Free agents have been avoiding the Toronto Blue Jays like the plague in recent seasons and it may be all due to one big detail.
Toronto has made efforts to sign Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, and Corbin Burnes, among several others over recent winters, but the organization keeps coming up empty.
The Blue Jays are reportedly keen to bring in third baseman Alex Bregman in an attempt to salvage another lackluster offseason, but USA Today’s Bob Nightengale points out one massive hurdle that the team must overcome: Canadian taxes.
He wrote, “The Toronto Blue Jays, who continue to be left at the altar among free agents, have shown the strongest interest (in Bregman), but just how much more do they have to pay him than the next highest bidder with their high tax rates and distance from his home in Phoenix?”
Bregman is represented by agent Scott Boras, who has a long history of getting maximum payouts for his clients. While Spotrac’s calculated market value for Bregman points to a four-year contract of nearly $120 million, Boras’ representation hints that any deal that the nine-year Major League Baseball veteran inks could be higher than that.
The 30-year-old has played his entire career with the Houston Astros, the team that drafted him with the second overall pick in the 2015 MLB June Amateur Draft. His previous five-year, $100 million contract expired with the final out of the 2024 season.
Several media outlets have noted that the Blue Jays have been hot on the heels of free-agent outfielder Anthony Santander as well. MLB Insider Hector Gomez reported the numbers that Toronto has offered to Santander: $82 million over four years.
However, a week after that reported offer, Toronto continues to wait. “Canada’s Team” may indeed be thwarted once again by Canadian taxes.
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