Toronto Blue Jays: David Price only makes sense if the price is right

There have been rumours swirling about David Price returning to the Toronto Blue Jays this off-season, but acquiring the 34 year old southpaw may not be worth the amount of money still left on his contract.

In 2015, the Toronto Blue Jays acquired pitcher David Price from the Detroit Tigers to help push the team into the playoffs. While the organization didn’t walk away with a World Series trophy that season, Price was electrifying for the team and had many fans asking management to resign him that off-season.

Price would eventually leave the Blue Jays and join the division rival Boston Red Sox at 7 years and $217 million dollars, one of the largest contracts handed out to a pitcher in baseball history.

While Price leaving was a sting for Blue Jays fans, his time in Boston has been a bit of an up and down rollercoaster since joining the team in 2016.

Injury issues have limited Price in both the 2017 and 2019 seasons, yet he has still produced under 4.00 ERA seasons in 3 out of the 4 years he has been in a Red Sox uniform. He also found a way to shake off his playoff demons and produce quality innings in the 2018 ALCS and World Series, which cumulated in his first championship ring.

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There’s no question that the Blue Jays re-acquiring David Price would make the team’s rotation better, but there are a few things to consider before the organization and its fanbase get all gung-ho about the lefty pitcher.

The big deterrent to signing Price is that he is still owed a significant amount of money over the next three seasons. Per Spotrac, he is set to earn $32 million each season for the next three years and has no player or team opt-outs remaining before he becomes a free agent in 2023.

While Price is a good pitcher, $32 million per season is a steep price to pay for a pitcher who not only has experienced injury issues these past few seasons but is also on the wrong side of 30.

Now, let’s say that the Red Sox throw in some money with the deal and make his contract worth around $20 million. This is a lot more tantalizing for the Blue Jays front office, knowing that they could get Price for relatively the same AAV as their new signee Hyun-Jin Ryu.

Unfortunately, deals like this usually have an underlying narrative.

The Boston Red Sox are only getting rid of Price because their ownership wants to get under the luxury tax and stop owing the league money. While Price could help the Blue Jays rotation, there is also the realization that the Jays organization would also be helping a division rival reach their financial goals after past few years of overspending.

The only scenario where I see the Blue Jays truly benefitting from acquiring Price is if they acquire Price, money to offset and make the contract worth less per year, and a higher tier prospect to sweeten the deal.

While Price would be a great addition to the Blue Jays rotation, helping a division rival become more financially stable isn’t really a great feeling for a team that is in one of the toughest divisions in the league. The deal would have to be more than Price and the money to make the Blue Jays pull the trigger on this trade. Ross Atkins and co. need to really win and benefit from this transaction if they are going to help the Red Sox move towards being under the luxury tax threshold.

With that being said, I highly highly highly doubt the Red Sox would throw in a prospect to make the deal work, so I don’t really see this trade coming to fruition unless the Sox throw in a significant amount of capital to offset not including a prospect, which goes against the luxury tax narrative they are striving for.

All in all, I don’t see Price becoming a Blue Jay anytime soon based on the rebuild.

Helping a division rival by acquiring a player who is owed a ton of money and is past his prime years doesn’t really fit the Blue Jays rebuilding narrative, especially when the team has some young pitchers coming up the pipeline who need a rotation spot. With Ryu signing in Toronto, the organization already found their big ticket item this Winter and don’t really need Price as badly as they did when the off-season began.

Stranger things have happened, but unless the price is right for Toronto, David Price may not wear the Toronto Blue Jays logo until 2023 at the earliest.