In Praise of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins
Since coming over from Cleveland, the front office duo of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have taken quite a bit of flack from Blue Jays fans. The bar was set quite high for them considering they were taking over from Alex Anthopoulos. Anthopoulos had risen to a god-like status among Blue Jays faithful after building the city's first playoff team in over 20 years. Toronto baseball fans had grown accustomed to AA's wheeling and dealing ways and it has been quite a change of pace seeing the more reserved approach of Shapiro and Atkins.
The Anthopoulos moves may have been exciting and they certainly worked in building the team into a contender, however, it's debatable as to whether it's a strategy that can lead to sustained success. When AA left, the team was hindered by burdensome contracts and the farm system was barren outside a few top prospects. The Tulowitzki deal helped push the team over the top, but his deal has since become an albatross. Russell Martin is still a valuable contributor, but he also takes up a large percentage of the team's salary. Because Anthopoulos built a strong core of ageing superstars, the team had a high payroll and declining assets. Maintaining a winner would have been difficult for any front office.
Shapiro and Atkins take a different route to team building. It's a more patient approach that involves building from the farm up and holding onto the team's prospects. Keeping young talent allows the team to spend money on the finishing pieces of the team when the time is right, rather than having the majority of payroll tied up in the core. We are seeing this strategy succeed with teams like Cleveland and Houston. Their best players are young and cheap and it has allowed them to add the final touches to the team by adding expensive veterans like Brian McCann or Andrew Miller in order to fill holes that their young players can't fill.
Many Blue Jays fans are upset that the front office hasn't made any major moves since taking over. Fans have their hearts set on big names like David Price, Yu Darvish or Lorenzo Cain and instead get players like JA Happ, Jaime Garcia and Randal Grichuk. Big moves may get the attention of most fans, but it's the smaller moves that build the foundation of a winner.
Shapiro and Atkins added Yangervis Solarte for next to nothing and he provides the team with insurance at almost every position on the diamond. That's an extremely valuable transaction, even if it's not a big name player. Adding JA Happ on a discount has helped solidify the rotation and gave the team morebang for their buck than Boston has got from David Price. Signing Justin Smoak to his extension has worked out amazingly and even if he didn't become a star it would have still been a fair deal for a bench bat. They added Aledmys Diaz as insurance in case Tulowitzki were injured (surprise, surprise) and aside from being Tulo insurance, he also provides All-Star upside. They signed Joe Smith for a bargain contract and then flipped him for two prospects with MLB potential. Trading for Francisco Liriano gave the team a desperately needed starting pitcher for their playoff run in 2016 and got them two prospects as a bonus. Reese McGuire could be the team's back-up as soon as some point this season. They then went on to flip Francisco Liriano for Teoscar Hernandez - a potential middle-of-the-order bat. They grabbed Joe Biagini for nothing in the rule 5 draft and he is currently the team's #6 starter and is at worst a valuable bullpen piece.
None of the moves listed above can be considered big time transactions, but every one of them has helped push the team closer to contention, all while allowing them to hold onto their prospects and build their farm. Furthermore, none of these moves have tied up significant payroll.
And then we get to what they have done with the farm system. They inherited a farm system that was near the bottom of the league. They have since hung onto the top prospects left over from Anthopoulos' time and added to them with shrewd drafting. Draft picks Bo Bichette, Nate Pearson, Logan Warmoth and TJ Zeuch and international signings Lourdes Gurriel and Eric Pardinho have been added to a system that now ranks in the top third in all of baseball.
They haven't been without their miscues. Jumping the gun on Kendrys Morales and letting Edwin Encarnacion slip is a definite blunder. This one move is likely the cause of more contempt towards this front office than perhaps all other moves combined. Many fans seem unable to let it go that Edwin left and signed a relatively cheap deal elsewhere. It was a mistake, no doubt, but hardly a team killer. It was much more than the absence of Edwin that led to the disastrous 2017 season.
Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have taken a risk averse approach to building the team. This results in lots of low key moves that make the team better, but aren't a big splash. Shapiro and Atkins are interested in building a sustained winner and one of the best ways to do that is through the farm system. Signing Lorenzo Cain and Yu Darvish this offseason may have got some casual fans excited, but those deals wouldn't have gotten them any closer to playoff contention than the multiple small moves they made instead. The front office managed to build a deep team for 2018 that is at least in the conversation for a playoff spot, all while maintaining payroll flexibility.
The team has only $3.9MM in guaranteed contracts for the 2021 season. That is the year that Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Roberto Osuna, Devon Travis, Kevin Pillar and Randal Grichuk all become free agents. With so much money available, the team will be able to assess which of those players they want to invest in and be a part of their core along with their current prospects who will then be entering their primes.
With one of the best farm systems in baseball, a large market payroll (despite what some fans would tell you), and some of the best payroll flexibility in the game, Toronto is set up extremely well for the future. The cumbersome contracts will work their way off the books and in the meantime the front office is building a bridge to a time where the roster will hopefully be made up primarily of arbitration or pre-arbitration stars. Then the time will be right to strike and sign the 2021 versions of Lorenzo Cain and Yu Darvish.
