Head-scratcher
Management’s spin on Donaldson deal quite simply doesn’t pass the smell test
Ross Atkins has the math all figured out but as the Blue Jays general manager is about to learn, it’s unlikely to ever add up for the team’s hyper-loyal fans.
There’s a reasonable chance Atkins will get a glimpse of that passion as early as Thursday if Josh Donaldson, who he dealt to the Indians on Friday, is in the Cleveland lineup at the Rogers Centre for the first of four.
And Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro will really get a sense of how frustrated a fan base can be should Donaldson lead the Tribe on an extended run through the American League playoffs.
But rather than acknowledging that he gave the 2015 AL MVP away for next to nothing — and paid the Indians more than $2.7 million to welcome him to a new clubhouse, Atkins said it was the deal that made sense.
On a conference call with reporters, Atkins vowed that the prospect coming Toronto’s way — a player to be named later, albeit — has more value than one of the elite hitters in the game.
“There’s more to it than the fact the (player to be named later) hasn’t touched the big leagues,” said Atkins, who added that four teams were interested as the bidding for Donaldson got serious late Friday afternoon. “It’s the years of control, the cost of the player and what that means for efficiency in your roster.
“If you want to talk about it that way, is one year at whatever value that might be for Josh Donaldson more valuable than six years of Player X at Cost Y?”
At face value, that explanation rather succinctly sums up how Atkins and Shapiro plan to go forward: Build a strong and thorough farm system and have a steady flow of big-league talent in the future.
It sounds great in theory and perhaps is absolutely necessary to competitively reside in the AL East. But when the player in question leaving is Donaldson — a huge factor in picking this team up from two decades of pitiable play — it doesn’t pass the smell test. And that’s the case even if the newcomer is as Atkins describes “a near-term prospect that will impact the major league team in a significant way.”
And the kicker?
“We feel very good about our return,” Atkins said. “Ultimately we felt like it was our best decision for our future.”
For the reasons mentioned above, he may even mean it.
Try selling that to the fans who have suffered through the past two years and have much more ahead, though. Incredibly, 640,000 viewers tuned in to Monday’s TV broadcast of the Jays-Orioles game and not all of them are suckers.
Below the surface, of course, the details of the Donaldson divorce are far more tawdry.
As Donaldson told the
Toronto Sun earlier last week there was a clear disconnect between the two sides in terms of the pace of his recovery and even the methods. Atkins defended the team’s actions in that regard, however.
“Josh was driving this timeline entirely, was leading us through when he wanted to play and we followed his lead on that,” Atkins said. “Not at one point did we place any pressure on him.
“Ultimately, Josh decided this past off season to follow his own path. He was not using our resources in the off season, which was fine with us. We supported him 100 per cent in his desire to do that.”
As you would expect, Donaldson himself wouldn’t describe it in such favourable terms. He was clearly frustrated with the way things unfolded.
“People who know me know that I want to be out there and that I love doing this more than anything,” Donaldson said of the three month and counting time on the DL recuperating a badly injured calf. “To have the confidence in my body to be able to produce at a high level has taken some time because of what has happened leading up to this point.
“That’s why it’s taking me a little longer to get to this point because of how everything has been handled.”
For his part, Atkins said there was no pressure to get Donaldson to play or to speed up his recovery. So for now that remains a he said, she said situation.
The deal won’t be truly gauged for years, of course, but the odds are heavily leaning toward the transaction being a huge loss for the Jays.
“Josh is an incredible player and will continue to be an incredible player,” Atkins said. “As we weighed our alternatives, it just came down to us feeling this was the best alternative for us in the moment.”
And then as a potential bone for the fans, Atkins later expanded in a dugout interview with Sportsnet’s Arash Madani.
“We miss him, too,” Atkins said. “We realize this is a very difficult thing. (The fans) turn on the television to watch Josh Donaldson, we realize that.
“We want to sustain a championship-level team and to do that we have to make difficult decisions.”
But good riddance just the same.
Ultimately, we felt like it was our best decision for our future. Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins