Is the Blue Jays apparent “reek of desperation” a good or bad thing?

Doris Gillick, the wife of Toronto Blue Jays Hall of Fame General Manager Pat Gillick famously said, "Will you get home before you screw up the team any further?" after he’d traded Tony Fernández and her favourite player, Fred McGriff, in a blockbuster deal to the Padres for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter at the 1990 Winter Meetings.

The team won the AL East and advanced to the ALCS in 1989 before finishing second in the division, out of the playoffs in 1990. Gillick wanted to shake things up, and he did. As McGriff would later say, “It was a trade for the ages.” Both he and Alomar are in the Hall of Fame, and the Blue Jays went on to win three consecutive AL East titles, and back-to-back World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993.

Alex Anthopoulos, who continues to build his own Hall of Fame resume as the Atlanta Braves’ GM through the 2031 season, also swung for the fences in his 6th season as Toronto’s GM: with the team 3.0 games back of a Wild Card at 50-51 on July 28, 2015, he traded for Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins, and then added David Price and Ben Revere in separate trades a few days later.

A team with an AL East leading run +94 differential at the time took off: Price went 9-1 with a 2.30 ERA in 11 starts and 74.1 innings down the stretch, and Tulo and Revere locked down the left side of the field, which had been a leaky sieve up until then.

Many pundits think Anthopoulos would have been fired if the team had failed to make the playoffs that season. Instead, he rejected a contract extension offer made directly by team owner Ed Rogers, and left the organisation after they won the AL East and advanced to the 2015 ALCS.

The Blue Jays ‘reek of desperation’?

Fast forward to the present, and like his predecessors, Ross Atkins appears to be firmly planted in the hot seat after nine seasons as Toronto's GM. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith went so far as to say on the Foul Territory podcast that both team president Mark Shapiro and Atkins would have a hard time getting extensions to stay with the organisation if 2025 is another bad year and they miss the playoffs.

Add to the mosaic the following quote from ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney on TSN’s 1st Up podcast: “I had a fascinating conversation with an executive in baseball who was at the GM meetings… who, before I even had a chance to bring up specific teams, said ‘you know who absolutely reeks of desperation? The Blue Jays. They are gonna do some big stuff’.”

Is that a good thing? Or bad?

In a Blue Jays context, “big stuff” is trading Fernández and McGriff for Alomar and Carter at the Winter Meetings, or acquiring Price, Tulowitzki and Revere at the Trade Deadline. So if they’re going to do some big stuff again this offseason, with a front office that appears to be on the hot seat, either they’re about to overbid on a bunch of free agents, led by what Olney suggests would be a 14~15-year, $650M offer to Juan Soto, or they’re going to trade what they can for difference making talent.

Sportsnet's BNS explains this reek of desperation as follows: “Early this off-season, the Blue Jays are full of apparent contradictions. Their budget is limited, yet they’re meeting with Juan Soto? They’re described as aggressive on other top free agents [like Max Fried], but they talk publicly about being patient? And why this talk of non-tendering relievers [like Romano, Swanson, Tate and Pop] when the bullpen is a glaring area of need?”

Others, like Jim Bowden of The Athletic, have suggested the Blue Jays need to tear it all down and rebuild, with trades of current core players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Chris Bassitt. There’s not enough prospect talent in the farm system to trade for much in the way of difference making MLB talent, unless the Blue Jays want to move Orelvis Martinez (No. 75 in Baseball America’s latest top 100 ranking), or their two most recent first-rounders Arjun Nimmala and Trey Yesavage (No. 94 in MLB Pipeline’s latest ranking)? Multiple top pitching prospects, including Ricky Tiedemann, are rehabbing from UCL surgeries.

Potentially surplus infielders like Spencer Horwitz, Davis Schneider, Leo Jiménez, Ernie Clement and Addison Barger wouldn’t likely return much except maybe some better bullpen arms? Bo Bichette likely needs to rebuild his value before the July 2025 trade deadline if they are going to get any good prospects for him.

But before they tear things down, the desperation to acquire better talent to make this a contending, championship-calibre team in 2025 seems legitimate. The front office is backed by one of MLB’s wealthiest ownership groups in Rogers, who’ve bankrolled a top ten payroll in both of the last two seasons. That’s the good news.

However, should the Blue Jays front office fail to add enough real difference makers this offseason, either via free agency or trades, that desperation will prove to be a bad thing, with Shapiro and Atkins unlikely to remain with the organisation beyond next season.

So we’ve come to a proverbial fork in the road. While Yogi Berra famously said to “take it”, the Blue Jays brain trust seems to have a binary decision ahead of them: either go for it, and swing for the fences like Gillick and Anthopoulos did so effectively; or, tear this thing down and pitch the second rebuild of their tenure to ownership in the hopes of being extended.

It’s likely most Blue Jays fans are hoping for door #1, even if Soto isn’t waiting. The free agent market is stacked with difference making talent, so let the bidding begin!