As we prepare for the baseball bazaar at next week's winter meetings, the Toronto Blue Jays are steadily nudging the public toward accepting a large step backward.

After losing a half-dozen guys, the team's only notable addition thus far is Kendrys Morales – the sort of medium-risk filler that also-rans use to plump up their rosters.

Morales – a player incapable of fielding a position, and one who had a lower Wins Against Replacement last year than all of the position players in the Jays starting lineup – is being made to sound like Babe Ruth reincarnated.

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"Because Morales is here, we ... feel like we will be in a position to be more opportunistic later in the off-season," general manager Ross Atkins said this week.

In essence, let's let the big spenders have their turn, and then rummage through the bargain bin in February to see which misfit toys we can dig out. If that doesn't work out, don't worry. We've got this guy over here who once missed two calendar years after jumping on home plate and blowing up his ankle. What could go wrong?

Well, a bunch of things.

As it currently stands, Toronto doesn't have an everyday first baseman. Or a left fielder. Or a right fielder. Or a backup catcher. It is, as currently constructed, a basketball team.

The Jays seem very like a delusional Toronto house hunter. You don't want to buy since things are so expensive. You keep telling yourself the prices have to drop some time. While you wait, the market continues to go through the roof. You steadily downgrade your expectations – you wanted something fully detached with a driveway. Eventually, you're willing to go with a tool shed that needs a little work. That's what being "opportunistic later in the off-season" is starting to sound like.

As in urban real estate, there are no real bargains in baseball. Every once in a while you get lucky – Jose Bautista circa 2011, for instance. But mostly you get what you pay for. Having enjoyed so much good fortune in recent years – acquiring Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Josh Donaldson effectively for nothing – one wonders if the Jays have begun to convince themselves that luck is a variety of skill. It isn't. It's luck. It goes both ways and does so chaotically.

This week, the New York Mets made Yoenis Cespedes – a very good, but not great player on the wrong side of 30 – one of the highest paid in history. Cespedes's average annual wage – $27.5-million (U.S.) – is the new normal for a dependable No. 3 or 4 hitter in the order.

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Right now, Morales is slotted into one of those two spots. He's getting $11-million a year. Everything about his history suggests he will perform at what that a-little-too-reasonable number suggests.

While on the one hand being told that anything is still possible, we're also being gently reminded that some things just aren't. Atkins broadly hinted that Morales isn't the beginning of a shopping spree. He's the end.

"Two guys [i.e. Encarnacion and Morales] that do similar things is less than ideal for a team and money has been spent. It doesn't make it impossible, but it's certainly made it less likely."

Take special note of "money has been spent." That may be a shot across the bows of Encarnacion's agent. More likely, it's a statement of fact by a major-market pro baseball team whose budget approach lies somewhere between depressingly rational and miserly.

So that's Encarnacion gone, as well as the suddenly forgotten man, Bautista. The latter's price is coming down, but his pride remains fully intact. It is difficult to imagine him walking back his demands so far that he ends up worse off than he was while playing for people who've already passed on him.

Parenthetically, we're beginning to get a sense of what makes Atkins good at his job. He never gets upset; he never over-promises; he never admits a door is closed until it's been bolted behind him; and, most important, he never tells a lie. It is the bad habit of sports fans to believe the best-case scenario when they're actually being told the worst. Atkins has a way of framing depressing news that makes it bearable. Or, at least, bearable as long as the team is still a winner.

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The success of the past couple of years has papered over the fact that the Jays remain one of those teams not willing to take major risks. When former GM Alex Anthopoulos did so, he was functionally fired for his trouble. Incoming president Mark Shapiro was able to consolidate his new regime by extending the run of luck Anthopoulos had begun. Now that the bills have come due, that's over.

What we're entering is a period of retrenchment.

From a business standpoint, you can see the wisdom in this. A lineup with Donaldson, Morales, Troy Tulowitzki, Devon Travis and Russell Martin is still pretty good. It's probably not playoff-good, but it's enough to get you into September with a chance.

If they can still win, the men on top look like geniuses. That's an alluring possibility for new-generation executives such as Shapiro and Atkins. What Theo Epstein proved in Chicago is that a general manager can be a bigger star than any of his players, as long as he's made enough counter-intuitive moves on the way to the mountaintop.

The secret is going loudly against public opinion. Letting Encarnacion and Bautista wander off with only a half-hearted pursuit would qualify as such. We've already seen them do this once, with David Price. That worked out okay.

If it goes sideways on them, they don't have to deal with it until this time next year. At that point, they can lure the fanbase's attention away with a coaching change or the big signing they might have made at this point.

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What Shapiro and Atkins can't fail to have noticed is that Toronto is uniquely susceptible to the yo-yo effect of roster management. You can let things drift off for a bit, frustrating fans. Just when they begin to pull back wholesale, you give them a nugget – trading for R.A. Dickey or Donaldson; putting up good money for a bad player such as Melvin Upton. You wait to see how that turns out. If it does (and it has), that buys you some time to let the yo-yo unfurl again. Two years of playoff appearances probably equals two more years' benefit of the doubt.

If Encarnacion and Bautista both leave and are not replaced by players of equal value (Morales doesn't qualify), the Jays aren't very good any more. They're just okay.

But that's probably enough for most people. At the least, they'll want to see how things turn out before losing their minds or losing interest in the team.

Viewed from that perspective, Shapiro and Atkins have a sort of prisoner's dilemma. They can spend on Encarnacion/Bautista (making fans happy and their employers' unhappy). Or they can go cheap (achieving the opposite effect).

Either case is completely conditional on how you do during the 2017 season. Both can end with everyone happy. But only one of them ends with you having saved a couple of hundred million dollars.

It's a reminder that the players never lie, either – when pressed, they'll tell you that baseball is a business. As such, it's not really about winning. It's about winning in a way that makes you the most cash.

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It's not very romantic, but it does have the benefit of being highly predictable.