Blue Jays: Looking back at the first 18 months of the Ross Atkins Era in Toronto

It has now been seven years since Ross Atkins has taken over the role as the Toronto Blue Jays General Manager and it still appears a good chunk of the fanbase still have their doubts about him.  When Atkins took over the job on December 3, 2015, many fans were angry as they felt Alex Anthopoulos deserved a bigger role in the organization and was essentially pushed out the door.  For this reason, it appears no matter what he does Atkins tends to get crucified on message boards throughout the internet by a portion of the fans.

As years have now passed to the point you can look at some of Atkins first moves with the club, I thought I’d take a look at some of the more significant moves over his first couple of seasons in the organization.  It should be noted that Atkins has a lot of support, especially from scouting and President Mark Shaprio, who may have made some of the signings, but Atkins is the man looking after the direction.

The First Draft Under Atkins

Outside of some minor moves, Atkins did not make large impact transactions over the first seven months of his tenure other than selecting Joe Biagini in the Rule 5 Draft and trading Ben Revere for Drew Storen.  The first draft under the Atkins regime has to be considered a great success, even without their first-round pick T.J. Zeuch succeeding.  With his second-round pick, Atkins selected a high school kid who had committed to Arizona State University and got him to sign a $1.1M signing bonus to forgo his college career and that is current shortstop Bo Bichette. 

Bichette is just turning 25-years old during the upcoming Spring Training and has played himself into a future massive contract after leading the league in each of the last two seasons in hits, while hitting a combined 49 home runs and 195 RBI in the same timeframe.  Only two other players drafted in that round have current higher career WAR numbers (Pete Alonso 14.2 and Bryan Reynolds 13.6) than Bichette’s 12.9. Both of those players came straight from college and are two and three years older than the Blue Jays shortstop.

The next key piece from that draft was a fifth-round selection Cavan Biggio who was taken with the 162nd overall pick of the draft and signed to a $300,000 signing bonus.  Biggio is just one of 14 players selected in that round to even make a major league appearance and leads all hitters with 37 career home runs, while also leading all other players in career WAR at 6.3 while just three other players are even above 1.0. 

Atkins also drafted Kirby Snead (10th Round) who was used in the trade to acquire Matt Chapman, as well as selecting Josh Winckowski (15th Round) who was a piece used to acquired Steven Matz.  Making these selections outside of the first round has to make the 2016 June Amateur Draft a complete success for Atkins.  

The Drew Hutchison Trade and Follow-Up

Going into his first trade deadline, Atkins was looking to improve the team who, for the second straight season, were competing for the AL East title.  Blue Jays traded 25-year old Drew Hutchison who had showed some promise early in his career, however he had spent most of the 2016 season in Triple-A Buffalo.  What the Blue Jays got back was veteran starter Francisco Liriano, along with outfield prospect Harold Ramírez and catching prospect Reese McGuire.

Had the Blue Jays traded Hutchison straight up for Liriano the deal would have been a win, even with the club picking up all of Liriano’s contract through 2017.  Liriano would make eight starts down the stretch and two relief appearances where he posted a 2.92 ERA over 49.1 innings and retired all five batters he faced in extra innings during the American League Wild Card game.  Everybody remembers Edwin Encarnación’s walk off home run from that game, but it is rare to find someone who knows that Liriano collected the win, by forcing four ground ball outs and striking out Nolan Reimold to put Encarnacion in that situation. 

While Ramírez never made it all to the way to the Major Leagues for the Blue Jays, McGuire would serve as a depth and back-up catcher from 2018-2021 with the club and posted a slash line of .248/.297/.390 over his tenure with the club.

One year after the original trade and with the Blue Jays rebuilding, Atkins flipped Liriano to the Houston Astros in exchange for Nori Aoki and more importantly Teoscar Hernández.  Hernández would go on to play over 600 games with the Blue Jays over six seasons earning two Silver Slugger awards and hitting a combined 129 home runs which currently sits 11th all time in franchise history.

The initial trade is still paying dividends as Atkins has since traded Hernandez this offseason to the Seattle Mariners for Erik Swanson and prospect Adam Macko.

Dealing with José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación contracts

Going into the 2016 season, both José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación were going into the last year of their contracts before becoming free agents.  The two players contract routes were very different that season, so we’ll start with Bautista.  From the start of Spring Training, Bautista made it known to media that he wanted a massive five-year deal worth $150 Million, stating the contract (five-years, $65M) he was coming off of worked out as a home-team discount.  There is no question that the contract worked out nicely for the organization, but when he signed the deal, he was a 31-year old that had two good seasons, albeit super star seasons.  The Blue Jays made a gamble and it paid off.

The $30M per year contract that Bautista was pushing for was risky as it would pay him through his age 40 season.  It did not appear that the Atkins and Bautista’s camp got anywhere close to signing a deal throughout the season and unfortunately for Bautista, he spent two stints on the disabled list, once with a toe injury and once with a knee injury.  In total, he played in just 116 games and had his worst season since before he broke out in 2010 as he finished with just 22 home runs, 69 RBI and a slash line of .234/.366/.452. 

At the end of the 2016 season, Atkins would offer Bautista a qualifying offer, which he turned down.  After some back and forth, Bautista would sign a contract shortly before Spring Training, unfortunately it was nowhere near the $150M deal he wanted a year prior.  Bautista would not receive any significant offers from other teams so he settled on a guaranteed $18.5M deal over one-year with some mutual options that would get it near $60M over three years with the Blue Jays.  The contract was structured that if the power-hitting outfielder returned to his superstar numbers, he could potentially hit free agency and secure a big payday.

Bautista's 2017 season would be an even bigger decline as despite staying healthy he hit 23 home runs and 65 RBIs while batting just .203.  The Blue Jays declined their side of the contract option, which made Bautista a free agent leading into 2018.  For the second straight offseason, Bautista would not get much interested and he would spend the season bouncing around to different teams on close to league minimum deals. By the end of that season he found himself completely out of baseball. 

Had Atkins caved and signed Bautista to the deal he was demanding at the start of the 2016 season, he would have still been under contract until the end of 2021 season.  Bautista is 100% a Blue Jays legend and deserves his spot on the Level of Excellence, but this deal would have hampered the organization for several years.

Encarnación's contract talks were a lot more silent and I even remember an interview with him at the start of Spring Training in 2016.  A reporter brought up Bautista’s contract demands asked Encarnacion what numbers he wanted, which he replied 40 and 100, stating he wanted 40 home runs and 100 RBI. 

Encarnación delivered on his numbers as he finished the 2016 season with career highs with 42 home runs,127 RBI (league leader) and 76 extra-base hits. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet had a great article breaking down the timeline of Atkins and Encarnación's contract talks.  Initial discussion had Atkins offering a four-year deal worth $70M, while Encarnación wanted a five-year $125M or a guarantee of $100M over a shorter deal.  Atkins would increase the offer to $80M over four years, but Encarnación wanted to wait on free agency.

It appeared as there was a lot of mutual interest from both sides to have Encarnación back in a Blue Jays uniform, however the power hitting first baseman may been too slow to make his decision and Atkins may have reacted to quickly to wanting to ensure they had power in the middle of the line-up.  In the end, Atkins decided to sign Kendrys Morales to replace the longtime Blue Jay and Encarnación signed in Cleveland on a guaranteed $65M deal over three years with a team option for a fourth year that would bring the deal to $80M.

I would have liked to see Encarnación back on a deal similar to the one he signed in Cleveland, however that type of deal did not appeal to Encarnación until the market started to shrink for him.  During those three seasons, Encarnacion averaged 35 home runs and 100 RBI a season, but the bright spot about losing Encarnación in free agency was that the club got a compensation pick, Atkins used that pick in the 2017 draft and selected Nate Pearson 28th overall.  The 6’6” right-handed pitcher has battled injuries throughout his development, but he was once one of the best prospects in baseball and still has a lot of potential.

Signing Steve Pearce and Trading Steve Pearce

Two days after his one year anniversary with the organization, Atkins would make what first appeared to be an under the radar signing when Steve Pearce agreed on a three-year contract with the Blue Jays for just under $19M starting in the 2017 season.

In his first season with the Blue Jays he had one of the most exciting few days a Blue Jays player could've given fans.  On July 27, 2017 with the bases loaded in extra innings, Pearce would hit a full count pitch off of Liam Hendriks over the wall for a walk off grand slam. Three days later, the club found themselves trailing 10-4 in the bottom of the ninth against the Los Angeles Angels.  Thanks to a two-run home run by Kevin Pillar and a few more batters getting on base, Pearce would come up with the bases loaded trailing 10-7.  The 34-year old would hit his second walk-off grand slam in just three days. The team finished ten games under .500, but Pearce earned his contract by collecting 31 extra base hits in just 313 at bats.

The following season, in the second year of Pearce’s deal the Blue Jays were clearly not in contention for a playoff spot and Atkins moved him to Boston.  In return, the club would get a 23-year-old Dominican prospect named Santiago Espinal.  Espinal has become a valuable piece to the current club as he can play all over the infield and has shown to have a productive bat that led to him being selected to the 2022 All-Star Game. 

Atkins came into the Blue Jays organization under a lot of hostility due to fans the love for Anthopoulos, but as you can see the moves he made over the first year and a half of his tenure set the Blue Jays up for years to come.