Atkins speaks!: On Merrifield's status, Bass and Pop, Strip and Spring, deadline deals, and more!
Jays GM Ross Atkins made the media rounds on Wednesday, after the dust had settled around his team’s underwhelming trade deadline haul — a description that even he acknowledged, albeit not in so many words, was one that fans might have. In interviews with both Tim and Friends on Sportsnet, and Overdrive on TSN, he tried to sidestep the Whit Merrifield thing, talked up Anthony Bass, addressed injuries to Ross Stripling and George Springer, and more!
There is plenty to talk about with this team right now, so let’s get to the talkin’…
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On Whit Merrifield…
— COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE UPDATE: THURSDAY, 5:20 PM ET: He already got the vax and will be in Toronto for the next homestand. Original post to follow. —
It wasn’t the first question asked in either interview, but let’s get straight to the Merrifield stuff and be done with it. People seem to be very confused by all this, and understandably so given that the Jays have been tight-lipped. Thing is, I don’t think they have a choice in the matter, legally.
Uh, probably.
The U.S.'s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibit employers from disclosing players' medical information beyond what is deemed allowable by the league's collective bargaining agreement and standard player contract. Per law firm O'Neil Cannon Holloman DeJong & Laing the "Uniform Player's Contract" (UPC) allows that "[for] public relations purposes, a Club may disclose the following general information about employment-related injuries: (a) the nature of a Player’s injury, (b) the prognosis and the anticipated length of recovery from the injury, and (c) the treatment and surgical procedures undertaken or anticipated in regard to the injury."
Positive tests for COVID-19 and vaccination status are not something that clubs can disclose without a player's consent. Surely we all remember the secrecy on this!
The firm adds that "any unauthorized disclosure could constitute a HIPAA violation, for which significant federal civil monetary penalties may apply if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigates a compliant or performs a compliance audit. Additionally, a player might be able to bring a collective bargaining grievance, or to allege a breach of the employment contract."
Now, why isn’t Ross Atkins simply citing this when radio hosts go Woodward and Bernstein-ing around for an answer? I don’t know. Perhaps because I’m wrong here! I’m certainly not a lawyer.
There is, however, another reason why the Blue Jays would be very, very reluctant to address this issue on their new player’s behalf: because Merrifield got himself in some hot water for his earlier comments on it.
When he didn’t make the trip to Toronto last month, Merrifield admitted he wasn’t staunchly anti-vax. “Something happens and I happen to get on a team that has a chance to go play in Canada in the postseason, maybe that changes," he told reporters at the time. He’d do it if he was on a contender, in other words, but for the useless 2022 Royals? Why bother?
Or, at least, that’s how it came off in Kansas City — including in the club’s front office.
“When I first heard that, I was very disappointed,” Royals GM Dayton Moore said, per Jaclyn Hendricks of the New York Post. “Pretty disgusted, truthfully.”
Merrifield has played in Kansas City for seven seasons. He evidently has a great affinity for the fans and the organization, or at least the good sense to want to protect his legacy on his way out of town.
I think I can understand why the Blue Jays are letting him address this first. And while I can’t say with absolutely certainty that I’m right on this — and my track record of guesswork has been pretty spotty lately! — I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to figure out what’s going on here. Certainly not difficult enough as to require multiple news cycles talking about it.
But, of course, the questions do have to be asked. And so, with all that out of the way, here’s what Ross Atkins told Sportsnet’s Tim Micallef when asked if he knew when Merrifield would be able to play home games:
Yeah, well, listen, this is a — we acquired Whit to play for the Toronto Blue Jays and he's excited to do that. And there is a clock that will start, and that timing, I will let him address the timing of that and what that means. I think you can map out a calendar and most people could determine what those potential scenarios could be for him.
So you're not worried about him not playing home games?
He is exceptionally excited to be a part of this, and he knows what it means to play in Toronto.
Hello, Mr. Thompson.
TSN’s Bryan Hayes pressed a little harder on Overdrive, but not after first simply asking if Atkins could offer any more clarity on Merrifield.
“Again, I would rather him speak on that topic first,” Atkins said, “and he'll be there to do that (Thursday). I do know this: that he's very, very excited to be joining this team.”
HELLO, MR. THOMPSON.
"Respectfully, Ross, you know where this is going,” Hayes proceeded, “because I understand where you're coming from that Whit, that's his personal life, it's his personal decision, he will answer for it. But I believe you owe the Blue Jays fans an answer on the Ross Atkins side of things, which is: you made the acquisition, you decided to bring him in. In doing so — take us through this — can you make us understand why you believe he will be playing at the Rogers Centre?"
I don’t think he can! And so Atkins tried his best to elide the question.
Well, I think the biggest thing I can tell you is that this is not the first time we've been through this. We've been through it a lot. We're the only team in baseball that's been through it to the magnitude that we have. And we have a lot of experience with it, and, again, Whit is very excited to be a part of this. We feel very good about the acquisition. We are not concerned about that acquisition, and really excited about him being a part of this. He's talking about being a part of it. He's excited about being in Toronto, and he understands what that means to come here. But again, as it relates to him addressing that issue, it has been a bit of a whirlwind with a lot of travel. I'd rather he be the person to address it first.
Atkins makes a good point here, which is that they’ve been making transactions for almost a year now with the understanding that players wouldn’t be able to get into Canada if they weren’t vaccinated — transactions that often get announced before officially completed, so we’d know if one was mysteriously called off — and they haven’t been tripped up by a staunch anti-vaxxer yet.
They’ve also had to deal with the tricky vaccination issue with some of their own players. *COUGH*
Another thing Atkins can’t say is that he’s been in communication with players before they were on his own team! Could he be implying that they’ve been able to find this information out without actually saying as much? Yes. Yes he could.
"OK,” Hayes continued, “in terms of the GM of the team though, would you be accepting of a scenario where a player on your roster only plays road games. Is that a possibility?"
I suppose everything is possible. I don't see that scenario being a likely one or we wouldn't have acquired him.
(*whispers*) I think he’s talking to you…
On the fans’ response to the deadline…
We’ve got a nice dovetail here in terms of the two interviews and the question of how the fans reacted to Tuesday’s moves — addressed on Sportsnet — and how the players and coaches reacted — addressed on TSN.
First up, the fans.
On Sportsnet, Tim straight-up asked Atkins what he would say to fans who were unsatisfied by the Blue Jays’ haul — a significant number according to a Twitter poll.
Yeah, I mean, it's so hard for me to speculate on what their concerns are in totality, and to respond to that in a way where I could just drill down in specific areas — or compare some of the acquisitions that were made to other acquisitions that we could have made, or talk about what the cost would have been and what that would have meant long-term.
There were other opportunities that maybe would, dare I say, have been more popular. Some of that comes with name recognition — I'm sure there are a lot baseball fans, certainly in Canada, who know who Zach Pop is, and certainly Toronto fans know who Anthony Bass is, and Mitch White has been an effective starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers that we're excited to add. And everybody knows who Whit Merrifield is. But yeah, there were some superstars that changed teams at this deadline, and at this particular juncture to acquire talent, we didn't have the superstar exchange. But overall this group that we've added is a very, very good group to add to an already exciting team.
I’m a little surprised here that, as I alluded to above, Akins acknowledged that there were more popular deals out there that the Jays could have potentially made.
I don’t want to get too deep into reading the tea leaves on this, but this doesn’t make me not think that there was something much bigger genuinely cooking. Atkins even brought that up himself in response to an earlier question from Tim, about how he had felt about the team’s deadline overall.
“There were a couple of plays that we were in that we would have also been excited about,” he said, “but this we saw as a very good outcome for us.”
Not exactly “everything went perfectly to plan!” is it? Which, of course, is at least honest, I’d bet. If nothing else, Whit Merrifield — the most last-minute of the Jays’ deadline day acquisitions — sure feels like a Plan-B for a team that had really wanted the Cubs’ Ian Happ, doesn’t he?
Noah Syndergaard may not be Noah Syndergaard anymore, but he certainly would have fit the “name recognition” bill. He and Raisel Iglesias of the Angels were both very interesting — albeit expensive — options that the Jays were connected to.
Could the finances have been what caused the hiccup? Not according to one of Atkins’ answers in the TSN clip.
“We were not limited by any financial — obviously we're running a business, but there weren't limits put on us, or restrictions that kept us from doing things,” he said.
On the team’s response…
Atkins also mentioned the day’s lack of sizzle — which is how I put it in my deadline day recap — when speaking with TSN. Asked about the message sent to the clubhouse by the moves, Atkins replied:
We're excited, we're excited to keep making this team better. We've spent a lot of time and energy to build upon a young group over the last several years. And at each juncture, when there's been an opportunity to build further and add talent to the organization, fortunately we've had the resources to do that, and are very excited about the additions that we were able to make over the last 48 hours.
Later asked about how the players and coaches reacted, he explained:
I only got a lot of positive feedback from everyone. I think at each, as I mentioned, at each point when you're looking to add talent, sometimes there are additions that can create a little bit more excitement than others, but I know that this group is excited about where we are as an organization, as a team. They have some relationships with the guys that we were able to acquire as well. So it's a very positive vibe in the organization.
Again he acknowledges that his deals didn’t have the zazz, zing, zork, or kapowza of some of moves made by other clubs. A thread that runs through both of these statements is the more personal aspect of team-building. This is a close group who have been together for a while and might not have been best served by a major upheaval. That’s obviously a pretty flimsy reason not to make a trade to make the team significantly better, but I think it likely was a consideration — and Atkins admitted as much later on in his talk with TSN.
When asked which of team scares the Blue Jays the most now that the deadline has passed, he replied:
I can't imagine telling you who scares our team. Obviously, listen, I don't have to go out there and compete every day, but our guys are not a fearful group and are exceptionally confident in the talent that we do have. And the continuity that we do have in there, and how long these guys have been developing together.
That was important to us as we added talent to this group — that we felt that they could be a part of this for an extended period of time, and maybe not just for two or three months. Not that we were closed off to that, but that was additional value to us — that we could build upon the continuity that we feel is powerful, and make an already very good team better.
Clearly getting players that weren’t rentals was important to the Jays, but I think the chemistry stuff was quite important, too.
Asked a similar question in the Sportsnet interview — did you feel pressure to keep up with the other AL contenders at the deadline? — Atkins addressed that aspect of the front office’s thinking slightly more directly.
We feel that we did, it's just a different shape. It's not only about the acquisition, it's also about the subtractions. So, we feel that we've consolidated a lot of the players in and around our 40-man roster and feel like we've made a very good team better.
I can’t tell you that what he means there is that they didn’t want to subtract anyone significant from their big league roster in order to make a more splashy trade — he’s clearly mostly talking about moving on from guys like Jordan Groshans and Samad Taylor, who were likely going to be squeezed off of the 40-man this winter anyway (and probably Max Castillo, too) — but it wouldn’t surprise me if the sentiment was there.
And it was definitely there when he said this to Sportsnet:
The other thing that got a lot of discussion from us was talking about adding a left-handed hitter, or left-handed complements, and the performance of Raimel Tapia and Cavan Biggio, in addition to the performance of Lourdes Gurriel and Teoscar Hernández, made that really hard to do without taking someone off our roster. And we feel so good about the team the way that it's built that Whit Merrifield is a very good complementary skillset.
“We like our team, Barry.”
On the haul itself…
Obviously a GM isn’t going to be anything but aglow when asked about a group of players he’s just acquired, and Atkins didn’t disappoint on that front.
Anthony Bass
To Sportsnet:
There was a lot of talk about acquiring a back-end reliever with swing-and-miss ability and Bass has been one of the most effective relievers in baseball. And so he complements Yimi Garcia and Jordan Romano and Timmy Mayza and Adam Cimber exceptionally well.
To TSN:
Anthony Bass has been one of the best relievers in baseball this year. A strikeout per inning, he's not walking anybody, has been very effective against right-handed and left-handed hitters, pitching late in the game. A really good weapon in his slider, a little uptick in his fastball. And, like I said, he's been one of the better relievers in baseball this year, and carried a strong workload.
Can’t disagree here. We’re maybe not talking J.A. Happ levels of brain-rewiring being required here, but it’s going to take a bit for a lot of Jays fans to get their previous impressions of Bass out of their heads.
The “uptick in the fastball” bit is really about Bass’s sinker, which is his primary fastball (though he does throw a four-seamer as well), and is up to 95.3 on average this season, as compared to 94.5 when he was here in 2020.
I like how Ben Clemens of FanGraphs put it, saying that the Jays did “a great job shoring up the middle of the bullpen,” and could have gone bigger in relief with an Iglesias acquisition, “but short of that, I like what they did just fine.”
He also wrote this: “Look, shopping at Wayfair isn’t glamorous, but it makes your house look better and doesn’t cost that much.”
Can’t really disagree there, either. LOL.
Zach Pop
To Sportsnet:
Zach Pop has one of the best sinkers in (baseball), with a very good slider — we're exceptionally excited about what he can contribute as well.
To TSN:
Zach Pop we feel has incredible upside. Already very effective in the major leagues with one of the best weapons in the game in his very, very good sinking fastball, with a plus slider to add to it. A lot of power. Happens to be from Canada, which is a bonus for our fans — and for us. It is meaningful for us that he's from here.
Pulled that last bit out of the fire there, Ross. But the slider talk is what’s intriguing here. I quoted Eno Sarris on Pop’s impressive Stuff+ when I originally wrote up the trade, and it appears as though he and the Jays are thinking similarly. Pop has shown a very effective floor while going to his sinker 83% of the time. I suspect the Jays are going to try to find a better equilibrium between the sinker and slider, and believe they’re going to get some of the swing-and-miss that they lack that way. Smart!
Mitch White
To TSN:
Mitch White, right now will slide right into the rotation with an impressive arsenal. We are really excited about what he can do for this team in the short-term and long-term. Projects to be able to haul innings for us in a crucial role, as a starting pitcher. And if we're not needing him there he could be in the bullpen for us. Or there are other opportunities, where there's (minor league) options.
There had been some question as to whether or not White would slot into the rotation immediately as a replacement for the injured Ross Stripling — which, frankly, seemed odd, because why wouldn’t he? — and I guess that question has been answered here.
Anyway, yeah. Nice piece. Nice, unsexy piece. (Well, OK, not unsexy literally.)
Whit Merrifield
To Sportsnet:
Whit Merrifield is a very good complementary skillset — because of his versatility, because of where he's been, how he's done it at very high levels on the biggest stages. Really, really complements out bench well in a way that — he's going to play on a regular basis, but it just makes our team more dynamic.
I’ve walked back my earlier “Whit Merrifield sucks” stuff a little bit elsewhere, but I suppose it behooves me to do it here as well. Merrifield has hit really well lately, posting a 138 wRC+ since July 1. He’s been hitting the ball as hard as he was last year, when he was a three-win player. Speed, defence, versatility, even platoon splits (something Santiago Espinal can’t say). He’s everything you’d want in an aging, unvaccinated, poor man’s Ian Happ!
On Springer and Stripling…
Obviously a backdrop to the Jays’ wheeling and dealing is the fact that club’s roster is not at full health. George Springer is missing a lot of games as he tries to manage his way through pain in his elbow, and not long before the deadline hit, right-hander Ross Stripling landed on the IL with a glute strain.
The addition of Merrifield provides some cover for Springer, who has looked awfully uncomfortable of late, but who apparently isn’t risking further damage by trying to play.
An IL stint for him, Atkins told Sportsnet, is only “a possibility if he has another setback. But the information that we had (Wednesday) is very positive. He's exceptionally strong, we don't have reasons to believe that it's headed in a negative direction.”
In other words, it’s really down to how much pain Springer can tolerate.
“He's a tough individual that will be capable of managing it,” Atkins told TSN. “We'll see. We'll go day by day. If it needs a more extended period then we have to consider that, but I would say we have a lot of faith that he's going to be a big contributor over the last couple of months.”
I have a bit of a hard time with that one, sadly. But I wouldn’t expect the GM to say anything else. Hopefully he’s right.
As for Stripling, the prognosis seems pretty good.
“It seems like it could be very quick,” Atkins told Sportsnet, “where he's at the shorter stint, or just the minimum of the time missed by the IL days.”
We’ll take that as “a couple of weeks or so.”
He added some details on the timing of Stripling’s IL announcement, as it related to deadline day, in the TSN clip:
We knew that that was a possibility, but we did not know for sure that was happening as we got close. I think we knew maybe an hour or two before, I can't recall. But the White deal was already wrapped up and just going to medicals before we knew that for sure.
I think this means it’s safe to say that they also knew about it when including Max Castillo in the Merrifield trade. Depth is getting pretty thin there, eh Ross?
On rotation depth…
Asked flat out in the Sportsnet interview whether there is a level of concern within the organization about starting pitching depth, Atkins was oddly emphatic.
No, there isn't. We've been one of the better starting pitching organizations in baseball this year. Feel really good about the group that we have, and really good about how well Yusei Kikuchi has thrown recently. Obviously Kevin Gausman was phenomenal (Tuesday). The trend of José Berríos is incredible. So...
So… if someone else gets hurt while Stripling’s down the team’s playoff hopes hinge on starts by…? …? …? No? Not gonna say? OK, your funeral. Moving on!
On Yusei Kikuchi…
OK, I can’t quite move on from this subject just yet. Ah, but hold on — I’m sure it will all be fine. Yusei Kikuchi is fixed!
Asked on TSN to describe what he’s seen from him since his return, Atkins gushed:
He's repeating a slightly adjusted arm slot at an above average level. That has created that consistency. That has powered all of his weapons. Three really good pitches, a ton of athleticism, so we're exceptionally confident that that trend is going to sustain itself.
As confident as you were when you signed him to a $36 million contract before he came out of the gate and shit the bed? That confident??
Look, I like Kikuchi, I’ve been encouraged to a degree by his last couple of starts, or parts of them, at least. I also completely understand Atkins showing confidence in his guy, for a multitude of reasons. Thing is, a very glaring one of those reasons is the fact that he no longer has another choice! He did until 6 PM ET on Tuesday though. And yet knowing Stripling had an issue they dealt Castillo? Seems odd. Tells me, if nothing else, that Castillo didn’t have nearly the grip on a 40-man spot as a lot of folks taken in by the hype might have believed.
As for right now, like I say, I think it will likely work out fine. But this isn’t not concerning.
Miscellaneous…
• Atkins had a pretty interesting answer about bullpen depth when asked about it on TSN, and though the specific names that he offered up were of “usual suspect” types (enough Trent Thornton already, please!), he didn’t exactly deny the possibility that guys like Yosver Zulueta, Hayden Juenger, or perhaps even Ricky Tiedemann, could be options down the stretch.
A lot of really interesting arms in Triple-A, and even in Double-A. A couple of guys that have moved up to Triple-A recently. We feel good about the depth of our arms for sure. There's some guys that will be coming off the IL. Trent Thornton looked very good (Tuesday) — he's been phenomenal in Triple-A for us. Matt Gage has been interesting. We've definitely pushed some guys into the Triple-A level that will hopefully become options for us as they continue their development and progress.
• In a couple of spots Atkins made a good point regarding the bullpen. Though it has clearly been a weakness for the team all year — and last year, and in 2020, and… — the way that Yimi Garcia has finally seemed to get himself right really changes things. Things are thin back there, and I think Atkins is being a little too complementary in the following quote from the TSN interview, but it’s fair to say they’ve been decent, I think.
Our bullpen, over the month of July, was one of the better bullpens in baseball. Adding to them was important, and we're very confident of the work that they've done, especially at that back end in Yimi and Timmy and Jordan.
• Side note here: He pronounces the “y” in Yimi Garcia’s name, rather than saying it like “Jimmy.” I could have sworn Baseball-Reference’s pronunciation guide had said otherwise, so I went and checked the Wayback Machine and — aha! — this has indeed changed at some point during the season. Once “jim-ee” it’s now “yee-mee.”
• A couple of non-Atkins notes. Firstly, the Red Sox released Jackie Bradley Jr. here on Thursday. We know he was of some interest to the Jays back in the offseason, when it was reported that they looked at dealing Randal Grichuk to Milwaukee for him. I have a hard time seeing him as a replacement for Bradley Zimmer, who is considerably faster than Bradley Jr. at this stage. Though JBJ still has a good glove, and a much better contact rate, I don’t think either of them is someone the Jays are going to consider giving at-bats to in a non-blowout situation, so any advantage at the dish may be moot. Wouldn’t rule it out though!
• Lastly, don’t forget that Nick and I will be back live here on Thursday night, with a brand new Blue Jays Happy Hour following the final out of the opener between the Jays and Twins (first pitch 7:40 PM ET).
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Please stop using the term ‘exceptional’ Ross. If this was a drinking game I’d be wasted after reading this. Please try to speak like a human being sometimes. Please?
I wonder if a bigger deal didn’t happen because they refused to part with Tiedeman.