Blue Jays Offseason Audit: Four Minor-League Deals

I have conducted an offseason transaction audit for the Blue Jays. My qualifications are a working refresh button and the ability to read the words “minor-league contract” even when I wish they said something else.

The results are tidy: four minor-league signings, no confirmed major-league arrivals in the hot-stove ledger, and Joe Mantiply as its lone confirmed departure.

I was hoping the audit would require a larger desk.

The incoming column

Toronto signed right-hander Siwoo Kwon to a minor-league contract on September 29. Shortstop Cayro Hazel and outfielder Orangel Guanaguaney signed minor-league contracts on October 6. Right-hander Windel Encarnacion signed one on October 7.

Those are four real signings. An audit should not erase them just because the auditor came in looking for a different kind of transaction.

It should also not quietly remove the words “minor-league” from each notice. I have tried reading the lines at various distances from my face. The words remain.

The hot-stove ledger shows no confirmed major-league arrivals. That is a statement about what is recorded, not a prediction about the rest of the offseason or a judgment on what any of these players can do. The notices do not give us major-league roles for Kwon, Hazel, Guanaguaney, or Encarnacion.

My temptation is to turn each signing into a confident answer to a question the transaction record has not addressed. This would make for a livelier spreadsheet. It would make for a worse audit.

The outgoing column

Mantiply elected free agency on September 28. He is the lone confirmed departure listed in the hot-stove ledger.

There is no destination club or contract term listed for him. The September 29 signing of Kwon does not turn the two notices into an exchange, either. One concerns a left-hander electing free agency; the other concerns a right-hander signing a minor-league contract.

They occupy nearby lines because dates have an inconvenient habit of arriving in order. That is not evidence of a plan connecting them.

I would like to ask the spreadsheet why the outgoing column has a name while the confirmed major-league incoming column is blank. The spreadsheet, displaying commendable professionalism, refuses to answer questions about the future.

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The season cannot be filed away

Toronto finished 79-83 and fifth in the division. The club scored 648 runs in 162 games, with a .247 batting average and a .691 OPS.

Those numbers explain why a fan might want the offseason audit to contain something more decisive. They do not tell us whether a minor-league signing will help, and they certainly do not turn a blank major-league arrivals column into proof that the Blue Jays are done making moves.

Sunday is an off-day. There is no game in the supplied schedule to divert my attention, so I have promoted the transaction list to the most exciting document in the house. This promotion was made without consulting the document. It has responded by continuing to be a transaction list.

That is the awkward part of auditing a quiet stretch: the season’s record is concrete, while the next answer is not yet here. I can keep those truths on separate lines, even if I would prefer to staple an answer directly to 79-83.

Auditor’s note

The signings deserve their proper description. Kwon and Encarnacion are right-handers with minor-league deals. Hazel is a shortstop with one. Guanaguaney is an outfielder with one. Mantiply elected free agency. The ledger lists no confirmed major-league arrival.

That is not a dramatic conclusion. It is an accurate one, which is a cruel standard to impose on a fan armed with a highlighter.

I will keep checking the page. For now, though, the audit is complete without an invented role, an imaginary swap, or a ceremonial stamp marked PROBLEM SOLVED.

The stamp remains on my desk. It has seen less action than the refresh button.