It didn't involve bringing back Bo Bichette or signing the top free agent bat, Kyle Tucker.
Instead, it involved pitching. They signed Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million contract.
Cease had most recently pitched for the San Diego Padres, and he has great stuff.
The money and contract length came in on the high end of expectation.
ESPN has graded the signing a 'B.'
"One of the interesting aspects of MLB free agency is that the number of suitors for a player isn't always directly correlated to on-field value," ESPN writes. "There are, after all, only so many teams willing and able to spend nine figures. In recent years, we've seen excellent players like Pete Alonso, Matt Chapman and Blake Snell settle for shorter-term deals late in the offseason as they waited for that big long-term offer that never came -- or was pulled off the table. In the case of Dylan Cease, it makes a lot of sense for him to sign early while the money is there. He's a pitcher with clear skills and ability but also frustratingly inconsistent results, which was going to lead to a wide variance in how teams evaluated him -- and thus what offers he received. The $210 million deal the Toronto Blue Jays gave Cease is closer to the high end for him, given Kiley McDaniel's projection of five years, $145 million."
The Blue Jays already have a lot of talented pitchers, all of whom are right-handed.
Cease will bolster that group, and potentially give Toronto more wiggle room in the case of injury.
He still doesn't seem like he would've been the biggest priority, though. If this stops the Blue Jays from keeping Bichette or signing Tucker, it'll feel like a worse move.
But maybe Toronto has just decided to go all-in. Maybe this move won't limit their other moves at all.
The Blue Jays went to extra innings in Game 7 of the World Series before coming up short. It seems clear they don't want that to happen again.