This season has not gone the way the Toronto Blue Jays expected and pitcher Chris Bassistt has some honest thoughts on what has plagued the team.
The starter believes the Blue Jays’ pursuit of superstar free agent Shohei Ohtani put them in a tough position.
“The one thing I will say about the Blue Jays for this year, we put $700 million into Shohei Ohtani’s basket and didn’t get him. That was the reality and I think we really didn’t have a pivot to, like, another elite player,” Bassitt said in an episode of “Chris Rose Rotation” that debuted on YouTube on Monday.
“In today’s baseball, you need three or four superstars. Look at the really good teams. They are not doing it with one superstar, they’re legit doing it with three or four superstars. That’s just the nature of this game now, the way that pitching is, the way that bullpens are set up: If you have one or two hitters in your lineup, you literally cannot be good, no matter how good the player is. I don’t think it’s possible.”
One area Bassitt believes the Blue Jays will need to improve is building the lineup around Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
However, he did mention augmenting the pitching staff, which has had its struggles, too.
“We have to get more hitting to protect Vladdy and the pitching has to be a lot better,” Bassitt said. “We literally lost our whole entire bullpen from last year.
“There’s so many things that you could talk about. I can literally talk for 45 minutes on this, on things that didn’t go great, but I just don’t think saying those things publicly is what is best for this organization.”
Bassitt was also asked about Guerrero’s future, which has become a hot topic in Toronto, especially as he continues to swing the hot bat of late and whether the team missed out on getting him signed to a new deal.
He first spoke about Guerrero Jr.’s turnaround this season and getting back to his earlier form of when he was an MVP candidate. The 25-year-old is hitting .317/.388/.547 with 25 home runs and 80 RBI through 123 games.
“I have been around some really good players and I have never seen anyone like Vlad,” Bassitt explained. “Everyone talks about 2021 Vladdy and the numbers that he had; I didn’t see it really a lot last year and then this year flipped, and, like, the first month, I didn’t see the 2021 Vlad, and then all of a sudden there was just list a light bulb that went off. To say mechanical changes, whatever he may have done, I was like, this is the best hitter on the planet.”
He also showed no concern for his teammate’s future with the team and made it clear that he believes Guerrero Jr.’s desire is to stay in Toronto.
“I don’t know this, I don’t want to speak for him on this, I think Vladdy wants to be a Blue Jay for the rest of his career,” Bassitt said. “I don’t think he wants to leave, so I don’t think it’s like a super rush to get an extension done. They, obviously, didn’t trade him because they don’t ever see him or want him to be in another uniform. They’re OK to go to arbitration to know how much he’s going to make next year but I think both sides want to be together.
“I don’t think there’s a bad relationship, I don’t think it’s a negative that he doesn’t have an extension yet. Maybe it’s like, both sides want to be together, and Vlad is like, ‘Listen, I’m going to hold off until closer to, say, free agency because I don’t know what a real fair value for me is right now.'”
When it comes to offering advice for Guerrero Jr., Bassitt believes he should consider a permanent change in what position he plays next season.
“The craziest part to me is that if I was Vladdy and I was going to a free-agency year, I’d be, like, ‘Listen, you’re moving me to third base because I’m going to make a lot more money at third base than at first base,’ and the reality is that he is pretty damn good at third base. I thought moving Vladdy from first to third was going to be an absolute crap show. There’s no way Vladdy can play third then we moved him over to third and I’m like, ‘Damn, you actually can play third. Like you played third, obviously, in the past but like I thought that was a long time ago,’ he’s pretty damn good at third.
“I would throw him over there 75 per cent of the time. I wouldn’t even put him at first base.”
Later Monday, Bassitt spoke with Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling and Shi Davidi to clarify some of his comments.
Bassitt addressed what he said about the Blue Jays not having a pivot after their attempt at landing Ohtani was successful, saying that Toronto’s inability to land the two-time MVP isn’t “a knock against the Blue Jays. It’s not a knock against anybody.
“He obviously picked a great team. There wasn’t another option. That’s just the reality. There wasn’t.”
Bassitt didn’t fault Toronto’s front office for the moves it made once Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Instead, he gave them credit for bringing in players like Justin Turner and Isiah Kiner-Falefa after falling short in the pursuit of the Japanese mega-star.
“You can’t say the front office didn’t have ambition to be great. You can’t say the front office didn’t have a goal to be the best possible team,” Bassitt said. “Because they went after the best possible player.”