Toronto Blue Jays hires free agent Marcus Semien, the scent of Oakland A on obvious opportunity

Oakland A’s longtime star and hometown star is officially gone.

Free agent Marcus Semien signed with the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday, reports insider Jon Heyman. It’s a one-year contract, $ 18 million, by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Semien is expected to play mainly as second base for the Jays, adds Ken Rosenthal from The Athletic.

Although Semien’s departure this winter has always been an inevitability, the unstable off-season market and a surprising lack of demand for his services have made a return to Oakland seemingly temptingly possible. In fact, he ended up signing a one-year contract, but did not return home to the Bay.

In Toronto, 30-year-old Semien joins a potential rising heavyweight team. The rest of the infield is full of young stallions like Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio, and they recently added a premium outfielder on George Springer to go with other young stars to flank him in the corners. The pitching team features an ace of Cy caliber in Hyun-jin Ryu, and in the bullpen Kirby Yates is looking for a recovery in the nearest role.

With three weeks to go before spring training, it remains unclear who will play in the middle field in Oakland without Semien, whether in SS or 2B. Chad Pinder, Vimael Machin, Tony Kemp and Sheldon Neuse are among the best internal options if no new faces are added to the mix. To rub salt into the wound of A fans, last year’s popular second baseman, Tommy La Stella, is signing with the San Francisco Giants.

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This is totally embarrassing.

Despite all its low cost over the decades, one thing A’s always looked for during the Beane Era is a short contract to rent a star. They will even offer higher average wages just to shorten the duration, which is specifically how they got Yoenis Cespedes.

In fact, it is quite common for Oakland to sign or acquire a well-known name in an expensive one-year deal, usually in some form of resilience. It’s a great way to bet on the positive, and if it breaks, you won’t be on the hook for anything beyond that summer. That’s why there is no bad one-year contract.

And now, an unprecedented opportunity has fallen into your lap. His initial All-Star caliber of shortstop, a local product that never loses a game, plays well on both sides of the ball, is loved in the community and popular with his teammates, who finished third in the MVP in 2019 and is still in your prime at age 30? It should have a price far beyond its means. Instead, as a total fluke, it was available on a one-year contract due to a perfect storm of factors, including its own small sample from last year.

That should have been a no-brainer. Of course you will bring him back for another year, right at the height of the team’s containment window, in an intermediate position where the organization has no other seriously viable answer for 2021. It’s even a few dollars cheaper than his offer of qualification would have cost in November. How do you screw this up? It was an absolute gift from the universe.

But no, say John Fisher’s A’s, whose payroll is slightly below last year’s Opening Day number More than what Semien just signed. Instead, at the most crucial time in terms of competitiveness in the field, they will save cents after a difficult financial year – that is, a difficult financial year for the team, not for Fisher, whose net worth has grown substantially since April, from according to Forbes.

We are used to seeing stars leave Oakland for huge amounts of long-term money elsewhere, and that is good and even justifiable, but the situation is completely different. Marcus Semien signed a one year agreement, and it was not with the supposedly rival 2021 As. Shameful.