There have been a handful of smaller moves that came before it, but the first semi-major domino of the free agent market fell on Monday when the news broke that Eduardo Rodriguez is joining the Detroit Tigers.
As I’ve talked about recently, the Blue Jays are known for being thorough and checking in on as many different options as they can as they evaluate the market, and it’s possible that’s what they were doing with Rodriguez.
I’m honestly not reading a whole lot into the Blue Jays being connected to Rodriguez, but I do think there is something we can learn from his new contract in Detroit.
I wouldn’t say that E-Rod is a great comparison for either of the Blue Jays free agent starters, but I would argue that he serves as a pretty good middle ground of sorts.
On the other hand, if things go well and he pitches the way he did in 2019 when he finished 6th in AL Cy Young award voting, he can still opt out as a 30 year old and seek an even bigger contract.
I don’t think that Ray and the Blue Jays are going to find a creative way to affect the dollars and cents of a future deal, but I think Rodriguez’s contract has all but cemented a salary of 20 million or more for the 30 year old.
Again, that may not come as a huge surprise either, but it wasn’t long ago that many people were arguing that the Blue Jays should also give him a Qualifying Offer as they did with Ray and Semien, which would have paid 18.4 million if he accepted .
It remains to be seen if there will be much more for activity on the free agent market before a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place, but in some ways it was good to see things get moving this week.