TORONTO – The task of rebuilding a Toronto Blue Jays pitching staff gutted by free agency began Tuesday when the $12-million club option for 2016 on R.A. Dickey was exercised, along with those of sluggers Jose Bautista ($14 million) and Edwin Encarnacion ($10 million).

Infielder Maicer Izturis also received a $1-million buyout when his $3-million option was declined as part of the first moves under new president Mark Shapiro and interim GM Tony LaCava.

In bringing back Dickey, the Blue Jays secured a 200-inning pillar of stability to a rotation that at the moment also includes burgeoning ace Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchison, who pitched his way off the 2015 staff. David Price, Marco Estrada and Mark Buehrle are gone to free agency, and the deadline wheeling and dealing of Alex Anthopoulos has left the team with no upper level pitching prospects.

Youngsters Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna both could be stretched out, but that would leave gaping holes in the bullpen.

The entire pitching situation borders on alarming, as the Blue Jays have only 14 pitchers on the 40-man roster – Aaron Loup, Ryan Tepera, Bo Schultz, Steve Delabar, Chad Jenkins, Ben Rowen and Pat Venditte among them – underlining just how thin the upper levels of the organization are right now.

That means they need not only to fill in the rotation, but also fortify a bullpen that lost LaTroy Hawkins to retirement and Mark Lowe to free agency, and replenish organizational depth – three very tall orders.

One way for the Blue Jays to do it is by subtracting from their position player core to add pitching.

“At this point we’re open, if we have to reallocate, we have to reallocate,” LaCava said Monday, before the options were picked up. “We’re not saying if we will or we won’t right now, we just have to look and be opportunistic with what’s out there. That’s something Alex was as good as anybody with, being opportunistic and looking at opportunities. Josh Donaldson a year ago, we would have never even thought. We just have to be prepared.”

How much money Shapiro and LaCava have to work with is unknown, although with the options exercised, the Blue Jays now have $71 million committed to five players – Dickey, Bautista, Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin. Donaldson is one of nine players eligible for arbitration, and assuming all return (there are candidates to be released and re-signed), that would add another $33 million based on projections by MLBTradeRumors.com (led by Donaldson’s estimated $12 million).

If it plays out that way, the Blue Jays would have $104 million on the books to 14 players, with Stroman, Kevin Pillar, Ryan Goins, Devon Travis, Chris Colabello, Sanchez, Osuna and Liam Hendriks all in the 0-3 year service time range and likely to cost a total in the $4.5-million range.

Assuming a payroll similar to the roughly $135 million the Blue Jays are estimated to have spent in 2015, that leaves about $26.5 million to work with this off-season, although that total can be increased if some of the arbitration-eligible players are negotiated down or non-tendered (Ben Revere’s projected $6.7 million is an interesting call).

It’s with all that in mind that the Blue Jays must decide whether to extend Marco Estrada a qualifying offer of $15.8 million ahead of Friday’s deadline (doing so would ensure draft pick compensation should he leave), and how serious a run to make at Price, whose potential price tag has been estimated by industry people at anywhere from somewhere north of Jon Lester’s $155 million over six years to just south of Max Scherzer’s $210 million over seven years.

One interesting thing to note is that the Blue Jays have all kinds of payroll flexibility after this season as the only guaranteed money on the books beyond 2016 is the $20 million Martin is due 2017-19, and the $20 million due to Tulowitzki 2017-19 plus $14 million more in 2020.

But Shapiro and LaCava must also chart a course of action with Bautista and Encarnacion, both eligible for free agency next fall. Extensions for them will be pricey, and quickly eat into that financial flexibility.

Picking up the options was the easy part – the heavy lifting starts now.

One noteworthy item from Mark Shapiro’s introductory news conference was his outlook on the Blue Jays’ spring training facility in Dunedin, Fla. The poor state of the practice fields led to Michael Saunders’ knee injury this spring, and the entire complex has been lapped by those of other clubs. It’s something the new president and CEO has taken note of. “Spring Training complex as a generality, I think needs to be something that there’s some attention paid to,” he said. “I was aware of that coming in. Certainly not hard to be aware of that. I can tell you my general philosophy and belief is that spring training is one of the most important resources in building a championship culture. It needs to be a state-of-the-art facility that provides a culture capable of rehabbing, training, developing players in a cutting-edge environment that provides a competitive advantage. We’ll look to do that, hopefully in Dunedin.”

Shapiro is also expected to oversee some modernization of Rogers Centre, and he said he’s had only cursory conversations to this point about the progress of the grass field research. Ultimately, he added, what is done “starts with the fan, starts with the market, how can we adapt a building that obviously has certain features that isn’t going to allow it to be completely changed or altered, how do we adapt that building to create the best fan experience. If you start with the fan and work out, you’ll end up with the right answers.”