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Originally Posted by howard_the_duck
Donaldson has averaged around 156 games throughout his career, which in the major leagues hasn't been terribly long. Durability though has never been a concern from him aside from last year.
I don't get the outrage on the Granderson move. He's not an Upton clone except for the fact he strikes out a lot. Granderson has a far better eye, is a better defender, and is a tremendous teammate. For $5MM, instead of trading for a McCutchen type? Sign me up...this won't do anything but add flexibility to the roster, and downside is very minimal if anything.
Aside from trading Donaldson, curious to what exactly you'd do differently if you were in Atkins' shoes? It's an aging roster with huge salaries tied up into the aging core, but there is still some relatively strong pieces in place to have one more crack at a division/wild card race if things break for you.
To go all in, they'd have to trade the Vlad/Bo type prospects which is just counter intuitive at this stage, or overpay tremendously for free agents that will take away from financial flexibility when the young prospects are contributing to the Jays at MLB level.
Frankly, I don't disagree with the direction of the team at the moment given where their roster is. If Donaldson could have netted a package of top end prospects right now, I'm sure he'd be well on his way already. Fact is he may be able to contribute to a wild card capable team, so I don't blame Atkins for hanging on to him to see how things play out in the first half.
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I don’t think it’s the Granderson move in itself that has people enraged, I think that it’s the culmination of another terrible offseason ending with a signing that really doesn’t make much sense. The Jays should have unloaded last year instead of putting up this BS facade that they were still trying to compete. The fact that Atkins has come out this off-season and said they that really had no real desire to compete so they made a few signings to appease the fan base is revolting and most Blue Jays should take that as a complete slap to te face. This guy told everyone who would listen last year that it was their goal to continue to compete for the World Series.
It’s too late now to unload, even Donaldson would have little value given his upcoming free agency. So it’s time to let some prospects sink or swim like the Astros did for a years. Signing Granderson to be an every day outfielder is pointless. I’m not surprised though that some of the people who argued with me tooth and nail last year that Pierce and Morales were a legitimate baseball moves to improve the team are the same people who have no problem bringing in a 40 year to play the corner outfield positions on a rebuilding team. For some reason the Jays seems to enjoy carte Blanche for criticism from a bigger percentage of their fans than most other sports teams in Canada. If the Flames did something like this they would be getting absolutely roasted.
This team is completely directionless. I have no problem with reducing my payroll, but if you are going to do it, do it right. They didn’t go all in when they should have (it would not have required Guerrero or Bichette back in 2015 or 2016), and they won’t go full rebuild when they should now. Just a holding pattern. Granderson is such a Toronto signing. Complete bust of an offfseason, followed by signing an irrelevant player that people will recognize the name.