Toronto Blue Jays extend contract of GM Ross Atkins beyond 2019 season

[dagger]

I don't think much of the Grichuk contract, but as others have noted, it's not that much of an overpay, and could work out in the long run. Julian Merryweather makes his first start Monday somewhere in the system, and until I see how how that pans out I'm not going to pass final judgment on the Donaldson situation. Edwin is having a good year with the long ball, but not much else and as a DH would be blocking someone in our rebuild - since the DH is being rotated around various players including Vlad Jr. I think the Jays value defence - with a young lineup, there is no way around waiting on improvements. Typically, young glove first players can't hit their way out of a wet paper bag. So you go for the offence and try to make those good young players improve their D, which is what the team is doing with both Teoscar and Lourdes Jr. If you want to emphasize D, you'd probably still have Vlad Jr in Buffalo. As for the poor clubhouse vibe, John Gibbons tolerated a lot, but he was not the current regime's choice. As for "trading all of our decent assets", come on, a bunch of veterans in decline who suited the 2015 scenario but saw their production fall off with age in 2017 and 2018. I'm really not sure why you think "assets" with whom the Jays couldn't tread water in 2017 and 2018 were so valuable to begin with.

[Ado05]

Happ for Drury and Mckinney was pretty brutal.

[billy_hoyle]

I can't name a thing Shatkins has tangibly done well. I like what they have done with the draft, but that doesn't really mean anything right now. No picks have put it together and shown to be stars in the majors yet (and to compete in our division we need stars around the diamond).

I feel we have pretty clearly lost value everywhere else (free agency and trades).

Now, I don't expect drafted players to become stars overnight, but when these guys are flailing over the other avenues of team building, and they only have the mystery box (draft) to fall back on, I think it's reasonable for posters to have a poor opinion of the front office.

What are the things this front office has done well?

[gundysmullet]

Happ for Drury and Mckinney was pretty brutal.

I think that is my biggest issue, the fact that they had the PR team out in full force talking about how much “upside” both of these players had. That tells me that these guys just don’t have a really good eye for talent.

[Schad]

It's worth noting that, while most of this board (myself included) disliked the Happ for Drury/McKinney trade, most of the league-watchers liked it. Drury was oddly well-regarded within the league. No, I'm not really sure why, either.

It's also worth noting that Shapiro/Atkins are the ones who acquired Happ; he'd been traded by AA in 2014, and they signed him in free agency after 2015 to what proved to be a very cheap contract relative to his production, and one that may have been the difference between us making or missing the playoffs given that they were operating on a shoestring post-AA.

Beyond rebuilding the farm system I'd add a few: we traded JB Woodman (a pretty hopeless barely-prospect) for Aledmys Diaz, and then swapped Diaz for Trent Thornton. The Osuna-for-Giles trade has worked out as well as we could hope, given that we were under significant pressure to move Osuna (and had committed to never playing him again): we got a like-for-like replacement of high quality, plus a couple big arms. Assuming we get a good return for Giles, that could prove to be a pretty consequential choice.

The organization definitely erred by not rebuilding earlier, but that was a decision mandated above their heads. It's hard to know what we'd have gotten for our vets had they actually been allowed to move them, and had age/injury not caught up to a bunch of those players at a really inconvenient time. The only asset of particular note (at the time they were traded) that we have moved in their time is Happ...we hung on to Bautista, Donaldson too long, and by the time the powers that be were ready to shift gears, it was too late to recoup value.

In free agency, there have been a couple missteps, but the reality is that we haven't had much money to spend at any point in their tenure. We were up against it when AA left, didn't have much during the playoff year and the "we're totally chasing the playoffs, you guys" seasons, and this past offseason had a large mandated cut to payroll. It's difficult to get difference-makers when you're limited to small expenditures.

Overall, the next few months will go a long way to determining the success of their tenure. Within the next month we'll move Stroman and Giles, and in the winter we will have money to spend. It's the first time that they will have the opportunity to do more than staunch the bleeding.

[Schad]

Also feel obliged to mention that they signed some kid out of Cuba to a somewhat risky long-term major league deal when he hadn't played in nearly a year, which could lead to us having Gurriel's arb years crazy cheap. And just having Gurriel at all.

[The_Hater]

This was the right move.

Nothing worse than abandoning your management in the middle of a tough rebuild and anyone that couldn’t see this coming after Anthopoulos emptied the farm system while fielding MLB’s oldest team (for 2 straight seasons) just had their head in the sand. I just wish ownership had kept their nose out of things and it would have started at least 12 months earlier.

[ratul]

Look, we can agree to disagree. I’ve made my thoughts well known. Nothing has changed. This front office is trash and should have been fired yesterday. It will only get worse or until Rogers realizes this is going to cost them dearly. Fans might not come back. Especially if the raps/leafs/tfc are competitive

[Black Watch]

The only asset of particular note (at the time they were traded) that we have moved in their time is Happ...we hung on to Bautista, Donaldson too long, and by the time the powers that be were ready to shift gears, it was too late to recoup value.

I'm still sour that we brought Bautista back and missed out on the comp pick in that year's draft (if he was telling the truth when he said he turned down other offers to return to the Jays).