Atkins speaks: On Kirk, Pearson, Guerrero, Hatch, Roark, workloads, and more!
It was a big day on the field for the Blue Jays on Friday, with Robbie Ray looking as good as we’ve seen, Vladdy and Locomotive Kirk raking, and Trent Thornton and David Phelps also looking good. It was also, it turned out, a pretty interesting day off the field as well.
Pitching coach Pete Walker held a lengthy session with the media early in the day, which I’ll get around to unpacking tomorrow (along with the Athletic’s interview with Mark Shapiro). Then, later in the afternoon, Ross Atkins made an appearance on the Fan 590’s Writers Bloc with Jeff Blair and Richard Deitsch.
Here is what the GM had to say…
• On Alejandro Kirk
Alejandro, he's been great, man. He's obviously performed exceptionally well — I think he had his first swing-and-miss that I think I've ever seen (laughs). He really understands the art of hitting, so he's been fun to watch.
Well, clearly Atkins has been watching the games.
The question about Kirk, of course, is whether or not he’s going to break camp with the Blue Jays, or go back down to the minor leagues for more seasoning. Plenty of people fans want to see the club find a way to not lose Reese McGuire, who, frankly, offers no more than several veteran backup catching options still out there, he just happens to be young enough that it feels weird to put him in that category already. Some even, bizarrely, want the Jays to hold Kirk down to manipulate his service time.
I’m not one of those people. I’m one of these people:
I’m starting to think that Atkins is one of these kind of people, too.
Every case and ever situation is different, and his is as unique as they come. Someone who hasn't played above A-ball before he came to the big leagues, and as a catcher that is exceptional. Obviously there were exceptional circumstances last year, but so many things about him made us comfortable making that decision, and I think you guys are seeing it right now. Everyone's seeing. Everybody saw it last year, just his play in games that were as crucial for us as at any point in the season last year — those games were when he was playing. His play in the playoffs. Now, this is pressure baseball for someone at this point in his career, and it just doesn't look that way for him. And I mean that in the best way possible. Meaning that he's the same guy every day, the quality of his at-bats, the pace at which he manages the game as a catcher, his ability to communicate with our pitchers. He's doing a lot very well, given what he's done in his career. We'll see, you know? There's no reason for us to make that decision today. I suppose it would give him some piece of mind, but he's fine. We'll take this last week of spring training to make that decision. There are other alternatives that we have, as you mentioned, and very encouraged with the work to date.
Clearly that’s a diplomatic answer, though it’s maybe telling that Atkins didn’t mention McGuire by name or express concern for his piece of mind.
But I don’t think we need to read too much between the lines on all this, considering what Atkins said next: the Jays had their top nutritionist in Mexico with Kirk this winter for weeks!
He's been awesome. He's so open when you're talking to him about something as sensitive as someone's weight and the shape that they're in. He's exceptionally open and honest and communicative as it relates to that, For someone, especially given the parameters and where he is in his life, he's just all about getting better and really candid with us. So, he embraced having Jeremy Chiang, our team nutritionist, and spent several weeks with him. And spent time — it's really more — you guys know well — it's more about education. It's not babysitting. Babysitting doesn't work, telling people what to eat, what not to eat, when to work out, doesn't work. It's an understanding. So, time spent was crucial, and given the pandemic there were several alternatives, and the alternatives that worked best for him was for us to go to him. And Jeremy Chiang has done an exceptional job, amongst many others — not just Jeremy. There's been strength and conditioning staff, many members of the performance team that have spent a lot of time and energy, not on just Alejandro, on others, just making sure that little by little we're doing the best we can to give them what they need to get better.
Now, the Jays have a pretty big staff these days compared to some iterations of the club I can remember, but surely that’s not the type of investment of resources that they can give every player, or every prospect who could use the help. So what it says to me is that Kirk matters to this organization. Like, a lot.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think they do that for a player who they expect to send to the minors for a whole lot of the year. What Kirk does on the field works right now, and because of his body type, it may not work for many years down the line. Clearly the Jays are trying to maximize what he and they can get out of his career. Part of that, I think, will also be not having him waste what may be his physical prime roasting minor league pitching.
There’s also this:
• On Tanner Roark
Atkins was specifically asked to rate his confidence level in Tanner Roark for the coming season.
Pretty high. Obviously Tanner Roark's year last year was not what he was hoping for. He was exceptionally disappointed in that year. But the body of work, everything he's done in his career, how durable he's been, and then how he's performing to date — and it's not just the performance or looking at the velo, it's the work behind the performance that we saw this off-season and are seeing right now, we feel, every day that goes by, better and better about him being closer to that '18/'19 version than the 2020 version. But we'll see. We've got to be thinking about how we can get better every day, and this season, when he is out there against the AL East, will really be the telltale. But really encouraged by the work he did this off-season, and camp, and how he's looked so far.
“We’ll see” isn’t exactly the most spirited defence Atkins could have come up with here, but you certainly can’t say it’s an unfair way for the club to be looking at it.
The Jays have a number of alternatives if Roark does falter again.
• On managing pitcher workloads in 2021
We've talked about this a lot in the past, so it won't be anything that new. As it just relates to Nate Pearson, we talked about last year a ton, and how are we going to manage that. And so, there's several things in your question. There's workload, that is just relative to going through the pandemic and the missed time. There's Toronto Blue Jays depth, and how we're managing that. And then there's individual cases. But I think more broadly speaking as it relates to the industry and the major league pitching bounce back from coming through the pandemic, it's so hard to account for what that really means, having missed that time.
There is no doubt about it, it will be a competitive advantage to be able to manage that better than other teams. Because there's going to be setbacks, we're going to deal with things we haven't dealt with before. Not in individual cases, per se, but as you look at the whole. It is a challenge, for sure. As it relates to the Blue Jays, speaking of Tanner Roark, and having guys that have had that workload in the past — Hyun Jin Ryu, Robbie Ray, really encouraged by what Steven Matz has done thus far and the shape that he's in, (and) the trend of Ross Stripling — and then having guys like Trent Thornton, and Anthony Kay, and T.J. Zeuch that are behind them, and not even mentioning Nate Pearson, that's a good start. To be thinking about the overall depth that we have that could contribute in a starting way. Potentially Julian Merryweather as well. So, that's a good starting point.
Now, how we manage that on the individual cases is the key. And there's only one way, and it's to individualize it. And that's to understand their body of work and what they've done, what they're currently doing, and then just using all the resources to monitor the potential of fatigue, the potential of setbacks, or if fatigue is in front of us. And we're just better at that, as a game, at understanding when guys' arm slots are changing, when spin rates are changing. Little, small, very small details, when you start to see those changes. It helps us ask the right questions to our players to put us in the best positions to not overexpose them. So, the more proactive we can be understanding that information, and getting in front of potential setbacks, putting ourselves in a good position to make sure that we don't have to overexpose them, will be how at least the Toronto Blue Jays try to separate themselves as we deal with that challenge.
At the risk of dumbing this down too much, it sounds like the Jays don’t have much in the way of a master plan, but instead will continue to take a more granular approach to monitoring pitcher injuries and managing workloads. They’ve given themselves a ton or arms to work with, which will help them cover the innings they need to, and seem as though they’re going to let the processes they’ve had in place prior to 2021 continue to dictate pitcher usage.
I dunno. Seems about right
• On Nate Pearson
I think it's probably unlikely that he's ready for opening day. I will say this, it is the best case scenario, given what we've learned since the injury. We're getting the best case scenario. So, it is very much what we thought it was, and just a mild reaggravation, and there's nothing more significant than that. So, extremely optimistic that he could pitch on opening day. We would not completely rule that out. But I think it's unlikely based on the position we'd like to put him in. We don't want to put him in a position to pitch two innings on opening day, or the third day of the season, whatever it may be. We want to put him in a position to be a starter for 2021 and for 2026 and for 2027. So, we need to be thinking about absolutely the best chance to win in 2021, and we feel the best thing to do is to put him in a position to be a very effective starter for us.
That’s good news, obviously, about Pearson’s g-g-groin, g-g-groin, g-g-groin injury being mild. I, however, am just as interested in the years that Atkins has chosen as his endpoints.
Pearson, because he was held down just barely long enough last summer to ensure he couldn’t accumulate a full year of big league service, is on track to reach free agency at the conclusion of the 2026. Funny how 2026 and 2027 were the years that came to mind there!
• On Thomas Hatch
Similar in that we're encouraged by what we've learned by just getting more information, and that we do feel everything is mild in nature. We will take a blow from throwing for at least a week, to understand and make sure that we're not pushing through something. It would be unnecessary to push at this point. But extremely encouraged that he'll be back on the mound soon and don't feel that there's anything too significant there. We're still not done getting all of the information and making sure that we've checked every box in that process.
Well that’s great news, because it’s always a scary moment when a pitcher has obvious arm discomfort and takes himself out of a ballgame — as Hatch did earlier in the week. Those moments aren’t made any better by people going over the game footage like it’s the Zapruder film, looking for finger flexes or whatever signs might be there of significant damage. *COUGH*
• On Alek Manoah
DEITSCH: I wonder if (Manoah's) work in the spring maybe surprised you, or potentially could accelerate his timeline. Because he just, he did not look overwhelmed by the position — and I know, again, he hasn't really pitched a lot in the minors. But in the most layperson term I could say it, he just looked like a guy who belonged. How did you see him?
ATKINS: I would say everything you said I agree with. The only thing that I would add is that it wasn't so much a surprise, because we benefit from his interactions and having seen all of his performance in the minor leagues, and then having watched so closely that performance in West Virginia, and then all the way back to his high school days in Miami.
The heartbeat and the competitiveness was the thing that sold us much more than the 97 mph fastball and the wipeout slider. So, we weren't surprised, but extremely encouraged. He will dictate his timeline.
The challenge for starting pitchers is the same thing we're talking about, it's back to the same challenge of making sure you're putting a guy in a position to pitch for a long time. That's the challenge. His stuff would play, obviously, he just punched out seven in three innings against a pretty good team. It's more how do we put him in a position to go out there for six to eight innings, for 20 to 30 starts, year in and year out, and make sure that we're not having to take a sideways step or, worse case scenario, a backwards step. But he can, based on his effectiveness, and based on how his minor league development goes, a lot of that progress and workload development can be in the major leagues — as we've started that process with Nate Pearson — so yes, he can speed up that timeline. He can absolutely do that.
I’m disappointed that Ross missed an opportunity to drop a “worst case Ontario” there, but otherwise this is pretty phenomenal. There’s really only a minimal amount of brake pumping from this answer, and for good reason. Manoah has looked spectacular from what little we’ve seen so far. The Jays seem to agree, and they, of course, have seen a lot more than we have.
That itself is an interesting fact, I think. It feels like we’ve heard more than ever this winter about how hands-on the Jays are with their players in the off-season. And that’s something that will only continue to happen now that the club’s development complex in Dunedin is open — a resource the club has said it’s going to encourage players to use year round. Based on some of the results we’ve seen so far this spring, it’s a concept that may end up selling itself.
• On Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, and the club’s new veterans
It's so cool. Someone said to me when we signed George Springer and Marcus Semien that, hey, now the young guys can just be the young guys. And I think that that's what we're seeing.
And we're seeing that Vladdy's having fun playing baseball.
His name is brought up, for sure, but it's not every 30 minutes, and every day, and in every single conversation. Similar for Bo and Cavan. And Cavan's willingness — the interactions I had with Cavan this off-season about playing third — similar with Vladdy, the conversations I had with Vladdy. That we had with those individuals about playing different positions. Every one of them, I think, has been relieved. I don't want to speak for them, but I would take the position that I feel confident in saying, I think that each of those individuals feels some relief from the additions of George Springer, the addition of Marcus Semien, and what that means for our chances to win.
They're so focused on winning that it takes a little bit of pressure off of them. They're used to pressure, they embrace it, but it does allow them to have a little bit more fun and go out there and just play baseball, and that's what we're seeing, right? Vladdy's — the offence is just so exciting to watch. With the position his body's in and how, just, athletic his swing is and how he uses the whole field. What's more exciting, the line drive off the wall or the laser ground ball the opposite way? It's just such a dynamic offensive player and so fun to watch. And Cavan's just every day is a little bit better and has quietly just been a force for us, and I'm confident he's going to continue to be.
There’s a lot going on in this response, but I feel I need to first say that clearly — clearly — the more exciting thing is the line drive off the wall! Like, it’s no contest!
Still, Atkins is not wrong that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is in the middle of a tremendous spring, and does seem to be having fun out there. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but I could absolutely believe that the fact he’s in better physical shape and that conversation has become much quieter, and the fact that he’s able to fade into the background a little more, is having a positive effect.
Whatever it is, you have to feel good right now about Vlad’s chances to have his best big league season to date here in 2021.
• On George Springer and Marcus Semien
They both really have embraced this group, they love really being in and around one another, and I think you described it well, that they're not coming in to put their stamp on things, they're coming in to be a part of an environment and hopefully learn from the young guys as they're trying to help be available and help provide experiences that they've have, and their progression through the major leagues. Their experiences not just in individual performance but team performance, and what that means. And how we can be better as a group. Not just what it means to be able to be ready to face Gerrit Cole, but both. It has been very fulfilling for me to just watch on a daily basis. I know that those guys are going to benefit from one another wholeheartedly.
It’s easy to be optimistic in March, but I AM OPTIMISTIC IN MARCH, YOU GUYS. Let’s get this season started!