TORONTO – Ross Atkins’ hectic days working from home during this virtual winter get-together gave his family a glimpse into the madness inherent in baseball’s annual swap get-together.
“My wife said to me, ‘This is the first time I’ve seen the winter meetings,” said the Toronto Blue Jays general manager on Thursday after Rule 5 closed the temporary meeting with just zoom and phone said to me: ‘I’ve never seen you on the phone so often in my life.’ I talk on the phone a lot. “
Up to this point, all the talking has produced nothing tangible but a few waivers that temporarily filled the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster.
To sum up the week’s progress, Atkins delivered the usual platitudes in his pursuit of the top-end players in the market, saying he feels “there’s momentum” that transactions don’t “feel like we’re weeks away”, and that there are “more specific offers” everywhere.
When asked if he thinks the Blue Jays will keep looking for all of their top targets, Atkins replied, “I do.” When asked if what they have learned so far has changed their approach to addressing the roster, he replied, “We have prioritized goals and start with them before making multiple offers. We haven’t eliminated anyone. “
Atkins, perhaps sensing the growing attention of fans, whose expectations were raised by the boldness of the club, at least by its standards, and spoke of making even more impact this winter, it may have an impact on the next step you take can, and on the design of all of your preparations.
“But we feel prepared and have done the job for this time when we need to make a decision,” he continued. “We are ready.”
Then why didn’t more happen? This is a fair question, especially given that several agents have cited the Blue Jays as very active in the market.
In part, the industry as a whole isn’t moving, a short run of one-year pitcher deals that began with Robbie Ray’s signing is still the biggest spurt of activity.
Texas Rangers closed two deals this week, taking on Tampa Bay’s Nate Lowe in a six-player deal while sending ace Lance Lynn to the White Sox, who also signed Adam Eaton. But a traffic jam remains in the market and runs up to the players signing minor league deals as they don’t want to commit until they better understand how the bigger pieces are going to fall this winter.
One of them, George Springer, appeared to be working towards a solution this week with reports from New York of a Mets push for the outfielder, but these quickly subsided and little else shifted publicly. The ongoing effects of the pandemic, the uncertainty about what 2021 will look like across all areas of the sport, and the reluctance of teams and players to jump first and establish markets are other dynamics.
“It’s fair to say that normally you would have seen one of these high-end players at least made some news today, that a deal was approaching or being closed and we didn’t see any names for teams.” Atkins said. “I think you probably would have seen this a year ago.”
Intuitively, one would think that luck would favor the brave and that a team determined to get something done could simply force the problem by bringing their best offer to the table early to trigger the endgame.
Atkins insisted it was more complicated.
“We don’t force anything on the players. We don’t put our schedules on the players to make sure they come back to us, ”he explained. “We want to be very respectful when we have gained the right to freedom, and we are unable to do so. We feel that there are plenty of opportunities to be disciplined and patient in various places. “
To that end, Atkins said the Blue Jays hadn’t made a final offer to a top-notch free agent since a deal that fell through at the start of the off-season was believed to be an attempt to sign right-hander Kevin Gausman.
The Blue Jays have advised agents that their current focus is on free-agent targets like Springer, DJ LeMahieu and JT Realmuto, whose market outlook could suddenly change dramatically with the addition of Dave Dombrowski of the Philadelphia Phillies as president of baseball operations.
The star shortstop Francisco Lindor is a potential trading option, though getting a deal with Cleveland and at least sorting through the parameters of an expansion is a tough job.
Whatever the Blue Jays are doing on this front, they are not excluded from other significant supplements, and they have been active on other fronts, including at the high end of the auxiliary market, industry sources told colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith and myself on Wednesday.
At the same time, the Blue Jays are looking for ways to replenish the roster if other steps make it necessary. And they have several plans beyond Plan A in case whatever it is fails.
When she or any other team will start turning the fundamentals into actual transactions is unclear, although it does seem like a series of movements will seep beneath the surface and soon push their way through the ground.
If the winter meetings had taken place in person, this outbreak might have already happened.
“There’s an unspoken pressure that occurs when we’re all under the same roof,” Atkins said. “When [media] Ask us these questions years ago. Did we feel the pressure to get something done? I think most executives say no. But time is an unspoken thing when a day goes by and you feel that this opportunity is an opportunity for you to optimize and maximize and you try to discipline yourself to make sure you do nothing [just] something to do.
“It is only from the human nature of this unspoken, very soft period of Thursday after the winter meeting that various possibilities arise. But these are only opportunities to meet up with a team for coffee after 9 p.m. or at 6 a.m. Every front office, every agent, all of you are thinking about how we can maximize those 16 hours in a day before we just put our heads on the pillow, and we probably don’t do that well virtually virtually. “
