SAN ANTONIO – For big-league general managers, navigating an off-season is an exercise in finding solutions in the face of disappointment.
Well, unless you’re the Dodgers. With MLB executives now expecting Roki Sasaki to be posted, it’s the Dodgers who are seen as favourites for the 23-year-old phenom with the 100 m.p.h. fastball and the 2.35 ERA in Japan’s highest league.
But as the Toronto Blue Jays can attest better than most, any team this side of Chavez Ravine faces its share of disappointment most winters. The challenge is coming up with new solutions on the fly as the market develops in real time.
“You have to have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, plan E and plan F,” said Angels GM Perry Minasian. “It’s part of the job, right? You better have multiple options. If you’re banking on one thing happening, it doesn’t always happen like you want it to. So you better have more than one.”
“We always have to be adaptable,” added Guardians president Chris Antonetti. “It’s very rare that we can go in and say, ‘here’s the exact strategy we’re going to be able to execute,’ because there’s a lot of information we don’t yet have.”
Applied to the Blue Jays, all those words hold true. It’s hard to argue with the plan A they had last year – who wouldn’t want Shohei Ohtani? – but they didn’t adapt well enough and their team finished in last place.
One year later, they must come up with better contingency plans. The Blue Jays hope to add at least one impact bat and some impact pitching help, but the players they covet most won’t be easy to obtain. So, how do they plan to adapt as off-season takes unexpected twists and turns?
“Just having clarity on your goals,” said GM Ross Atkins. “But the power of patience is also real. So I don’t think it’s one versus the other, but the question’s a really good one: how you prepare for your interactions and how you learn on an hourly basis about the market is exceptionally important. And I think the agility within that is what will end up determining your success.”
The best player available this year is Juan Soto, but no neutral observer at the GM Meetings has seriously suggested the Blue Jays will actually land him, even the rival execs who predict that Toronto will land a big free agent this winter.
More likely, though still a longshot, is Sasaki, a player the Blue Jays have liked for a while. Multiple senior club executives including Atkins have scouted Sasaki in person over the years, but when asked about the right-hander, the GM sidestepped the question.
“Our pro scouts have done an incredible job. We feel like we’re prepared in (the Japanese) market,” Atkins said. “We’ve leaned into it as an opportunity.”
If Sasaki does become available, the Blue Jays will likely show serious interest (he’s represented by Wasserman, the agency that represents free agent relievers Clay Holmes and Kenley Jansen).
Pursuing Sasaki is a worthwhile goal for any team — if you don’t go after the flame-throwing 23-year-old, what are you waiting for? — but to return to the original point, the Blue Jays must also be prepared to pivot.
That’s what makes some of Tuesday’s rumblings so interesting. Could the Blue Jays reunite with free agent Yusei Kikuchi after trading him to the Astros? “He’s a very good player who fit very well in our environment and our culture,” Atkins said. Veteran right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano will surely be on the Blue Jays’ radar, too, as they’re described as a motivated team in the starting pitching market.
Or, some wonder, could they be aiming even higher?
Then there’s the lineup. Bo Bichette, Will Wagner and Daulton Varsho are said to be recovering well from their respective surgeries, but this lineup needs outside help, too.
So what position are they most likely to upgrade at offensively? Corner outfield, according to Atkins, who says they’re also looking at infielders. Speaking of which, how serious are they about Gleyber Torres, the longtime Yankees infielder in whom they’re now expressing interest, according to a source?
Like it or not, it’ll take some time before real answers emerge to all those questions. But anyone hoping for some early off-season traction will be in good company.
“I’m not the most patient person,” said Rays GM Erik Neander. “I like to just do it all in a few weeks and just move on, but it doesn’t quite work that way.”
Unfortunately not — but the challenge there also creates an opportunity of sorts. There’s an art to adapting on the fly, one that can’t quite be quantified, and if the Blue Jays can balance opportunism and patience, their 2025 roster might get the help it needs.
“That’s what makes this job interesting, right?” Minasian said. “There’s a lot of balls in the air and you have to figure out what’s real and what’s not. You’d better be prepared to go when you need to go, and you’d better be confident in waiting if you need to wait.”