Blue Jays reveal confidence with talk of acquiring 'impact' pitchers

TORONTO – Rarely do the Toronto Blue Jays say or do anything on whim. The team is meticulously process-oriented in virtually everything it does, especially when it comes to the front office’s public discourse, which usually includes advanced planning and prep with thorough talking points.

So when general manager Ross Atkins spoke with media for roughly 35 minutes on a Zoom call Monday as the annual general managers’ meetings kicked off virtually because of COVID-19, he would have known what he wanted to say.

That’s why it’s noteworthy that twice when discussing pitching, and later in blunter terms when talking about the overall roster, Atkins raised the bar in terms of the type of player the Blue Jays are after this off-season. “We’re focused on the calibre of acquisitions and looking for guys that can make a real impact,” he said two-thirds of the way through the conversation. “Everyone makes a real impact, (but) a little bit more significant to move the needle in ways that are more than complementary.”

While on the surface, that may not seem enormously significant, you have to remember that the Blue Jays choose their words carefully. Atkins wouldn’t say something like that if the plan was for winter adds to top out at Robbie Ray — re-signed Saturday for $8 million over one year — plus, for example, Jonathan Villar, Jake Marisnick and some value-play relievers.

There needs to be a real ta-da for the fanbase after raising expectations in that way. A couple of statements Atkins made about pitching earlier in the conversation, did the same thing, when he said, “it’s not at this point about numbers, it’s about quality” and “we feel good about our ability to cover innings, now we’d like to increase our ability to prevent runs.”

Put through the Executive-Speak-to-English translator, the collective message is that they’re shopping up the food chain. While the Blue Jays don’t have their final payroll for 2021 yet, Atkins said economic uncertainties related to the pandemic are “not impacting our approach to date” and pointed to the Ray signing as “the start of our off-season that we hope will (mark) a significant step forward.”

The target audience for all that signalling may be an industry trying to assess whether the Blue Jays’ actions will match their words, as much as a fanbase eager for the club to make signings like last winter’s $80-million, four-year deal for Hyun-Jin Ryu routine.

There are several impact players on the free-agent market, any of whom would make sense for the Blue Jays, D.J. LeMahieu in particular. Francisco Lindor is the most interesting candidate on the trade market and intriguingly, after Atkins said he could envision Bo Bichette getting Gold Glove consideration in the near future, made a point of adding that, “It doesn’t mean that we’re out on shortstops altogether because of our conviction in Bo.”

“We have to stay in every market,” he continued, “and consider are there ways to get better, are there ways to think about improving our team?”

A versatile roster gives the Blue Jays all sorts of options in that regard, but it’s the finishing touches they put on their pitching staff that will ultimately decide if this team can leapfrog the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees next season.

Bringing back Ray gives the Blue Jays a prospective rotation of the former Arizona Diamondbacks ace, Ryu, Tanner Roark, Ross Stripling and Nate Pearson, whose workload will need to be closely monitored next year. Thomas Hatch, Anthony Kay, Julian Merryweather, T.J. Zeuch and Elvis Luciano provide a layer of depth behind them, which explains why Atkins feels the Blue Jays have what they need to get through the ’21 season.

In terms of relievers, Jordan Romano, Rafael Dolis, A.J. Cole, Ryan Borucki, Shun Yamaguchi, Jacob Waguespack, Sean Reid-Foley, Patrick Murphy, Hector Perez and Yennsy Diaz provide a base to build on. Typically, under Atkins, the Blue Jays have augmented their bullpens with bounce-back candidates and they’ll likely do some of that again, but he left the door open to a higher-end relief add because “those are oftentimes the finishing touches when you see larger investments in the bullpen.”

Either way, the disruption to every pitcher’s workload caused by the pandemic shutdown and shortened 60-game season will lead to aftershocks next year, which is why the decisions on that front made now will be all the more critical.

The Blue Jays won’t be essentially limiting their starters to two turns through the order and then bullpenning their way through the remaining innings in 2021 the way they did this summer, with Atkins saying the workload distribution will be “closer to prior years.”

“Obviously the roster number will have some impact on that,” he added. “But we’re focused on building a team with seven or eight relievers and five or six starters. It’ll be closer to what we’ve traditionally expected over the last decade.”

The six starters bit bears watching, even though when pressed on it, Atkins replied, “we’ll probably start the year with five starters.” Given how a potential workload jump may impact the club’s younger pitchers, some creativity is going to be needed throughout the upcoming campaign.

“It’s different for every pitcher,” said Atkins. “If we just take someone like Ryu, who has hauled innings consistently for several years, I think this shorter workload is less of a factor. But if you take someone like Nate Pearson, who hasn’t been built up as much, you need to think about what that means for him moving into 2021.

“Having said that, these guys pitched a lot during the downtime, during the time in between spring training one and spring training two,” he continued. “These guys stayed on very regular routines and it wasn’t at the same level of anxiety slash intensity slash execution as it would be in a major-league setting, but still very intense and aggressive. That helped bridge a little bit more than if we just look at stat lines and workloads on paper. But we have to individualize it.”

Trevor Bauer, whose social-media cooing of the Blue Jays last week caused a stir, would help resolve that, but landing him won’t be easy. There are other credible options one tier down on the market, while there may be some significant opportunities on the Asian market if right-handers Tomoyuki Sugano of the Yomiuri Giants and Kohei Arihara of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are posted.

Remember that part of the Blue Jays’ push into Asia last year was with an eye on options this fall.

For now, the club’s relative assertiveness about its aspirational shopping goals is a shift that bears watching. The Blue Jays are too cautious an organization to raise expectations without being confident that they’ll be able to meet them.

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