There’s no shame in making an aggressive attempt to sign a coveted free agent but falling short, and the Blue Jays have done that several times over the past few years, whether it was with superduperstars Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto or mere mortals like Corbin Burnes, Justin Verlander and Xander Bogaerts, but the way the Jays mismanaged the pursuit of Roki Sasaki required a special episode of Deep Left Field.
Not only did the Jays miss out on the 23-year-old Japanese phenom, who pings the radar gun at 102 mph, they quite literally threw away $11 million (U.S.) in doing so. This one wasn’t disappointing, it was infuriating.