes with all star veterans in the 100 millions range.

This really infuriates me because we literally have the money necessary to be like the Mets and the Dodgers yet the money is controlled by people who couldn’t give a damn about baseball.