Blue Jays make a statement with Springer signing

There is every reason for celebration and belief on this winter day — unlike any other in the modern history of the Toronto Blue Jays.

They won the off-season. They signed George Springer, spent more money for more years to get the top player of a deep and strong free agent class. The sometimes cheap and often uninvolved corporate ownership of the club gave president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins the go-ahead to spend to the peak of the January mountain and place a flag deeply in the ground, declaring a certain kind of victory.

The Blue Jays have arrived as big spenders rather than big talkers, and after five years of Shapiro and Atkins trying to define themselves and their baseball team while establishing their place in a market that has long been trying to figure them out, there is a meeting of the minds here between what they have provided and what fans expect.

This is a new and optimistic time for the Jays. They were a team without a centre-fielder of any quality, with defensive shortcomings, and now they have one of the best. Springer is a terrific big league player, a difference maker in the second half of his career, signed now for five years and US$150 million. He will be not just the centre-fielder but the centrepiece of the Blue Jays' immediate history.

If the $150 million sounds large, it's because it is. But who cares about money? It's not yours or mine. There is no salary cap to contend with. Historically, the Blue Jays haven't had much of a free agent history. Oh, they did all right in the glory years of the franchise with Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield, with Jack Morris and Dave Stewart, all of whom were near the end of the line when they signed in Toronto.

Maybe the best free agent signing the Blue Jays ever made came when they talked Roger Clemens into leaving Boston for Toronto. He won two Cy Young Awards in two seasons, used up a whole lot of syringes and golf privileges, turned his career around and couldn't wait to get out of here after two years.

Along the way, there have been other signings that never mattered much. Free agents to forget about. Yet when the Jays won their World Series titles back in the glory years, two trades over two days changed everything. The Jays picked up Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter and Devon White in December of 1990 — and they were central to all the winning that followed.

But no one got close to the

$150 million Springer will be paid. When pitcher Hyun-jin

Ryu was signed last winter, he got $80 million over four years. For the Blue Jays, at the time, that seemed huge.

Considering the Blue Jays didn't sell a home ticket last season, and nobody is sure if they will sell any this season, and they're spending like they want the Rogers Centre jam-packed tomorrow — that is a strange business juxtaposition.

What wasn't strange, perhaps just a little foreign, was the feeling late Tuesday night and Wednesday morning when word began to filter out that Springer had agreed to terms with the Jays. There was a lot of mask-wearing glee around town. It was reminiscent of the feeling in Toronto in July 2018 when John Tavares chose to sign as a free agent with the Maple Leafs.

Like Springer, Tavares had opportunities to go elsewhere. But unlike Springer, who won a World Series with the Houston Astros and a World Series MVP Award, Tavares didn't have the hardware and came home to attempt to win his championship. Now Springer comes to Toronto to play and win alongside Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and maybe Teoscar Hernandez in the outfield, along with the kid stars Bo Bichette, Vladdy Guerrero Jr. and Cavan Biggio in the infield.

Bichette, Guerrero and Biggio will all be entering their third big league seasons just as Maple Leafs Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander were entering their third seasons when Tavares arrived. There are similarities here. The assumption was the Leafs were ready to win. The assumption is the Blue Jays are now ready to win.

But both are teams with offence adding more offence. Teams in need of defence — or in the baseball sense, starting pitching — that are not necessarily addressing that area.

There will be some questions about this signing later. There always are. But rarely are they considered on the day the signing becomes real. It's difficult to be emotional and excited and analytical all at the same time.

Springer will start in centre field for the Jays, maybe lead off, maybe as he gets older he'll move to a corner infield spot. We know he can hit. We know he's the kind of player who has adjusted over the years as pitching has changed and the approach to pitching him has changed as well. If you believe in WAR, he makes a difference of about five wins every full season.

That could bounce the Blue Jays to close to 90 wins. Another addition or two — some internal improvement — could push them beyond that in a full 162-game season.

George Springer is used to winning. The Astros have won 107, 103 and 101 games the past three seasons with a full schedule. He won the now tainted 2017 World Series and the Series MVP. Now he's won the financial lottery.

Time to make that work in a very happy Toronto.