Atkins Speaks!: On Solarte, Yelich, Sanchez, and More!

I think a lot of different things. I think the energy, the passion for baseball, the pure aggression that he plays with. He’ll light you up if you watch him take just one swing. I think he and Josh Donaldson are going to get along really well. His joy and passion for competitiveness is something you can feel across the field. I can think of many at-bats where I’m watching, thinking “How far is this guy gonna hit this ball?” So that comes to mind. The versatility, having played every infield position, having been in the outfield in the past, really just being passionate about winning and wanting to play — he’s going to make a contribution in a bunch of different ways — and the more versatility we have the better and the more options we have the better.

Who knows when everyone who could make a significant impact is off the board? It’s hard to say, but we have another month before spring training gets cranked up, and I could see another player or two still being there as spring training starts. But it may not be the case. And the reasons why? There’s never one silver bullet answer to why [an offseason takes the path it does] when you’re dealing with, one, thirty teams, a hundred players in free agency, and you’re dealing with hundreds of players in potential trades — all the different stake holders, the more robust front offices. There just, in today’s game — and this is just my opinion — there’s so many more opportunities that can be discussed and are discussed and are more readily considered because more and more front offices are aligned in the way they’re valuing players, or at least able to discuss them. When the deals actually happen is when there’s a misalignment in value, when a team values a player more than you do — when we value Solarte more than the San Diego Padres, or vice versa, on Edward Olivares. So that’s when they typically happen, when someone is extremely excited about a player. It’s rare that they happen when you’re valuing guys the exact same way. They do, but it’s rare. Getting to that point where you fully understand it happening more often — because of how robust front offices are and how many discussions actually are happening — so I think all of those opportunities, whether they end up coming to fruition, there’s more to consider each year.

It really comes down to the acquisition cost. We need to improve our outfield and improve our pitching and which one of those two will largely depend on the acquisition cost. And hopefully it’s both. I think realistically it will be, that we’ll improve in both of those areas. Which one is more important? I think probably the outfield. I’ve been on the record talking about the importance of improving in those areas and we will almost certainly make moves to improve the organization and improve the team. And just to say that it absolutely will be at this position, and will look like X, Y, and Z, isn’t necessarily the best strategy for us — we need to stay open minded and think about all of our alternatives. As I said, it’s not completely up to us.

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Fortunately we have the option to do both. We are in a good position because of the work of the prior regime, because of the work of this regime, because of the work of our current player development, amateur, international, professional scouting departments, our high performance department — we have a very good farm system. It’s not the best, but it’s nearing. As we talk to other teams, and as we see the objective observations, and as we internally try to be objective about our system, we see our system as being in the top third. We have the ability to make trades. As you’ve seen, we’ve made a couple, and feel we haven’t hurt our system terribly by making those moves, and have control in both players we’ve acquired — they’re not one year players. We’ll continue to do that — if you’re trading for control then you’re willing to give up more, obviously depending on upside. Having both of those options puts us in a much better position, not only now, but like I said, a week into spring training, as we get closer to the trade deadline — depending how we’re performing — and as we continue.

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It’s taken a lot of discipline on our part — it can become real easy to focus on now, especially with the expectations of our fans, which we respect and admire and want — we thrive on that — but we have to balance that with wanting to make this one of the best organizations to play for and work in and to pull for. To do that takes an immense amount of discipline on just what is best for the long term of this organization. And when we say long-term, we’re not talking about five to ten years from now, we’re talking about sustaining what is regarded as one of the best organizations in professional sport. That’s our goal. And sometimes that may mean some short time sacrifices.

Here’s what I could say on a player like Christian Yelich: all 30 teams are in, so it’s not up to the Blue Jays on whether or not we get him. All 29 other teams, in addition to the Marlins. We’ll do what we can. We are definitely going to do everything we can to consider how we can make our team better in any possible way, and as you know, and as relates to players that are with other teams, there’s only so much I can say. But Christian Yelich is a remarkable talent and he’s going to impact the Marlins or whoever he’s playing for in a significant way. So we’ll see.

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It would take a young controllable player that we feel could be as talented or more than those two players. So, you know, it’s the future and the control that is so attractive about younger players. You hear us talk about it all the time. The athleticism and having players before they’re making money that is — all these guys are making tons of money, even the league minimum is a ton of money, but when it gets into fourth or fifth year of arbitration it starts to become a little bit more cumbersome and making a real impact on your total payroll. That’s why the younger players like Marcus Stroman and Devon Travis and Kevin Pillar are so attractive to the Toronto Blue Jays and many other teams, and why so many teams and media and so many people in the game are talking about the Houston Astros and the Cleveland [Baseball Franchise] and the Dodgers.

There’s a couple things that are different [as he recovers now, as opposed to in-season last year]. One is that we’ve learned a lot from the 2017 setbacks, and the 2015 setbacks that he had. He also had a small blip in 2016 that we were able to overcome — we’ve learned a great deal from that and we’ll continue to adjust. But the biggest difference is that we’re not in a competitive season — that’s what the timing of when that happened and how that happened and trying to get him to come back to full form. We learned from the steps we took. Could we have done things differently that could have resulted better? I don’t know. We don’t know the answer to that question. We feel as though the steps that we took, at the time, we felt were absolutely the right steps to take. They didn’t work. We’ve learned from them a great deal. The biggest difference is we have more experience — Aaron has more experience; he’s an integral piece to this, obviously. Everything he is doing, on and off the field, matters, and he is exceptionally driven and exceptionally motivated, and he’s going to manage that well. He’s wise beyond his years, a very mature young man, and I know that — I can’t imagine that we have anything near that this year — can’t say never, can’t say it won’t happen — but I’m certainly optimistic it will be a lot brighter year for him than 2017 was.

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We were systematic about that, and thoughtful about it. It wasn’t the kitchen sink approach. It was making sure that we considered all of our alternatives and every expert in the field. It just didn’t work out.

A friend of mine, a guy I grew up with, Mike Lowell, just called me — he was looking for insight into the media; he reports for MLB [Network] — and he said, “Man, you guys could have one of the better rotations in baseball.” And I think no one has forgotten that, but I think no one is really thinking about the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting rotation as a potential — being dominant. Being a dominant rotation, and we’re going to look to even make it better. I can’t say enough about Pete Walker, he’s a difference-maker in this game, and John Gibbons is exceptional, and Pete does an exceptional job with our pitchers.