Quote:
Originally Posted by bluejays
Fair enough. But you do have to agree that Atkins has not had the success he's wanted for their payroll, nor an obvious strategy of where they're heading. The criticism towards Atkins is well warranted specifically. His job is to win through trades and signings. He's not been able to succeed there. He's not been able to draft and develop prospects. His defence at the expense of offence has shown to be a failure, yet he's doubled down here. All in all, he's been a failure. Other front offices may be in similar situations too, I'm not excusing them, because your point is fair. But the critique against Atkins is fair.
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I still think they get more than their fair share of criticism. AA's best stretch of baseball in Toronto were 83, 93, 89 win seasons. Atkins and Shapiro had a stretch of 91, 92, 89.
Have they been perfect...Nope. But I think sometimes their biggest critique is just that they aren't AA.
To me the biggest and most fair criticism has to actually be their contract management, with drafting a close second.
Free agent signings have mostly been good: Gausman, Ryu, Semien, IKF, Kiermaier, etc were all pretty good signings. The Springer signing was an overpayment, but also a signing I get because they were trying to signal a bit of a culture change.
Trades are a bit of a mixed bag but overall still pretty good.
Berrios...a win.
Ray...huge win
Chapman...still a win although probably should have made a bigger effort to re-sign him.
Francis/Richards for Tellez...looks like it will be a win
Varsho for Gurriel and Moreno...kind of a push right now based on WAR but looks like it will be a loss long term due to Varsho's bat.
Hernandez for Swanson/Mack...this is a loss longer term, but in season 1 when Swanson was great for the bullpen it didn't look as bad, but really depends if Teoscar could have been re-signed to stay here or if he was walking after 2023 anyways.
Gimenez + Sandlin for Horwitz + Mitchell...I think we look back at this in 12 months as a steal of a deal.
But in the end the only piece they gave up in a trade that really hurts long term is Moreno because Gurriel and Teoscar didn't have much control left anyways.
Drafting is the biggest question or flaw for that team mostly because they haven't been able to draft any stars in the first round, even though overall drafting is probably okay.
2016: Bichette, Biggio as notables...with TJ Zeuch being the first round bust.
2017: Nate Pearson is the notable that was derailed with injury, Warmouth was the first round that didn't work out. Davis Schneider was a 28th round pick.
2018: Groshans, Conine, Kloffenstein, and Barger the notable names but no stars again.
2019: Manoah, Horwitz, Eden played games for the Jays, Manoah looked like a superstar...until he wasn't anymore.
2020: Martin is the biggest notable...at least got value in a trade for him.
2021: Hoglund, Tiedemann...got value in a trade for Hoglund, hopefully Tiedemann is something.
Probably too soon to really say too much about any of the 2022 and onwards picks.
International Free Agents have been pretty okay, especially early on, and maybe makes up for a bit of the drafting woes: Signed Moreno, Gurriel Jr, Alejandro Kirk, Pardinho (ranked 6th in 2017), Orelvis Martinez (ranked 7 in 2018).
Now where they've struggled a bit is keeping guys like Ray, Semien, and Chapman who they made good moves to get, but then couldn't convince to stay longer term. And then of course now with the Vladdy and Bo Bichette contract scenarios (but some bad luck involved there too where those players inconsistency made it hard to commit longer term).
Lots of room for improvement for sure, but they get talked about like they have done nothing good for the franchise and everything is terrible. Which really hasn't been the case at all. They just haven't been able to get the team over the hump.