TORONTO – Competing in the meat-grinder that is the American League East is enough of a challenge on its own for the Toronto Blue Jays, but now the New York Yankees are close to adding monster masher Giancarlo Stanton while Shohei Ohtani joined the Los Angeles Angels rather than a National League club.
The bar for a wild card just went way, way up.
Multiple reports Saturday morning had the Yankees in agreement with the Miami Marlins to acquire Stanton, setting themselves up to feature a heart of the order that includes the 59-homer titan, 52-homer counterpart Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez for their bandbox ballpark.
Proper.
They’ll need to still bolster their rotation but clearly they’re coming for the defending East champion Boston Red Sox while widening the gap with the rest of the division.
The Angels, meanwhile, are suddenly much better after the Japanese sensation’s somewhat unexpected decision announced Friday by his agent Nez Balelo at Creative Arts Agency immediately deepened the pool of legitimate wild-card contenders in the Junior Circuit. Ohtani bolsters a lineup that also includes Mike Trout, Justin Upton, Albert Pujols and Kole Calhoun and deepens a rotation that features Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, Tyler Skaggs and Parker Bridwell.
By no means are the Angels an instant threat to depose the defending World Series-champion Houston Astros in the AL West, but they and fellow division rivals Seattle and Texas – two of the very disappointed runner-ups for Ohtani – all are good enough to compete for wild-card spots.
The Minnesota Twins, a young team that surprised its way to a wild-card this past season, should pile up wins in an AL Central sure to be dominated by Cleveland as Detroit, the White Sox and Kansas City each take steps back on reset or rebuild. And aside from the two Goliaths, the AL East will also include pesky Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
All of which leaves Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins and his staff with lots of work to do at the winter meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., next week to strengthen a team facing an increasingly daunting hunt. Atkins can fairly point to roster upside simply with better health – starting, first and foremost, with Aaron Sanchez, who is due to resume throwing imminently – but the AL’s worst offence needs more help than Aledmys Diaz, the intriguing and versatile infielder who is the club’s only add of consequence thus far.
Ohtani’s decision partially loosened the bottleneck that’s largely held up the winter’s business to this point, and now that the ongoing Stanton drama appears settled – the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants both said Friday they’re out because he won’t waive his no-trade clause to join them – things should really start moving.
What that means for the Blue Jays is unclear, although their strategy appears to be to spread around the estimated $25 million they have at their disposal on another versatile infielder type, a starter, a reliever an outfielder and, maybe, an upgrade at backup catcher if there’s something left over.
Given where the free agent market has gone so far in a small handful of transactions – Tyler Chatwood, $38 million over three years; Mike Minor, $28 million over three years; Miles Mikolas, $15.5 million over two years – Atkins will likely need to augment his roster, at least in part, through trade.
High-end targets are sure to include the likes of Marlins outfielders Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna, Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen and the versatile Josh Harrison. But given the club’s careful management of its minor-league assets, it’s hard to envision them parting with the type of prospect capital that will likely be needed to get such deals done.
The acquisition of Diaz for low-A Lansing outfielder J.B. Woodman is likely more of a blueprint that the Blue Jays will follow, seeking to move secondary tier prospects beyond core names like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Logan Warmoth, Nate Pearson, T.J. Zeuch and Anthony Alford, to name a few.
So perhaps they try to target a super-utility type like Jonathan Villar from Milwaukee or a surplus Phillies middle infielder, rather than breaking the prospect bank, which Atkins now feels is healthy, if not overflowing.
“What’s exciting to us about (the Diaz) deal is it takes, in my opinion, a deeper system to make a deal happen like that,” he said earlier this week, “because once you get past those first two or three or four names, to have the names like J.B. Woodman that you are able to deal from without feeling you are sacrificing entirely too much for ’21 and ’22. That depth, from us not only feeling as we have enough of it to give up something, but also have enough of it to be attractive to another organization, more so than other organizations that are in the same market as us.”
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Alternatively, the Blue Jays could also consider trading off their big-league roster, with Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic suggesting Kevin Pillar as one possibility for the San Francisco Giants now that the Marlins have sent Dee Gordon to Seattle with plans for him to play centre field.
The Blue Jays have some flexibility in the outfield with Teoscar Hernandez, Ezequiel Carrera and Steve Pearce also in-house, and some decent triple-A depth in Alford, Dalton Pompey and Dwight Smith Jr.
And, depending on their other spends, they could also try to go either real big, like maybe Lorenzo Cain big but perhaps more medium in Jarrod Dyson, in free agency for an outfielder in a market where there are plentiful options. But they would likely need cost-effective options in other areas in order for that to even be a consideration.
Lurking amid the different options lies the overarching question of Josh Donaldson and his future. Atkins has indicated that the Blue Jays plan to approach him about a long-term commitment at some point but teams that lost out on Stanton – the Giants and Cardinals in particular – may very well circle back to check on a price for the superstar third baseman.
Staying competitive in an increasingly challenging American League will be even more difficult without Donaldson, which is why it’s hard to see the Blue Jays actually pulling the trigger on a trade. That would set up a high-stakes walk year for both player and club.
“We don’t want things to linger,” Atkins said of the potential of a Donaldson extension. “We have certainly talked about a strategy (internally). The interesting thing about talking about your strategy is it’s like playing chess, I’m not going to tell you what my strategy is. … Those are things we can’t share for obvious reasons.”
Cloak, dagger and a tougher road back to the post-season for the Blue Jays, right in time for the winter meetings.
