Stray Thoughts... - GM Bleatings

On communication troubles, "an easy no," Vlad's next contract, the catching market, Soto, Sasaki, Yariel, Gleyber, Kikuchi, Fried, Romano, Rooker, and more!

People aren’t going to like you if you’re constantly giving them a giant middle finger rather than making things in their lives materially better. I can think of a few institutions that would do well to learn that lesson today, but since nobody wants to hear my thoughts on any of that, lets shoehorn the idea into something about the Blue Jays.

Jays fans have been an unhappy bunch for a long time, but they’ve been especially unhappy since one very specific moment: Bo Bichette colliding with George Springer in the midst of the team’s epic collapse in the 2022 playoffs. Unless something miraculous happens over the next twelve months, when we eventually look back on the Shapiro and Atkins Era, I think that’s going to be the inflection point. The superstar signed to punctuate the team’s reemergence as a legitimate contender crumpled on the carpet, never to be the same again. After that everything changed.

While I can’t say it’s been all middle fingers from there—or that there hadn’t been any before that point—for a lot of fans there’s a sense that it has been exactly that. They traded the extremely popular Teoscar Hernández and broke up the “Barrio”; they pivoted too hard toward pitching, defence, and Home Run Jacket-hating red-assery; they served us an unbearably frustrating product in 2023, with countless games that felt like they were over as soon as an opponent got a single run on the board; they cynically and insultingly bungled the Anthony Bass fiasco; they let their too-clever-by-half tendencies get the best of them by pulling José Berríos after 12 batters in a scoreless game with their season on the line, then the GM threw the manager under the bus for it; they got carried away chasing a guy who was never going to sign here, then doubled down on pitching and defence with an incredibly uninspiring offseason; they failed to get Vlad or Bo signed to long-term extensions; they went out and had an utterly dogshit year, finishing in last place in their division; then they decided to keep the whole crew that got us here.

Now, some of that stuff is revisionism, some is outrage for outrage’s sake, and it’s certainly not how I’d categorize each of those things myself, necessarily. But people do feel that way. And, with all of it in mind, it’s maybe not so hard to understand why so many fans so easily showed their entire asses a few weeks back through their own ignorance of what the phrase “low-hanging fruit” means. They find the people at the top incredibly off-putting, and no amount of scolding or doubling-down on bad ideas is going to change that. Fans want to be communicated to in a way that isn’t always so mealy-mouthed, and they want to see that the people in charge understand how to actually improve things. *COUGH*

Where am I going with all this? Well, like I say, I’m shoehorning here. But it actually has been interesting to me to have watched the way these Jays have been communicating lately. The sample is far too small for me to suggest that there’s been any sort of a shift or lesson learned there—and given the history of this group I’m certainly not betting on one—but a couple of things on this front have jumped out at me.

First, I found it very conspicuous, after the stupidity of the “low hanging fruit” thing, how emphatically the power-hitting bona fides of David Popkins’ former team, the Minnesota Twins, were trumpeted in the relatively brief press release sent out to announce his hiring.

The Toronto Blue Jays today announce the hiring of David Popkins as the club’s Hitting Coach under Manager John Schneider.

“David’s ability to game plan and connect with players in different ways is a really exciting addition to our coaching staff,” said Schneider. “He's a true expert in all types of hitting information and will help our offensive strategy for each game. We’re looking forward to the instant impact of his relentless work ethic.” 

Popkins, 34, joins the Blue Jays for his fourth season on a Major League coaching staff and will oversee Toronto’s offence. The San Diego, CA, native spent the last three seasons as a Hitting Coach for the Minnesota Twins, where in 2023, they finished tied for the American League lead in home runs (233), marking their second-most in franchise history. During his tenure, the Twins ranked top five in the American League in extra base hits, home runs, OBP, SLG, OPS, average exit velocity, and hard-hit rate. He also worked within the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league system as a hitting coach for two years. Prior to his coaching career, Popkins played three seasons in the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system.

Maybe that’s just what you say when you hire a hitting coach, but to me it had a very “HELLO, MR. THOMPSON” quality to it given the reaction to Atkins’ post-season presser. WE LIKE POWER, SEE!!

Now, today, we have even more instances of Ross telling fans what they might actually want to hear. Maybe? Sort of? Possibly? Or at least being a little more straight-up than we’re used to?

OK, I actually don’t know—like I say, I’m shoehorning here!—but we’ll talk about all of those, and a whole lot more, in yet another GM Meetings edition of Stray Thoughts…

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An Easy Bo

On Tuesday, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (never heard of him) tweeted that Ross Atkins told him his answer would be “an easy no” if asked by fellow GMs about potentially trading Bo Bichette this winter, and today we got the full quote. (Clip via MLB Network)

“He's very much a part of our plans. Very similar to Vlad, he's meant a lot to this organization, to this city and country, and to the game of baseball. He's going to be one of the better players in the game. He has been over portions of his career, and [we’re] really excited about the two of them playing together.”

I might quibble with the idea that he’s meant a lot to the game of baseball—lol—but if you’re a Bo fan, which the vast majority of Jays fans are, that has to sound pretty positive, right? Plus, it’s pretty emphatic—it will be hard to walk this one back if they trade him this winter for anything less than an “offer we couldn’t refuse” bounty—and honest in the fact that he’s at least acknowledging that there have clearly been portions of his career when he’s not been at his best. (I’d say that includes the first four months of 2022, the last four months of 2023, and all of 2024).

I mean, OK, it’s a fairly standard comment for a GM to make about his player, and don’t worry, I’ll drop this whole dumb “lesson learned?” conceit fairly soon here, but I don’t know? As far as Communication From Ross Atkins goes—so, grading on a Stan Mikita curve here—it could be worse.

And, you know, even though it was only just yesterday that I was writing about the parallels between the situation that led to the Teoscar trade and the situation the Jays are in with Bo and payroll and the need to improve the bullpen, that was really just a thought exercise and I think keeping him is entirely fine. My position on Bo remains the same as it was when I wrote a piece called Some fairly safe big picture projections for the Blue Jays’ offseason back in September.

To wit:

I’ve written about it before, but for the sake of completeness it’s worth saying here that I think Bo Bichette won’t be traded or have his contract extended. Putting a value on him that pleases both sides is going to be extremely tough, whether that’s with his camp on a contract extension or with another team in trade. It’s not ideal, but I have a very hard time believing a better option is going to be out there than treating him like any other guy on a one-year, pillow contract. And he’s exactly the type of guy you’d want the Jays to go out and land with one of those, isn’t he?

This Means Guerra!

Hmm. Actually, I think I’ll drop the whole “maybe Ross is doing better at communicating lately” conceit now, because I just went to screen shot this utterly, utterly normal and benign tweet from Ben Nicholson-Smith, and folks, we are seeing uncharted levels of Ross Derangement Syndrome in the replies.

People, Ross is not going to set himself up for failure by saying that a deal has to get done, or that it’s his top priority, or that it needs to be done this winter necessarily. He’s not going to negotiate through the media and start talking about specifics. He’s not going to make Vlad sound so absolutely integral to the team’s long-term future—even if he is—that it costs them bargaining power in what will surely be a tough negotiation over a lot of money.

Also, no matter what he says you’re not going to like it! Chill. The. Fuck. Out.

Anyway, in a piece for Sportsnet on Tuesday morning, Shi Davidi added some much needed context. In declining to discuss specifics, Atkins said that saying “anything even subtle … just doesn't help Vladdy, doesn't help us.” Does that help you, weirdos?

Shi also provided more of the quote than seen in the tweet:

“Love the player,” said Atkins. “I'm really excited about the year he had, especially the finish to it, the leader that he is and (he) continues to evolve into a better and better one. I'm excited about the potential of him playing some third base and we'll work through that with him and depending upon our off-season, what that shape ultimately looks like. But I'm just so happy for him he's in the position he's in.”

And even more context later on:

It's hard to envision how the Blue Jays can remain competitive in 2026 and beyond without Guerrero, even if Atkins argued that “nothing's binary, nothing's black and white to us.”

“We don't make things that absolute in our decision-making other than following our values and our philosophies,” he continued. “So there are a lot of ways to make our team better. Vladdy could certainly be one of them. He already has been.”

People will undoubtedly hate that last bit, but it all seems fine to me! And I love this third base stuff—especially because this almost certainly is Ross saying what he thinks Vladdy wants to hear. Like, there is no way that Ross actually thinks that Vlad at third wouldn’t be a disaster in terms of the defensive metrics. I mean, this guy runs a team that got squeamish very quickly about Spencer Horwitz looking entirely passable enough at second base!¹ He’s conceding something here, perhaps. Or at least creating the sense that he’s not so desperate to only add a power bat in left field or at second or third base. And, folks, I’m all for it. Bring on the fun factor.

Back(up) Catcher?

And here we’ve got yet another Atkins quote—this time with a refreshing bit of honesty to it…

Naturally, fans didn't enjoy this one either. But, as much as folks would like to make it about Atkins, I think their real problem here lies with not understanding how scarce catching talent is these days. Only 18 players made 350 plate appearances as catchers this season, and only 13 made more than 400. There is a lot of time-sharing and platooning going on, and even within those the outcomes aren't great. Of the 46 catchers to log at least 150 PA (in games when they were catching), just 13 produced a WAR above 2.0—despite a healthy positional adjustment.

Catchers as a group slashed .234/.300/.378 (91 wRC+). And of those 46 catchers with at least 150 PA, Alejandro Kirk ranked eighth by WAR, by the way.

It makes sense to want a 1-B to reduce Kirk’s workload, but Atkins is right to recognize this as a luxury more than a necessity. He’s also right to understand that non-rebuilding teams with solid catching don’t want to trade that away.

The free agent market offers few answers. Danny Jansen is probably the best of a bad bunch, and he’s coming off four months of slashing .158/.274/.243. He’s also right-handed, which makes for an awkward platoon with Kirk, though obviously one that’s been workable enough for the Jays these past few years. But the biggest thing—and this should tell you something clearer than any of my words can about the state of the position—is that some team is nevertheless likely to give him a number one job. He won’t cost a ton, but he won’t cost nothing because he’s almost certainly not going to sign on somewhere for backup dollars. So now you’re talking about guys worse than the guy who was awful for the last four months, can’t stay healthy, and struggles with framing and the running game.

The Jays’ backups are far from inspiring but fine relative to what you’d expect from a backup catcher. They clearly have other, more pressing, needs. So… yeah… nothing at all wrong with what Ross is saying here.

Quickly…

• Lots of great stuff from Benny Fresh’s latest at Sportsnet:

“No neutral observer at the GM Meetings has seriously suggested the Blue Jays will actually land [Juan Soto].” Which… yeah… that tracks. And to which I say: Either get it done or do it quietly (as with their pursuits of Cole, Seager, and Freeman in previous winters).

Roki Sasaki is “a player the Blue Jays have liked for a while,” and they've had multiple in-person looks at him, including from Atkins himself. But everybody thinks he's going to the Dodgers. Which... also tracks.

Atkins spoke very highly of free agent Yusei Kikuchi, who could be a fit for them seeing as they appear to want to add to their rotation and move Yariel Rodríguez to the bullpen. Please!

The Jays are “expressing interest” in Gleyber Torres, formerly of the Yankees, “according to a source.” That's an interesting enough idea, especially when you notice that much of what dragged his season numbers down in 2023 was a poor April. Less so, however, when you realize that Steamer likes Will Wagner better, both offensively and defensively.

• More good stuff here from Ben’s appearance on the JD Bunkis Podcast here on Wednesday, which comes via @Atkins2Alcatraz—who, despite having a name that I would normally block on sight, has been great for digging up Jays-related information much in the same was as Ben Turner, who I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

I’ll add some quick thoughts as we go…

Fried works for me, especially if the qualifying offer softens his market. But I'm curious how they would make the financials work considering they absolutely need to add a big bat or two (or three).

There are no higher heights than Kikuchi, and he loves it here. Bring him home!

Crossing one item off the to do list by adding a bullpen arm (who can also serve as starting depth) while improving the rotation and bringing in a replacement for Chris Bassitt, who will be a free agent at the end of 2025, a year early does make a lot of sense, actually.

Mentioned this in the piece about fairly safe projections that I referred to earlier, so yeah, that definitely tracks.

As they should be. Well… Santander at least. But Torres would be fine too—I don’t really think that expecting Wagner to out-produce him would be smart business, despite what Steamer’s algorithm thinks.

Tate does nothing for me, but Swanson projects to get just $3.2 million in arbitration, which feels like a reasonable enough number for a guy who at least didn’t see his velocity dip despite obviously having a brutal season. I’d like to think that they’ll have enough resources to not have to be quite that fine about dollars on the margins.

Romano, meanwhile, is a tough one. Love him, would love to see him back, and his performance the last few years more than warrants the $7.75 million MLBTR projects his salary will be. But teams don’t pay for past production, and the Jays know the medicals better than anybody. It wouldn’t shock me if this year scared them off of him, but man it would be brutal to see him move on, get back to full health, and then thrive elsewhere. His passport shouldn’t matter in all this, but, honestly, it kinda does. Don’t blow having the kid from Markham as your long-term closer, please!

At the very least I’d like to think that, if they don’t tender him a contract, they could bring him back on a differently structured deal that lowers his near-term dollars in exchange for some guaranteed money in ‘26.

• Back to the Vlad-to-3B thing for a second, because I wasn’t just pulling the idea that the Jays may want to—or want to signal—that they’re willing to add power by way of first base out of thin air. It’s precisely what Jon Heyman suggested in his Wednesday piece for the New York Post. Specifically, he wrote that “the Blue Jays are open to moving Vlad Guerrero Jr. from first base to third, which could potentially open up a spot for Pete Alonso.”

I’d pray for Jays pitchers in that scenario, but for the opposing ones as well. Can’t actually see it happening, and all the usual Heyman/Boras client caveats apply here, but I continue to be all for stuff like this. Let’s smash dongs again. Er… you know what I mean.

• Speaking of Heyman, he tweets that A’s GM David Forst quashed any trade speculation about noted slugger—and guy I think the Jays should definitely trade for if only because they need to keep stealing the A’s best player every few years—Brent Rooker on Tuesday. “We’re going to keep him,” Forst said.

First off: Poor guy. Secondly: Why??? In the best case scenario, the A’s are going to be in Sacramento through 2027, and that’s precisely when Rooker’s contract ends. This is clearly not a team that intends to be competitive for the next three years, so it makes little sense—at least to me—not to cash in now.

• Lastly, Baseball America has posted their annual list of players who have elected to become minor league free agents, some of whom were members of the Blue Jays organization. Behold! Some guys who used to be guys (and some other guys)…

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1. His OAA through 288 innings at second was exactly 0, though he was -5 by DRS—which is the one I tend to think the Blue Jays’ own metrics hew toward. That’s completely anecdotal, and maybe even just made up, I should add. It just seems to me that their view of guys with defensive value has long tended to line up a little better with DRS than with OAA (or before that UZR). Just a theory! Though, actually, now that I think of it, maybe that was because for a long time UZR was coming apart at the seams—because of the way it handled plays where fielders were shifted (i.e. by ignoring them)—before the general public really started to notice.