Blue Jays' Garcia signing uninspiring but hard to fault

Signing Jaime Garcia is incredibly typical of the offseason the Toronto Blue Jays are having so far.

Whether that’s a complement or not is up for debate. It’s hard to argue that inking the 31-year-old southpaw to a one-year, $8 million deal with a club option for 2019 is a bad move. It gives the Blue Jays a fifth starter at a reasonable price. The option adds some flexibility.

Bringing Garcia into the fold also allows the Blue Jays to drop Joe Biagini back down into a relatively thin bullpen, or send him to Triple-A to work as a starter. Either is a preferable outcome to him opening the year as the team’s first starter. The fit is obvious.

For better or worse, Garcia is a known quantity. He will put up a strong groundball rate, fail to miss as many bats as you’d like, and throw around 91 mph. In his last two seasons he’s pitched between 157 and 171.2 innings with ERA’s between 4.41 and 4.67. His peripherals back those numbers up. That’s almost certainly what you’re going to get — and at the bottom of the rotation there’s nothing wrong with that.

If the Blue Jays’ season goes south Garcia could also be a nifty trade piece. He’d fit under most team’s budgets and in the bottom of their rotations should injury strike a contender. Heck, the guy was traded twice in six days in the run up to the 2017 trade deadline so you know you can move him.

There is a “but” here though and it goes like this: Garcia looks like a decent pickup for the Blue Jays but this is likely their last significant move. Estimates had them looking at $10-15 million in payroll space prior to this deal and Garcia is eating most of that. No one was truly expecting an impact signing from the team, but this really seems to confirm that idea to rest. What you see with the Blue Jays right now is probably what you’re getting — with the possible exception of a low-leverage reliever or a backup catcher.

For many Blue Jays fans that might be a little deflating. This club doesn’t look like a “this could be Josh Donaldson’s last year so let’s give it a go” group. It’s more like a “with Donaldson around we shouldn’t tear down” group. There’s no doubt the team has patched some holes and improved in a few places, but not much has fundamentally changed. Although 2018 should be better than 2017, there’s a wide gap between what they were last year and the kind of team competing a brutally tough American League.

This offseason the Blue Jays haven’t made a single indefensible move. Trades for Aledmys Diaz, Yangervis Solarte, and Randal Grichuk all look smart on paper. All three are affordable and controllable players who the club bought low on.

Curtis Granderson appears to be a good deal at $5 million. The same could be said of Garcia at $8 million. In both cases the saying “there’s no such thing as a bad one-year deal” applies. That saying has more than a kernel of truth to it. However, if you’re plugging you’re roster with players on one-year deals, you also aren’t getting the best players.

There’s always room for a surprise trade or creatively-constructed free agent contract, but right now the smart money is on the Blue Jays’ offseason being more or less done. What looks like their last significant move is solid but unspectacular. The same could be said for their whole offseason.

The same could also be said for how this team projects in 2018.