Matz is gone: How long before Ray and Semien follow?

This is how crazy and hyperactive this baseball off-season has been: There were at least eight teams, including the Toronto Blue Jays, chasing Steven Matz.

And in the end, the New York Mets were furious that Matz, a bottom of the rotation pitcher, chose the St. Louis Cardinals and not them.

All this happening as the clock is ticking down on what comes next — another bottom of the rotation pitcher more than doubling his salary or a commissioner imposing a lockout of Major League Baseball players — just six days away.

This state of semi-uncertainty has forced the game into a climate of intensive bidding and frenzy. There are more teams throwing more dollars at more players than almost anyone can remember in big league baseball. Because, in reality, no one knows what’s next.

And, at least, what you have locked up today, you are certain to have tomorrow.

The Blue Jays are walking a nervous tightrope for the next week and possibly longer depending on where the labour negotiations go. The collective bargaining agreement between players and owners expires on Wednesday. What comes after that — a lockout? A shutdown of baseball’s winter business?

A question of when spring

training or next season begins or the long-shot possibility of all being back to normal is really anyone’s guess.

And all this is going on as the Canadian government has determined to pull the exemption rights from non-vaccinated professional athletes, which should further concern any team that will have to travel to Toronto for the upcoming season. That would also require the Blue Jays to be fully vaccinated, which they weren’t last season.

So if you’re the Jays, and you came up one game short in an incredible and fascinating season, in which you had a Cy Young Award winner, two MVP finalists, a pile of Silver Slugger winners, and a rookie pitcher who wowed his profession, you have to really wonder: How do you get better from here?

How do you get better when you’re not sure what a new collective bargaining agreement might mean for the future of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Bo Bichette, and you’re not certain how you can replace Matz and likely have to replace the expensive stars in Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien. And there’s nothing indicating that either Semien or Ray will return to Toronto next season.

Yes, it was nice that the Jays signed Jose Berrios long-term. For the coming season, though, it’s basically par for the course. Barrios was going to be in the rotation next season, whether he was extended or not.

Losing Matz, by itself, is not something terrible. But losing Matz along with losing Robbie Ray, if he’s leaving, will be troublesome. Last season, Ray and Matz combined to start 60 games for the Jays. They pitched 343 innings. They won 27 games lost 14, both threw better than they’ve ever thrown before.

How do you begin to match that as 40 per cent of your starting rotation? How many top and bottom of the rotation pitchers combined last season to throw 343 innings last season?

The Jays wound up with career years from Ray, Matz, Guerrero Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, Semien, Bichette, Jordan Romano, and still, they wound up a game short of the post-season. One game behind the Red Sox, who wound up playing in three playoff rounds. Now they have to replace, Matz, Semien almost certainly, and quite possibly, Ray, who can get more years elsewhere.

The Jays offered Matz a more than fair three-year deal to return. St. Louis and the Mets offered him four. Maybe others did as well. The extra year guaranteed is US$11 million more than Matz would have had had he chosen to return to Toronto.

It’s basically impossible to duplicate the kind of seasons that Ray and Semien had as free agents with the Jays. You can’t go out and buy the best pitcher in the league and the most productive everyday middle infielder like they did last off-season. That’s a oncein-a-century kind of purchase that didn’t turn into a once-in-a-century season.

Now, the Blue Jays are caught in a competitive market and they know, in the next few years, they’re going to have to commit at least $60 million for Bichette and

Guerrero Jr. Time is quickly running out on an off-season about to end.