The season hasn’t even started, and the Toronto Blue Jays are already playing from behind.
At this year's MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego, teams gave out a staggering $1.1 billion, including two contracts totaling $300 million or more, to free agents, but the Jays, one of the busiest teams in the previous offseason, couldn’t ink a single deal. Toronto’s closest rivals, though, got much better.
The New York Yankees retained Aaron Judge (nine years, $360 million) and Anthony Rizzo (two years, $40 million); the Boston Red Sox offset their loss of Xander Bogaerts by splurging on closer Kenley Jansen (two years, $32 million) and Japanese superstar Masataka Yoshida (five years, $90 million).