Ross Atkins refuses to let Scott Boras hold the Blue Jays hostage over Alex Bregman

The Pete Alonso saga finally came to a conclusion late Wednesday night, with the star slugger heading back to the New York Mets on a two-year, $54 million contract that includes an opt-out after the 2025 season. It's a remarkably anticlimactic ending to what amounted to a months-long staring contest. And the fact that, after all that, Alonso wound up settling for a short-term deal that puts him right back where he started should probably have some of the other suitors involved feeling a bit annoyed — but one team in particular.

The longer the Mets and Alonso remained at an impasse, the more the Toronto Blue Jays were floated as a realistic plan B. Reports suggested that the Jays had extended the first baseman a contract of at least three years, and at one point it seemed like Toronto might actually lure him north while New York tended to business elsewhere.

Now, though, we can see all of the twists and turns here a bit more clearly. Either Alonso took less money to remain a Met, or the Blue Jays never actually made the offer they were alleged to have made. Either way, the upshot is that Alonso's agent, Scott Boras, was using the team as leverage, letting them — or the idea of them — hang around in an effort to get as much money as possible out of the one team Alonso ever intended on signing with. That fact certainly doesn't seem to be lost on GM Ross Atkins, who took a big step on Friday to make sure that Boras wouldn't be able to do it again.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work onThe Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB offseason.

Ross Atkins was right to pull the plug on Blue Jays' pursuit of Alex Bregman

While Alonso is off the market, Boras' work this offseason isn't quite finished. He still has one more infielder to find a home for: former Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who's languished on the market despite reported interested from the Astros, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers and, yes, the Blue Jays.

At this point, it's clear that Bregman's market hasn't materialized the way that he and/or Boras had hoped it would. The two are reportedly still holding out for a six- or seven-year deal, presumably one larger than the six-year, $156 million contract that Houston offered at the start of the offseason. But no one's been willing to meet that price, and in response, Boras has been working his old playbook hard, producing a near-constant stream of rumors about various teams and their reported interest.

One of those teams has been Toronto, which has found itself bandied about as a potential source of the sort of deal Bregman and Boras are looking for. But Atkins appears to have had it with Boras' leverage play. On Friday, he told reporters that, at this point in the offseason, any additions to his team's roster would "most likely" come via trade.

On the one hand, Bregman is an ideal fit for a Blue Jays roster that could really use one more infielder (and one more star to convince Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to sign a long-term extension). On the other, though, you can't blame Atkins for doing his best to make sure Boras can no longer float his team out there to get his client a few more millions. It's similar to the Alonso situation: Toronto has made what it considers to be a substantive offer for Bregman, and he's either willing to come play in Canada or he's not. If he is, he would've signed by now; if he's not, there's no point in prolonging the inevitable. The only person who the Jays would benefit by keeping quiet is Boras, and he's lined his pockets enough this winter.