Angst around Ohtani wait heightened for Blue Jays as Soto lands with Yankees

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As if the wait to hear their fate on the Shohei Ohtani chase isn’t excruciating enough, the Blue Jays now have the added burden of seeing a massive division rival nab a superstar player who was believed to be their prime secondary target this off-season.

Juan Soto, the slugging outfielder from the San Diego Padres who clearly had been on the Jays radar, is heading to their AL East adversary, the New York Yankees.

The Soto deal, which became official late Wednesday as baseball’s Winter Meetings wrapped up in Nashville, is truly a blockbuster. While the Bronx Bombers receive a pair of outfielders — Soto and Trent Grisham, headed to California are pitchers Michael King, Jhony Brito, catcher Kyle Higashioka and pitching prospects Drew Thorpe and Randy Vazquez.

Whether the Jays ever would have been able to match that haul remains to be seen, but it’s clear their ability to chase Soto was compromised by their massive monetary bid for Ohtani, the Japanese sensation who is expected to unveil his decision this weekend.

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While not talking in specifics, Jays general manager Ross Atkins hinted this week in Nashville that it would be difficult to acquire both Soto and Ohtani, effectively because of the strains it would put on the team’s payroll and its ability to extend current young stars Bo Bichette and Vlad Guerrero Jr. in the future.

The Yankees, meanwhile, get a player who will have an instant impact at the plate — especially with the short right-field porch — and will be a potent power addition beside fellow slugging outfielder Aaron Judge. In 2023, Soto hit .275 and banged out 35 home runs and 32 doubles on his way to 109 RBIs. With one year remaining on his deal with the Padres and given the haul they sent the other way, it is expected the Yankees will sign Soto to a lucrative, multi-year extension.

Not that the Jays would have been able to give the Padres enough to land Soto, the fact that he’s gone to a division rival certainly heightens the impact of the Ohtani decision, one in which many in the industry expect to be resolved by the weekend. The Jays have been diligently working on other options should there be an immediate need to pivot.

“We’ve made some progress (in other areas),” Atkins said when we asked him about options beyond the headline-grabbing, high-end chase of players such as Ohtani and Soto. “A little bit more on the trade front. But we have a lot of information on players that we’re interested in and that are interested in us — a decent framework for expectations and timing.

“Fortunately we feel we’ll be in a position to pivot if need be and see a lot of avenues to make our team better.”

rlongley@postmedia.com