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It doesn’t take Andrew Tinnish long to explain why the draft matters to the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Because we play in the toughest division in baseball with the two biggest spenders in baseball,” Tinnish told MLBTR. “It’s pretty simple for me.”

As the team’s amateur scouting director, he is responsible for infusing new talent into the organization. This year - the Blue Jays’ first season under Tinnish - the team spared no expense. Toronto signed its 2010 draftees for $11.6MM in bonuses, according to totals compiled by Baseball America. Joining the Blue Jays as the biggest spenders in the industry were the deep-pocketed Red Sox, the Nationals (who signed top pick Bryce Harper) and two others: the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cleveland Indians.

The Pirates, Indians and Blue Jays have pursued major league free agents cautiously, but each team spent big on draft bonuses this year. Each of those three clubs committed more to 2010 draftees than they did to last offseason’s crop of free agents. And before 2010, no team had ever committed as much in bonuses to one draft class as the Pirates ($11.9MM) and Blue Jays did this summer. Franchises that don’t or can’t spend their way to the top of the MLB standings are investing heavily in the draft because they expect top amateurs will lead to success at the major league level.

But as Tinnish points out, it’s one thing to spend and it’s another thing to find the right players.

“To me it’s not about spending,” Tinnish said. “Whether that’s an Aaron Sanchez, who obviously signed for a reasonable amount for where he was taken (supplemental first round, $775K bonus) or a Dickie Joe Thon, who signed for much more than the recommended amount for where he was selected (fifth round, $1.5MM bonus), it’s about acquiring talent.”

The Blue Jays drafted and developed Shaun Marcum, Ricky Romero and Aaron Hill among others under former GM J.P. Ricciardi. The team is under a new regime now, but there’s no question that the Blue Jays continue to rely on the draft.

“The position we’re in, the division we’re in, I think this is an area where we need to be very aggressive and acquire as much talent as we possibly can,” Tinnish said. “[We] hope that that talent helps us in the big leagues or helps us to trade for big leaguers to eventually win the division.”

Before the 2010 season, Baseball America ranked Toronto’s system 28th among the 30 MLB organizations, but as soon as he took over for Ricciardi, Alex Anthopoulos vowed to invest heavily in scouting. Tinnish went into the draft with a willingness to commit to players demanding over-slot deals, but generally speaking, the Blue Jays are not going to out-spend the Yankees and Red Sox.

“We don’t have an unlimited budget, we don’t have unlimited payroll,” Tinnish said. “I think that for a team like us and the position we’re in ... we need to draft well.”

King Scum wrote:I felt better about this approach before I found out that the Pirates and Indians are also big spenders in the draft. Those teams don't spend on free agents either, and they are pretty much broken organizations, and if I had to wager, I'd say they have been doing this longer than us.

Schadenfreude wrote:Pittsburgh just started spending big money on the draft last year...they've been awful for this long because for many years, they'd overdraft 'signability' guys.

Spending in the draft is by far the best way to build a club, as the return on investment is exceptional. You don't need to target every player who is asking for the moon, but if the Jays keep taking the best talent available regardless of price tag, the odds are that we'll have a very good young nucleus in a few years. And as the difference between a hyper-aggressive draft and a cheap one is perhaps $3-5m, it's a no-brainer.

Whether that will be good enough remains to be seen, but it's really the only way; I can't blame Rogers for being unwilling to spend the $150m+ a year that it would take to buy us into a playoff race (and not necessarily the playoffs themselves), so playing to win in the draft and international free agency is the way to go.