FanSided

Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins bets his future on an underwhelming trade deadline

After backfilling for injured players, Toronto Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins seems to be betting big on a mean reversion from the underperforming bats of his stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and Matt Chapman down the stretch, while also counting on the pitching holding up.

By Charles Kime |
Arizona Diamondbacks v Toronto Blue Jays
Arizona Diamondbacks v Toronto Blue Jays / Vaughn Ridley/GettyImages
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Many Blue Jays fans were left asking, “that’s it?” as the 2023 trade deadline passed on Tuesday. The Jays added three players in three separate deals with the St. Louis Cardinals: relievers Génesis Cabrera and Jordan Hicks, and shortstop Paul DeJong. Hicks and DeJong are both two month rentals, and could be seen simply as backfill players for the injured Jordan Romano and Bo Bichette?

Hicks certainly has an electric arm, and Cabrera has good stuff when he can control it. DeJong has made some great plays defensively, but is 0-for-6 as a Blue Jay and clearly not here for his bat. And with Baltimore racking up more hits in their 6-1 victory at Rogers Centre on Thursday than Toronto has for the entire month so far, the issue seems to be far deeper than the trade deadline adds.

While Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger and Teoscar Hernández did not end up changing teams, big bats did move at the trade deadline: right-handed Jake Burger has 25 home runs, and won’t be a free agent until 2029. Miami acquired him for their #3 prospect, 24-year old AA pitcher Jake Eder, who is coming off Tommy John surgery.

Switch-hitting Jeimer Candelario went to the Cubs for a couple of low level prospects, although 13 of his 16 home runs have come from the left-side. Tommy Pham, who Arizona acquired for a 17-year old playing in the Dominican Summer League, has an .813 OPS, which rises to .862 with 8 home runs in only 95 at-bats against left-handed pitchers.

How would any of those hitters look pinch-hitting against lefties instead of Santiago Espinal or Alejandro Kirk? Instead, could Davis Schneider be an internal answer?

Bet on their current players?

As Jeff Blair, co-host of “Blair and Barker” on Sportsnet 590 The Fan, noted to Tim Micallef at the end of this interview, the message from general manager Ross Atkins at the trade deadline seems to be that he’s betting on a big mean reversion from the underperforming bats of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, and to a lesser extent Matt Chapman.

Guerrero Jr., whose OPS of .782 this season is well below his career average .848 - not to mention his MVP-finalist season in 2021 when he had an OPS of 1.002 - clearly needs to put this Blue Jays team on his back and carry them without the injured Bo Bichette in the lineup.

Springer, whose OPS of .692 this year is 145 points below his career average of .837, also needs to improve in a hurry. He just broke out of a Blue Jays’ record setting 0-for-35 slump, and needs to get back to how he was hitting in May (OPS .834) and June (OPS .796).

Matt Chapman has an OPS of .800 thanks to a hot start in April, but that was .864 when he finished 7th in the AL MVP vote in 2018, .848 in 2019 when he was an All-Star, and .812 as recently as a the pandemic shortened 2020 season. He can clearly hit better, as evidenced by a smoking hot March/April start to the season, when he hammered 5 home runs with 21 RBIs while slashing .384/.465/.687/1.152. He also hit 4 homers in July with an OPS of .908; that has to continue.

Atkins is counting on the underperforming bats improving and reverting to mean down the stretch, but also expecting that Bichette, Whit Merrifield, Kevin Kiermaier, Brandon Belt and Danny Jansen will continue with their above league average OPS+ numbers, and that the pitching and defense will continue their strong run prevention with MLB’s 5th lowest pitching staff ERA of 3.82.

But did the Blue Jays Do Enough?

Using ZiPS projections for playoffs, division, and World Series for each of the 30 teams, how did the trade deadline change Toronto’s postseason probability? According to FanGraphs, Houston, Texas, Baltimore and Tampa all did more to improve their playoff odds at the trade deadline. Of course, the Jays will need to go through those teams to win the ALCS and advance to the World Series.

Certainly Hicks and Cabrera both have ‘swing and miss’ stuff, and should help with bullpen depth. Adding back starter Hyun Jin Ryu and reliever Chad Green from the injured list is a similar boost to trade deadline adds, and they’ll be counted on as key contributors as well.

As Blair notes, if Guerrero Jr.’s production takes off and he starts carrying the team towards a postseason ticket, and Bichette’s IL stint is relatively short, the trade dud-line will soon be forgotten. But to paraphrase Blair, if those two things do not happen, we will look back at the trade deadline and say Atkins should have done “whatever it took” to add that extra piece to help improve the offense.

Will that put pressure on Ross Atkins as the GM?

This is his 8th season in the role as Blue Jays’ GM, and the current competitive window with Vladdy and Bo isn’t going to stay open forever. Guerrero Jr., and Bichette could both leave in free agency after the 2025 season. That likely means Atkins has been under pressure to build a better roster since the ALWC game two meltdown last fall.

As things stand, Atkins would leave his successor a roster that is one of the oldest in MLB, with the 9th highest payroll in baseball in 2024 at $155 million with the 34 players on the 40-man roster that are team controlled or under contract next year.

Of course, that figure doesn’t include any longer-term extensions yet for the younger, homegrown stars like Vladdy, Bo, Alek Manoah, Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk or Jordan Romano. And the cupboards are pretty bare in a poorly ranked farm system.

To their credit, both team president Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have said that this 2023 Blue Jays team will be measured by how far they progress in the postseason. If they don’t take a step forward after zero playoff wins since 2016, could Atkins be fired? Questions like these will likely be amplified if the Jays fall out of a wild card slot this weekend in Boston against a Red Sox team that has so far swept the head-to-head season series 7-0 against Toronto.

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