SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Over the 4½ weeks since that tormenting Game 2 loss to the Minnesota Twins, the Toronto Blue Jays have done a lot of talking amongst themselves. General manager Ross Atkins and president and CEO Mark Shapiro have met with players and coaches, discussing what went wrong, what needs to change and how to ensure another opportunity in 2024 doesn’t slip away.
To wit, something of a mea culpa from Atkins.
“Everything starts with accountability and then additionally making sure there’s clarity,” he said in an interview Tuesday during the first day of the annual General Managers Meetings. “On the accountability front, anything that I said that was taken as me shrugging off any responsibility for what happens on the field, what happens off the field, what happened in the last game of the season, I certainly regret and understand any frustration that fans have."
“In addition to that, I wanted to ensure with our players that they understood how decisions are being made, when they're being made and who is making those decisions,” Atkins continued. “I am very confident that everyone has clarity on that front and wanted to ensure that was the case. As well, we're always looking for ways every single year, with every player that comes through our environment and clubhouse, that we can better connect. It is the most important thing that we can do as baseball leaders and want to ensure we're leaning into that.”
The Blue Jays need to thread the needle on that front as they’ve decided to make minimal changes to their coaching staff, with the retirement of third-base coach Luis Rivera and reassignment of hitting strategist Dave Hudgens the most notable departures.
In their place is one new external addition in Carlos Febles, the former Boston Red Sox third-base coach fired last month, who takes over from Rivera on the hot corner and working with the club’s infielders, plus one intriguing shift with Don Mattingly adding the duties of “offensive coordinator” to his work as bench coach.
Assuming Mattingly doesn’t fill the managerial opening in Milwaukee, for which he’s a candidate, he’ll now head the hitting program with hitting coach Guillermo Martinez, back for a sixth season, and assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense, seeking to more effectively leverage an offence that didn’t hit to expectations last season.
First-base coach Mark Budzinski, bullpen coach Jeff Ware and field coordinator Gil Kim also return. Major-league coach Adam Yudelman, who returns to a front-office role, and Jimmy VanOstrand, the club’s major-league mental performance coach who may remain with the club in a different position, are the only other departures.
The Blue Jays may still make further adds to the staff — they’re looking at adding another hitting voice and have also talked to DeMarlo Hale, who was John Gibbons’ bench coach but appears likely to remain in Cleveland under incoming manager Stephen Vogt, and former infielder Ryan Goins, who recently retired officially after coaching at triple-A Omaha this past season.
Ultimately change rests largely on the club's internal operational discussions over the past month bearing fruit and Mattingly’s shift.
Key to the latter, Atkins said, is the way Mattingly "can ask others like Guillermo and Hunter Mense and potentially additional staff members, certainly advanced scouts, how to best distill the information to 12-13 hitters about attacking 12 to 13 pitchers any given day."
"His passion to do so, his conviction in delivering that information in a simplified way, is something that we see as a net positive," Atkins added.
It will have to be, as the club’s 2024 fate to a large degree rests on extracting more from the current core led by Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, Danny Jansen and Cavan Biggio.
While Atkins pointed out that "we will be prioritizing position-player acquisitions," understandable given the free agencies of Matt Chapman — who popped into the GM Meetings Tuesday to visit with interested clubs — Kevin Kiermaier, Brandon Belt and Whit Merrifield, they won’t be able to solve all their issues through new adds alone.
As usual the Blue Jays are all over everything, although notable Tuesday was the way Atkins, when asked, heaped praise on Joey Votto, the Hall-of-Fame bound, Toronto-born hitting savant on the open market for the first time, and that the Blue Jays met with the representatives for free agent corner infielder Jeimer Candelario.
The Blue Jays have also shown interest in prized Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whom Atkins crossed the Pacific to watch in person three times last season. The intriguing 25-year-old is coming off a seventh straight season of dominance in the NPB, striking out 176 batters in 171 innings over 24 outings for the Orix Buffaloes while walking only 28, and the market for him is expected to push him into nine figures.
How a pricey add like Yamamoto works when the Blue Jays are already deep in the rotation and so in need of offensive help is an interesting question.
But when asked if they’d consider taking resources away from the pursuit of offence to augment the pitching staff, Atkins intriguingly replied, "I feel like we will have the opportunity to present those types of significant adds or acquisitions to ownership. We've been given so much support that I wouldn't say that that is unrealistic to do both."
Read into that what you will in a market that looks set to be dominated by Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani and Cody Bellinger. Even if the Blue Jays are all-in on one of the big three, interest in them will be high and competition fierce. Given the amount of holes they have to fill, a spread-the-wealth approach built around someone like Candelario — a switch-hitting third baseman who is a strong clubhouse presence and also happens to be friends with Guerrero — could make some sense, too.
Either way, the off-season is still just starting, the feeling-out process is just underway and the possibilities still seem endless with reality yet to strike.
No matter which hitters they add, Mattingly is positioned to be the one directing traffic, after being a secondary voice on the hitting side this past season.
"He was over the top respectful of the roles and accountability of our hitting coaches and would make suggestions and certainly have ideas and thoughts, but kept that lead with our hitting coaches," said Atkins. "As we've talked with him, as we've talked with our staff, as we've talked to our players, it became very clear that with his passion, his experiences, his knowledge and desire to drill down and prepare in that area, it would be very, very difficult to do much better than him with his desire to take on that expanded role."
After weeks of intensive navel-gazing, it’s the most major change the Blue Jays have made, one that a whole lot is riding on.
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