How Blue Jays’ free agent spending stacks up against Yankees, Red Sox

The Toronto Blue Jays‘ level of free-agent spending this off-season is unprecedented for the franchise, and it’s all the more significant because of the action — or lack thereof — around them in the AL East.

In recent days, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have very publicly struggled to land big names, with the former reportedly reaching an ‘impasse’ with Cody Bellinger and the latter losing out on the Alex Bregman sweepstakes. 

The off-season isn’t over, but it is still odd to see the Blue Jays landing multiple notable free agents while the AL East’s traditional powers strike out. In the opening months of free agency, Toronto has spent more than 10 times what New York has, with the Yankees’ only major contract ($22.05 million to Trent Grisham) coming in the form of an accepted qualifying offer. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are the only team in the majors that hasn’t signed an MLB free agent yet.

It’s possible that New York or Boston reels in a big-name star in the weeks to come, but the Blue Jays can’t be ruled out of the Kyle Tucker or Bo Bichette sweepstakes yet, either, so the contrast could also grow rather than shrink.

This difference doesn’t guarantee a successful year for Toronto, or that their big-market divisional rivals are doomed to flounder in 2026. Lavish free-agent spending can result in old, expensive, underachieving rosters. Steering clear and prioritizing the creation of a homegrown core is a viable team-building philosophy. It’s uncontroversial to say that there is a balance to be struck.

What’s notable about the current situation is that it represents a structural shift in the AL East experience for Toronto. For many years, the conventional wisdom said that it would always be more difficult for the Blue Jays to compete in the AL East because the Yankees and Red Sox would always be scooping up stars in free agency while they’d struggle to do the same. At times, fans openly coveted a divisional realignment of some kind for this reason.

That idea has been weakened at times in recent years — such as when the Blue Jays handed George Springer the largest contract of the 2021 off-season — but now it’s officially dead on the vine. The chart below shows Toronto’s, New York’s and Boston’s free-agent spending in the 2020s, a time period that captures when the Blue Jays started to build toward contention around Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Boston’s relative lack of activity, particularly recently, stands out as the Red Sox have become more of a middleweight spender, even during a phase where the team isn’t trying to take a step back competitively. It’s a development that’s not going over well with the team’s fanbase. 

The comparison between the Blue Jays and the Yankees is intriguing, as Toronto has definitively entered the same tier of free-agent shopping as New York, something that would’ve been inconceivable not too long ago. 

It’s also fair to say these numbers are generous to New York as they include the Aaron Judge contract ($360 million), even though he was a player the Yankees retained, while Toronto’s megacontract for Guerrero — a deal which came during his last year under contract and was priced at a free-agent level — isn’t captured. If you count the Vladdy deal, the Blue Jays have outspent the Yankees by $240 million. If you take Judge’s contract off the board and don’t add Guerrero’s, Toronto is up by $100 million.

The specific numbers are subject to change in the weeks to come, and aren’t as important as the overall trend. Whatever the rest of the off-season brings, it’s clear the Blue Jays have entered the Yankees’ orbit and left the Red Sox behind. 

It’s a notable evolution that is dissolving the long-assumed structural disadvantage Toronto seemed to suffer through for years. Not only are the Blue Jays willing to spend like the Yankees, but widely coveted players are also seeing them as a preferred destination. Dylan Cease ‘directed’ agent Scott Boras to get him to Toronto, Cody Ponce may have had a bigger offer elsewhere and Kazuma Okamoto just became the highest-profile Japanese star to choose the Blue Jays. There isn’t a functional difference between the team-building avenues available to Toronto and New York at this point. 

The Yankees are a good bet to always run a high payroll, the Red Sox are coming off a strong season, the Baltimore Orioles still have an exciting young core and the Tampa Bay Rays continue to perform admirably under significant financial constraints. The AL East suddenly didn’t become a cakewalk the moment the Blue Jays opened their wallets.

What has changed is that the Blue Jays no longer need to fear that their prospects are dimmed by the teams that they share their division with. If anything, clubs around them may be the ones grumbling about their spending and how difficult it is to compete.

They may still fall short of rapidly growing expectations. Maybe even by a great deal. But if they do, they won’t have the big, bad Yankees and Red Sox to blame. Whether the Blue Jays sink or swim, the relative spending power around them will have nothing to do with it.