Balanced Atkins diet feeding Jays system
Analytics just part of puzzle as GM looks to establish consistent contender
There was a time not too long ago when “thinking outside the box” was the credo of major-league general managers seeking to gain an advantage on the competition. Forwardthinking teams, led by the Oakland A’s duo of Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane, maximized payroll value via advanced use of statistics such as onbase percentage and emerging — at the time — non-traditional analyses.
The A’s move towards sabermetrics, beginning in the late 1990s, led to Moneyball. The rest of baseball, especially small-market teams, were left scrambling to catch up. Then in 2014 came Major League Baseball’s experiment with Statcast, a radar/ video system starting out in three ballparks, now installed in all 30 stadiums, that seemed intent on levelling the playing field of information. What once had been outside the box has all 30 teams inside the same box. Ross Atkins, the Blue Jays’ secondyear GM, was asked if it’s now possible for teams to ever achieve separation again.
“No question, that’s what we think about on a daily basis,” Atkins said. “It was: OK, here’s the information available to us. Other teams have it, so it’s what you do with it. Not everyone has the same way to interpret it and teams are building their own ways of measuring information and data, so there are different stats and different measurements of information that are generated and created by teams. I don’t think there was a team that, right out of the gate, knew what to do with Statcast, and now teams are able to properly apply (the results).”
Statcast and the new wave of information may help to explain the similar free-agent view that the 30 big-league teams had of some players who had trouble finding the contracts they felt they deserved. Among the disappointed free agents were Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Trumbo, Chris Carter, Billy Butler and Pedro Alvarez.
“Statcast is relatively new and it’s: How are we going to be prepared to use this information effectively before the other 29 teams are?” Atkins said. “The difference can be in how different teams interpret and weight the information.”
The Blue Jays are trying to separate themselves from other organizations in the minds of major-league players and potential free agents by enlisting a high-performance team of employees to work with players on life, nutrition and health, veering away from antiquated weight training, meals and muscle-building.
“It’s not just keeping guys on our major-league field,” Atkins said. “It’s getting them better. So, the strides that Aaron Sanchez made last year? Aaron Sanchez made them, but a lot of people had a hand in helping him, there’s no question. That’s also helping us acquire better international players. (High performance) is involved in trades. They’re working with analytics to help find the right indicators of future success and the right indicators of development.”
Atkins entered a Jays scene a year ago in which much of the upper levels of the minor leagues had been thinned out as far as pitching prospects were concerned by those very trades that had allowed the Jays to make the post-season in 2015 and 2016, ending a 21-year drought. So are the Jays behind in terms of almost-ready-for-prime-time prospects at Double-A and Triple-A.
“Actually, I think that our (prospect pool) is relatively diversified,” Atkins said. “If you think about our Triple-A outfield, our Double-A rotation, our Triple-A infield — depending on where guys land.
“Last year’s draft, the (Francisco Liriano) trade last year (in which the Jays also acquired two prospects, outfielder Harold Ramirez and catcher Reese McGuire, for taking on Liriano’s salary), the acquisition of (Cuban free agent Lourdes) Gurriel, I think there is plenty of upper-level talent. I think the one area where we’re lacking a little bit is our Triple-A rotation.”
Some of the prized prospects to whom Atkins refers include outfielders Anthony Alford and Ramirez; pitchers Sean Reid-Foley, Conner Greene and Ryan Borucki, plus infielders Rowdy Tellez, Gurriel and Richard Urena.
Meanwhile, it’s not just the majorleague team where Atkins is trying to create a winning environment.
He feels he owes it to the Buffalo ownership and fans to put a competitive team on the field at Triple-A. If successful, it serves a dual purpose.
“We feel that responsibility,” Atkins said. “We think about it two ways. We have to have depth for our majorleague team and ideally we want it to be guys that we’ve scouted and devel- oped, potentially traded for and developed. But when that’s not there, for two reasons we need to make sure we sign (free-agent veterans such as) Lucas Harrell, T.J. House, Jarrett Grube and Brett Oberholtzer. The purpose is, one, for our majorleague team and two, to put a winning team in Buffalo.”
So does winning breed winning at the major-league level? Does Atkins feel a responsibility to fans to maintain a contending team?
“I just get up every day and think about: How are we going to get better,” Atkins said. “Not just our majorleague team, but amateur scouting, international scouting, player development, high performance, building out our baseball operations team and staff to collectively make better decisions to help us win and sustain winning. I don’t focus on the past. I don’t focus on why we’re in certain positions. I focus on the present situation and how to improve it.”