Blue Jays offer to Anthony Santander now in jeopardy
The Toronto Blue Jays four-year $82 million dollar offer to Baltimore Orioles free agent outfielder Anthony Santander now appears to be in jeopardy. Santander was reportedly looking for a five-year deal, and is now open to a short team deal with high average annual values.
It seems that Santander has been holding out for a longer term deal with other clubs other than the Jays, but due to his unstable metrics teams are hesitant to do so in this market.
His career .307 on-base percentage, below-average sprint speed and poor defensive metrics all might be contributing to his seeming difficulties in the market.
Santander, 30, is an imperfect free agent, even after hitting a career-high 44 homers.
Even with those potential downsides, it's easy to see why clubs could prefer a short-term deal rather than one that puts them on the hook for a player's decline phase.
As per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Santander and his camp are now open to short-term offers from other clubs at this point.
For a player like Santander already tagged with a qualifying offer, signing a short-term deal and hitting free agency after another strong season could provide an even larger boost to his value by allowing him to re-enter free agency unencumbered in the future.
As we all know Santander has a contract offer on the table from the Blue Jays as of last week, though given the fact that he's now open to exploring short-term deals it seems as though that offer may not have been one the switch-hitter was interested in accepting.
It's easy to imagine the possibility of getting a high-end free agent like Santander on a short-term deal, it opens up the market for players or perhaps convincing teams already connected to the player to become more serious about their pursuits.
For the players, this sort of approach comes with both pros and cons.
There is of course risk involved that injury or poor performance leads to them hitting the market with less value than they had in their initial trip through free agency.
While shorter-term deals can be attractive to teams as a way to mitigate risk associated with a particular free agent, they can still come with complications.
While a willingness to consider short-term, high-AAV offers should open the market up for these players to an extent, that shouldn't be taken to mean that a massive shakeup is guaranteed.
Those high annual salaries figure to be an obstacle for clubs in or on the cusp of luxury tax territory as well as those dealing with budget crunches.
If the Toronto Blue Jays want Santander badly enough they will have to put another offer on the table with a shorter term and a higher AAV.
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| POLL | ||
JANVIER 12 | 231 ANSWERS Blue Jays offer to Anthony Santander now in jeopardy Should the Toronto Blue Jays come up with another shorter term offer with a higher AAV for Anthony Santander? | ||
| Yes | 137 | 59.3 % |
| No | 74 | 32 % |
| I sure hope so! | 20 | 8.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
