Buying time to sell tickets isn’t how contenders roll
This Randal Grichuk fellow better make one heckuva impact.
More, at least, than the last supposedly up-and-coming outfielder with pop with which the Blue Jays persuaded the St. Louis Cardinals to part. Ah, Colby Rasmus, we barely knew ye.
Otherwise, this has been a second consecutive yawn of an off-season for the Jays brain trust of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, and there’s not much candy-coating that reality.
The more they say they’re trying to compete, the less they seem to do things to actually compete.
All the significant names that were supposed to move in trades or as free agents this winter — Giancarlo Stanton, Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, Shohei Otani, Andrew McCutchen — have gone elsewhere. Again.
It’s been a long, long time since Jays fans had reason to be envious of the Milwaukee Brewers, but right now that would be the case.
While telling one and all they plan to battle with the best of the American League East this season, Shapiro and Atkins haven’t made a single move to suggest this team can actually do that after last year’s 76-win debacle. Instead, it’s been Grichuk, Al Alburquerque, Aled- mys Diaz, Yangervis Solarte and Curtis Granderson.
Beyond that, it’s about some heavenly belief that all the injuries that helped derail the 2017 season (only Jays players got hurt last season, didn’t you hear?) simply won’t reoccur.
No pressure on Nikki Huffman, the club’s new head athletic trainer. Just keep ’em all healthy all of the time, Nikki.
Aaron Sanchez’s blister will vanish. Troy Tulowitzki won’t be made of porcelain. The American League’s worst offence in ’17 will magically come back to life and the Jays will be able to grab the second wild-card slot next fall, now apparently viewed as baseball’s Holy Grail in the 416.
As they say in Angels in the Outfield, it could happen. But betting on best-case scenarios in baseball is rarely a path to success. Elbows explode too easily.
Expecting the worse and planning around it seems more sensible.
Meanwhile, the people tut-tutting all the pessimistic chatter and citing all the happy possibilities for 2018 are the same people who spent months last year talking about how the team had lots of time to recover from a horrendous spring.
Realists, meanwhile, certainly have reason to wonder when, if ever, Shapiro and Atkins, assuming they actually are trying to compete, will make a bolder move than Kendrys Morales to improve this team rather than living off the work done by their popular predecessor, Alex Anthopoulos.
Now, this may be all about waiting for Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the most hyped Jays prospects since Sil Campusano or J.P. Arencibia. This may be a bona-fide rebuilding project in the works.
Then why not just say so? Why pretend to be a team trying to chase a World Series title or at least a playoff berth? Just rebuild, already. Houston gave everyone the blueprint.
What this really appears to be is an effort by the Jays front office to make it appear that they’re competing so as not to scare off their customers. Fool the fans, in other words, until Guerrero and Bichette arrive.
That, however, is more likely to alienate the fans. As it stands, the Jays have suddenly fallen well behind the Leafs, Raptors and TFC as local professional teams worth taking seriously at the moment. The Raps, to be sure, had acquired almost as many skeptics as the Jays going into this NBA season, but their stars have played well, Masai Ujiri and Dwane Casey have proven patience and stability can work and the kids have come through.
Perhaps that’s the same script Shapiro and Atkins would like to see written for the Jays this season. The problem is, Toronto doesn’t have a baseball talent close to DeMar DeRozan at the moment, and the best Blue Jay kids aren’t ready to contribute like Pascal Siakam or Fred VanVleet have.
Instead, we get a confusing narra- tive. Aging and injury-prone Marco Estrada, 34, is re-signed. The 37year-old Granderson is signed as a free agent, another sign the oldest team in baseball isn’t worried about being the oldest team in baseball.
Connor Greene, the 11th-best prospect in the system last year according to MLB Pipeline, is sent to St. Louis in the Grichuk deal, albeit after a disappointing season at Double-A New Hampshire. Also moved was 26-year-old reliever Dominic Leone, one of the few overachievers on the team last season. Trading arms for outfielders, this was.
One supposes these sideways moves could be compared to the decisions by Lou Lamoriello to bring in the likes of P-A Parenteau and Daniel Winnik two seasons ago and trade away prospects such as Greg McKegg and Carter Verhaeghe. They are essentially non-impact transactions to bring in space holders and move out middling prospects, and maybe that’s all the Jays are doing right now.
The difference was that at that time the Leafs had clearly articulated their plan, which essentially boiled down to doing whatever was necessary to get Auston Matthews. Mike Babcock preached “pain.”
The Jays, on the other hand, haven’t articulated a clear plan either way. They seem not to want to, preferring to keep everyone guessing, and thus perhaps motivated not to walk away from their season tickets. As it stands, however, it’s very hard to look at all Shapiro and Atkins have done since they arrived and see a single move that has made the Jays better now or for the immediate future. Maybe eventually it will be right-handed pitcher Nate Pearson or shortstop Logan Warmoth, both drafted last year. We’ll see. But they’re far away.
So Grichuk needs to be a hit. Otherwise, unless there’s a big move still coming with pitchers and catchers reporting in less than three weeks, Jays fans are going to continue to believe in a front office that hasn’t made the team a stitch better on the field since Anthopoulos left town 21⁄ years ago.
2 Damien Cox’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday.