Though the Toronto Blue Jays general manager would prefer not to sign players to contracts of more than five years, he has the flexibility to do so.
“We’ve said ‘six, will you bend a little,’ I think we haven’t ruled it out,” Anthopoulos said Tuesday. “Our preference is certainly five. We’ve never had to deviate from that.”
That flexibility could provide Anthopoulos with an edge should he decide to bid aggressively for top free agents or pursue Masahiro Tanaka, the 25-year-old Japanese ace who’s expected to be made available to MLB teams.