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TORONTO — Relievers are the most volatile investment in baseball and the Kirby Yates situation has provided a dose of reality in that department.

No matter how you looked at it, there was risk to the Yates deal.

A 34-year-old coming off season-ending elbow surgery is always an upside play on a one-year deal and it’s the reason he cost the Toronto Blue Jays $5.5 million instead of double that figure and double the term.

Aside from that, there’s also the inherent risk of any pitcher taking the mound. Any pitch can be their last. An arm injury is always one throw away. For all of them.

The Yates gamble worked out about as poorly as anyone could’ve possibly imagined for the Jays, as they got just two Grapefruit League innings out of the veteran closer in the end, bypassing numerous other options in free agency for the allure of upside.

Does that make it wrong? Not at all.

It was a deal that was applauded by just about everyone back in January, so playing the role of Henry Hindsight and saying targeting pitchers with iffy track records of health is a fault of the front office would be wrong.

Sometimes these deals work out, many times they don’t.

There was never any guarantee he’d find his 2019 form in the first place and the Jays knew that going into it.

They also knew the risk. All of it.

They knew Yates had a free-agent deal with another club fall through, and they even took the extreme step of having the right-hander throw for them in Dunedin before they signed him.

They knew another setback might mean surgery and it unfortunately didn’t take long for that to come to fruition and the Jays flushed $5.5 million down the drain as Yates will “most likely” undergo Tommy John at some point soon.

“We knew it was very high risk with potential of high reward,” GM Ross Atkins said. “We feel very good about Kirby Yates in this environment, and this is just part of it. Part of it didn't work out for the Blue Jays this year.”

Now, the bullpen plan is forced to change with a week-and-a-half to go until the games start to count in the Bronx, but it’s not as if it’s suddenly a weak group of relievers.

It just doesn’t have the overall upside it did with a vintage Yates potentially holding things down in the ninth inning. That dream is dead.

The dream that isn’t dead is Jordan Romano building on his breakout 2020 campaign and becoming one of the nastiest relievers in baseball, using his putaway pitch — the slider — and a 97-mph to confound hitters at both sides of the plate.

Then there’s a potentially solid trio of veterans in Rafael Dolis, Tyler Chatwood and David Phelps, all of whom need to be good — and stay healthy — for this to work.

Julian Merryweather, an arm I’ve touted as a potential closer on numerous occasions, flies under the radar, but that’s because he simply can’t stay healthy, either, so it’s impossible to count on him as anything other than an arm with big time upside.

Like I said, you just never really know with relievers. Any of them.

It’s going to take some luck, some health and maybe an unexpected breakout or two — a la Romano and Ryan Borucki from a year ago — for this bullpen to make it to July without coming unglued, leaving manager Charlie Montoyo to mix and match almost from day one.

The turn of events Tuesday also left Atkins saying the loss of Yates, along with the Nate Pearson groin injury and Thomas Hatch’s bout of elbow inflammation — the reports on those two young arms, however, are encouraging — may force them to expedite their eventual search for pitching.

Previously, the thought was they could maybe get to June or July before they did that. Now, they’re already kicking tires and brainstorming.

Atkins didn’t just talk about depth adds, either, specifically mentioning “raising the ceiling” which is GM-speak for trading for an impact player who matters.

In an odd way, the Yates injury could create some urgency that might help this team add pitching earlier than expected and make them better.

That’s the glass-half-full take, for sure, but there is certainly talent in the prospect pipeline to make trades for any name that’s actually available.

After a promising start to camp, the Jays have been bitten by the bad luck bug repeatedly.

On the same day they announced the Yates news, we learned an MRI on George Springer’s left side revealed a Grade 2 oblique strain, a notoriously tricky injury for a hitter trying to rotate to barrel up a baseball.

Somehow, Springer has been able to play through the issue for the most part this spring, but the Jays will need to be extra cautious with their $150 million man and his status for opening day is in doubt.

“The MRI revealed an injury that he's able to play baseball with,” Atkins said. “He’s extremely motivated and driven to be ready for opening day. I would imagine that it would have to be us taking that completely out of his hands in order for him not to be playing (in New York), so we’ll stay open-minded to it and reassess it as we continue to get closer.”

While it would be as disappointing for Springer as it would be for Jays fans if he misses opening day in New York — or maybe the entire series — against a division rival, it would not be smart to mess around, rush him back and then have him hit the IL in early April, wasting the entire first month of the season in the end.

To make matters worse, lefty starter Robbie Ray, one of the bright spots this spring in Florida and a pitcher integral to the front office’s hopes of putting together a capable rotation, fell down some stairs while carrying his kid at his Dunedin rental.

He protected the little one, but ended up with a bruised left elbow.

Atkins is hopeful Ray will be ready to start next weekend in New York as planned.

For a talented team that still needs a lot of things to go right for them to be a legit contender in 2021, it’s becoming a bit of an ominous end to what had been a positive camp down in Dunedin this month.