Blue Jays: Some of the best moves that Ross Atkins didn’t make

The Blue Jays were seemingly interested in every free agent and player available in the trade market over the offseason, but some of the best moves are the ones that weren’t made.

It’s obviously way too early to call some of those situations, but for Blue Jays fans feeling a little frustrated that the team hasn’t been able to get much from George Springer, the big offseason acquisition, let me tell you about how things could be a lot worse right now.

Sure, they spent 5.5 million on a one year deal for Kirby Yates that didn’t work out at all, but with injuries and underperformance being rampant across the game over the first month or so, the Jays are in decent shape in a lot of ways, which is hard to believe after how many injuries they’ve sustained to the roster. At 16-14 they’re just 2.0 games back of the Red Sox in a suddenly log jammed AL East.

A lot of that has to do with a few key decisions that Atkins didn’t make over the winter, at least based on the rumours that were swirling. Some were more realistic than others, but it was clear that the front office was swinging for the fences, and they proved it with a six-year, 150 million dollar deal for George Springer, as well as a big one-year, 18 million dollar pact with Marcus Semien. The latter has really started to come around and had a big series in Oakland in his return to the Colosseum, and Springer will be back eventually and provide an elite two-way asset.

I believe that at some point soon things will all come together for this team, even if I understand the frustration at various points over the first 30 games. That said, things could have gone a lot differently over the winter, and in some cases, it would have been far more frustrating than anything we’ve seen so far. Let’s have a look at four of those situations.