Plan sounds good, but will Jays actually land quality pitchers?

When Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins vows that he and the team are “all in” on shopping for the best starting pitchers money can buy, there’s no reason to doubt him.

Really.

But there’s a vast difference between being an aggressive shopper and having a realistic shot at landing one of the bigger fish available, a reality countless Toronto GMS before Atkins have faced.

So we can expect the usual roadblocks will be at play as Atkins and his assistants, Joe Sheehan and Mike Murov, work the lobbies and the phones here during the annual Baseball Winter Meetings, which get down to serious business on Monday.

Atkins explained it rather clearly in advance of the most important week of the off-season when outlining his detailed checklist when browsing for a starting pitching.

“In a perfect world, you would be acquiring someone that had a track record, athleticism, that had durability and had shown sustained levels of success,” Atkins said. “When you are checking all of those boxes you are (talking about pitchers) at the top of rotations and you have 30 teams with interest in you.

“As fewer of those boxes become checked, the acquisition cost is different. In an ideal world, we’d like to have all of those boxes checked.”

It isn’t a perfect nor an ideal world for Atkins to do business, a reality to which he is growing accustomed. Because of location, a recent stark downturn in results and the competitive realities of the American League East, it’s always a tough sell when wooing free agents. Even when Alex Anthopoulos was GM of the Blue Jays, most successful acquisitions came via trade.

It’s also why most of the acquisitions Atkins has made in recent off-seasons have come with varying levels of a flaw or need for reclamation.

In broad terms, prospective free agents not only want to go where the money is, but where there’s a better chance of winning. And Atkins certainly wouldn’t be the first Jays GM to battle the allure of the big-money, perennial contending Red

Sox and Yankees.

Add to the challenge the hesitancy to come to a “foreign” country, not withstanding the fact Toronto is a more attractive city than many in the big leagues.

As much as the players who have been part of the organization rave about it, there is still some hesitancy (and ignorance) for those being courted.

And given the 95-loss season — the most for the Jays since 1980 — surely there is some urgency, at least as it relates to Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro. The temperature of the fan base is cooling, and not just in its interest to by tickets.

Anger and frustration, justified or not, seems to be a common sentiment.

Who knows for certain if the Jays are on any sort of clock to turn things around, both in the standings and at the turnstiles.

One certainly must wonder what those at the parent company, Rogers Communications are thinking. The 1.75 million people who went to the Rogers Centre in 2019 for a Jays game is almost half of the 3.4 million who did so just three seasons earlier.

Atkins and Shapiro will say all the right things this week about sticking to the process, the promise of the young prospects and the shine in the distance of better times ahead. And there’s certainly some truth to that — rebuilds aren’t easy and when done properly take time, the prospect pool is deep and times will get better.

It all circles back to starting pitching, however.

The situation first-year manager Charlie Montoyo and veteran pitching coach Pete Walker were saddled with last season was borderline embarrassing.

The team used 21 starters and Atkins acknowledged he has just one name pencilled into the rotation for 2020 — recently acquired Chase Anderson.

“Matt Shoemaker, Ryan Borucki and Trent Thornton could make up one or two spots, depending on the rest of our off-season,” Atkins said.

Each of those three have potential, but also question marks.

Veteran Shoemaker got off to a great start with the Jays last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury and will have to show he’s recovered from that setback. As for left-hander Borucki, he hasn’t pitched in almost two seasons and Thornton must renew the promise he showed from his workhorse rookie season. Atkins says the Jays will be active in exploring trades but there will be no desperation moves.

“(We’re) not ready to deal prospects for a one-two year type player who would help the team immediately,” Atkins said.

With a thin starting pitching market and some uncertainty with those on the 40-man roster, there could well be more suffering ahead. Realistically, the best Atkins can do this off-season is to look for gains while keeping the pain to the short term.

As off-season optimism goes, it’s not exactly built for a marketing slogan.