Jays Roster Discussion

[L K]

I find it really odd the difference in fan perceptions between the Leafs rebuild and the Jays rebuild. When the Leafs finally tore it down everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got on board with the tank. When the Jays have now much more pragmatically recognised that the 2015 & '16 teams were built on selling the farm system, and taken the logical conclusion they need to rebuild, there seems to be no sympathy at all.

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the Leafs rebuild was done with the team largely floundering and unable to make the playoffs whereas the Jays rebuild, to some, started when they were a playoff team. The problem is that 2017 season. Some people don't see it as the inevitable result of Anthopoulos investing so heavily in older players to secure the playoff runs. Some people instead see it as a result of Shapiro/Atkins taking over the team.

For me it's more that they didn't really rebuild in 2017 or 2018.  They didn't make acquisitions during that time and traded off peripheral pieces but we managed to get nothing for Donaldson and Encarnacion.  I think my issue with Shapiro/Atkins is they didn't go hard enough into the rebuild.

 

[cabber24]

I find it really odd the difference in fan perceptions between the Leafs rebuild and the Jays rebuild. When the Leafs finally tore it down everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got on board with the tank. When the Jays have now much more pragmatically recognised that the 2015 & '16 teams were built on selling the farm system, and taken the logical conclusion they need to rebuild, there seems to be no sympathy at all.

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the Leafs rebuild was done with the team largely floundering and unable to make the playoffs whereas the Jays rebuild, to some, started when they were a playoff team. The problem is that 2017 season. Some people don't see it as the inevitable result of Anthopoulos investing so heavily in older players to secure the playoff runs. Some people instead see it as a result of Shapiro/Atkins taking over the team.

For me it's more that they didn't really rebuild in 2017 or 2018.  They didn't make acquisitions during that time and traded off peripheral pieces but we managed to get nothing for Donaldson and Encarnacion.  I think my issue with Shapiro/Atkins is they didn't go hard enough into the rebuild.

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

 

[bustaheims]

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the Leafs rebuild was done with the team largely floundering and unable to make the playoffs whereas the Jays rebuild, to some, started when they were a playoff team. The problem is that 2017 season. Some people don't see it as the inevitable result of Anthopoulos investing so heavily in older players to secure the playoff runs. Some people instead see it as a result of Shapiro/Atkins taking over the team.

I think that's part of it. Another part is also the timeline in rebuilding an NHL team in comparison to an MLB team. NHL top prospects reach the league and perform at a high level relatively quickly. Even second and third tier type guys get the NHL faster than most MLB top prospects. You can turn an NHL team around in 3-5 seasons without having to trade for significant pieces who are already established or sign them as expensive free agents. That's much harder to do with an MLB team.

 

[Kin]

For me it's more that they didn't really rebuild in 2017 or 2018.  They didn't make acquisitions during that time and traded off peripheral pieces but we managed to get nothing for Donaldson and Encarnacion.  I think my issue with Shapiro/Atkins is they didn't go hard enough into the rebuild.

I generally give them a bit of a mulligan on 2017. It would have been a very hard sell to the guys in the clubhouse, to say nothing of fans, to tear down a playoff team before they'd had a bad year.

I think they did rebuild last year when and where they could and while I think a fair case could be made that they should have moved some guys they didn't, they did trade guys like Happ and Pearce and Granderson and so on.

edit: Also, and I guess this is a minor point, but while I somewhat get and disagree with the Donaldson thing, I don't get EE at all. Should the Jays have traded him during the playoff run of 2016? Or should they have signed him to a deal they didn't like in the hopes of trading him later on? Because at the money he was asking for, I doubt they could get much more for him than the FA compensation draft pick.

 

[Kin]

I think that's part of it. Another part is also the timeline in rebuilding an NHL team in comparison to an MLB team. NHL top prospects reach the league and perform at a high level relatively quickly. Even second and third tier type guys get the NHL faster than most MLB top prospects. You can turn an NHL team around in 3-5 seasons without having to trade for significant pieces who are already established or sign them as expensive free agents. That's much harder to do with an MLB team.

Well, and as LK has sort of pointed to I think the rebuild is an easier sell if you can look at a top 10 or top 5 draft pick even if, like you say, they don't get to the big leagues for a while. The Jays have sort of middle grounded it although having very high draft picks is less important in a MLB rebuild than the NHL.

 

[IJustLurkHere]

I find it really odd the difference in fan perceptions between the Leafs rebuild and the Jays rebuild. When the Leafs finally tore it down everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got on board with the tank. When the Jays have now much more pragmatically recognised that the 2015 & '16 teams were built on selling the farm system, and taken the logical conclusion they need to rebuild, there seems to be no sympathy at all.

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the Leafs rebuild was done with the team largely floundering and unable to make the playoffs whereas the Jays rebuild, to some, started when they were a playoff team. The problem is that 2017 season. Some people don't see it as the inevitable result of Anthopoulos investing so heavily in older players to secure the playoff runs. Some people instead see it as a result of Shapiro/Atkins taking over the team.

For me it's more that they didn't really rebuild in 2017 or 2018.  They didn't make acquisitions during that time and traded off peripheral pieces but we managed to get nothing for Donaldson and Encarnacion.  I think my issue with Shapiro/Atkins is they didn't go hard enough into the rebuild.

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

 

[sickbeast]

I find it really odd the difference in fan perceptions between the Leafs rebuild and the Jays rebuild. When the Leafs finally tore it down everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got on board with the tank. When the Jays have now much more pragmatically recognised that the 2015 & '16 teams were built on selling the farm system, and taken the logical conclusion they need to rebuild, there seems to be no sympathy at all.

I think it largely has to do with the fact that the Leafs rebuild was done with the team largely floundering and unable to make the playoffs whereas the Jays rebuild, to some, started when they were a playoff team. The problem is that 2017 season. Some people don't see it as the inevitable result of Anthopoulos investing so heavily in older players to secure the playoff runs. Some people instead see it as a result of Shapiro/Atkins taking over the team.

For me it's more that they didn't really rebuild in 2017 or 2018.  They didn't make acquisitions during that time and traded off peripheral pieces but we managed to get nothing for Donaldson and Encarnacion.  I think my issue with Shapiro/Atkins is they didn't go hard enough into the rebuild.

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

 

[Kin]

If I were Donaldson and aware of the money the last two years had cost me I'd be looking for scapegoats too.

 

[IJustLurkHere]

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

What did you think was going to happen to ?the soul of the team??Donaldson should be focused on staying on the park, because if he can?t, he?s not getting another $23M deal next year.

Even if Anthropolous has stayed - and remember, he wasn?t fired - he had traded all his chips for those 2 runs, and then left rather than deal with the fallout.

That your family chooses not to support the team via season tickets anymore now is a fair use of your money. As far as I can see - and feel free to demonstrate where I?m wrong, but it not Donaldson, it?s not Encarnacion, and it?s ceronot the training staff - the Jays are being run in a sensible manner and dealing with the necessity of re-invigorating their 40 man roster to be competitive... if that costs them the support of a certain bracket of fans, that?s only to be expected.

 

[Bender]

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

What did you think was going to happen to ?the soul of the team??Donaldson should be focused on staying on the park, because if he can?t, he?s not getting another $23M deal next year.

Even if Anthropolous has stayed - and remember, he wasn?t fired - he had traded all his chips for those 2 runs, and then left rather than deal with the fallout.

That your family chooses not to support the team via season tickets anymore now is a fair use of your money. As far as I can see - and feel free to demonstrate where I?m wrong, but it not Donaldson, it?s not Encarnacion, and it?s ceronot the training staff - the Jays are being run in a sensible manner and dealing with the necessity of re-invigorating their 40 man roster to be competitive... if that costs them the support of a certain bracket of fans, that?s only to be expected.

Agreed. It will be a ghost town because the Jays aren't the Leafs - winning changes everything. And I'm sorry to say the window for the team that AA built was a few years at most and the prospect pool was empty when he left.

JD can say what he likes but he should prove it on the field this year before blaming different staff.

 

[cabber24]

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

What did you think was going to happen to ?the soul of the team??Donaldson should be focused on staying on the park, because if he can?t, he?s not getting another $23M deal next year.

Even if Anthropolous has stayed - and remember, he wasn?t fired - he had traded all his chips for those 2 runs, and then left rather than deal with the fallout.

That your family chooses not to support the team via season tickets anymore now is a fair use of your money. As far as I can see - and feel free to demonstrate where I?m wrong, but it not Donaldson, it?s not Encarnacion, and it?s ceronot the training staff - the Jays are being run in a sensible manner and dealing with the necessity of re-invigorating their 40 man roster to be competitive... if that costs them the support of a certain bracket of fans, that?s only to be expected.

Agreed. It will be a ghost town because the Jays aren't the Leafs - winning changes everything. And I'm sorry to say the window for the team that AA built was a few years at most and the prospect pool was empty when he left.

JD can say what he likes but he should prove it on the field this year before blaming different staff.

I call BS they had 3 top prospects in Osuana, Sanchez, and Stroman on their roster. They were in a great place and Shapiro neither added the right pieces or recouped anything. Worst rebuild ever. Total buzz kill from day one and complete inept job done to date. A complete PR disaster to boot.

 

[Kin]

I call BS they had 3 top prospects in Osuana, Sanchez, and Stroman on their roster.

Like you say, those three guys were already on the roster. And none of them turned out to be good enough players, at least not yet, to justify building a team around(to say nothing about their character).

But behind them, the actual group of prospects they had were nowhere near good enough to be the backbone of a real contender. That's not a great place for going forward by any measure.

 

[Bender]

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

What did you think was going to happen to ?the soul of the team??Donaldson should be focused on staying on the park, because if he can?t, he?s not getting another $23M deal next year.

Even if Anthropolous has stayed - and remember, he wasn?t fired - he had traded all his chips for those 2 runs, and then left rather than deal with the fallout.

That your family chooses not to support the team via season tickets anymore now is a fair use of your money. As far as I can see - and feel free to demonstrate where I?m wrong, but it not Donaldson, it?s not Encarnacion, and it?s ceronot the training staff - the Jays are being run in a sensible manner and dealing with the necessity of re-invigorating their 40 man roster to be competitive... if that costs them the support of a certain bracket of fans, that?s only to be expected.

Agreed. It will be a ghost town because the Jays aren't the Leafs - winning changes everything. And I'm sorry to say the window for the team that AA built was a few years at most and the prospect pool was empty when he left.

JD can say what he likes but he should prove it on the field this year before blaming different staff.

I call BS they had 3 top prospects in Osuana, Sanchez, and Stroman on their roster. They were in a great place and Shapiro neither added the right pieces or recouped anything. Worst rebuild ever. Total buzz kill from day one and complete inept job done to date. A complete PR disaster to boot.

You call BS and all I have to do is call Syndergaard. I'll have to do more research to add more to the conversation but that's how I recall things playing out - we doubled down on a roster with a small window.

Everyone is angry at Shapiro for having to clean up AA's mess and for the team not being very good once he bailed when he realized the writing was on the wall. Like many other people that are revered by others,  he wasn't around long enough to fail. If AA were here now he'd be just as loathed as Shapiro because, like I said, winning changes everything and they haven't been winning.

 

[cabber24]

They didn?t either rebuild or build around what they had. Became less competitive and squandered assets. This discussion has been had.

Well, sorry if you've had this conversation, because every time I see something like the above, I literally think of all the people who used to say "the Leafs can never rebuild". The Jays have pretty clearly been rebuilding.

They tried to hedge on Donaldson and it blew up in their face, but if Donaldson had gotten back to MVP form in St Louis, it might have accelerated the Jays rebuild, but would have been heartbreaking. If he'd gotten back to that form here, then who knows...

Did you see Donaldson's comments about the Blue Jays training staff, and also Shapiro somewhat indirectly?

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/mlb/unveiled-in-atlanta-ex-blue-jay-josh-donaldson-takes-shot-at-former-team?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1543415812

We had probably the best GM in the game and then Rogers basically replaced him by hiring Shapiro to try and save money.  That should tell you all you need to know as a fan.  Attendance was good, the organization was profitable.  Prior to Shapiro being hired the Blue Jays had a great vibe from Beeston all the way down.  Shapiro has systematically gutted pretty much all of that from the organization at this point.  It's hard to watch as fan.  You guys can talk about the rebuild and this and that.  IMO that's all nonsense.  The bottom line is that the team is poorly run from the top down.  Donaldson makes a good point.  Why did Shapiro fire the former training staff?  The same goes for the large number of Canadian employees within the organization that he has fired so he can replace them with his American cronies.  This is all about power, control, and manipulation and I will not support it as a fan.  Our family has cancelled our seasons tickets and we had four of them.  You guys will see, that place will be a ghost town this season.  All because the soul of the team has been sucked out by greedy ownership and a sleazy shill of a team president.

What did you think was going to happen to ?the soul of the team??Donaldson should be focused on staying on the park, because if he can?t, he?s not getting another $23M deal next year.

Even if Anthropolous has stayed - and remember, he wasn?t fired - he had traded all his chips for those 2 runs, and then left rather than deal with the fallout.

That your family chooses not to support the team via season tickets anymore now is a fair use of your money. As far as I can see - and feel free to demonstrate where I?m wrong, but it not Donaldson, it?s not Encarnacion, and it?s ceronot the training staff - the Jays are being run in a sensible manner and dealing with the necessity of re-invigorating their 40 man roster to be competitive... if that costs them the support of a certain bracket of fans, that?s only to be expected.

Agreed. It will be a ghost town because the Jays aren't the Leafs - winning changes everything. And I'm sorry to say the window for the team that AA built was a few years at most and the prospect pool was empty when he left.

JD can say what he likes but he should prove it on the field this year before blaming different staff.

I call BS they had 3 top prospects in Osuana, Sanchez, and Stroman on their roster. They were in a great place and Shapiro neither added the right pieces or recouped anything. Worst rebuild ever. Total buzz kill from day one and complete inept job done to date. A complete PR disaster to boot.

You call BS and all I have to do is call Syndergaard. I'll have to do more research to add more to the conversation but that's how I recall things playing out - we doubled down on a roster with a small window.

Everyone is angry at Shapiro for having to clean up AA's mess and for the team not being very good once he bailed when he realized the writing was on the wall. Like many other people that are revered by others,  he wasn't around long enough to fail. If AA were here now he'd be just as loathed as Shapiro because, like I said, winning changes everything and they haven't been winning.

Yep Shapiro been great... we're definitely on track...

 

[Kin]

Yeah, the only thing the dopes running the team have done is build one of the better ranked farm systems in baseball:

https://www.mlb.com/news/top-10-farm-systems-in-mlb/c-288576958

But whoever heard of rebuilding through an excellent farm system?

 

[TML fan]

Rebuilding is only supposed to take 0.0 seasons guys.

 

[cabber24]

Yeah, the only thing the dopes running the team have done is build one of the better ranked farm systems in baseball:

https://www.mlb.com/news/top-10-farm-systems-in-mlb/c-288576958

But whoever heard of rebuilding through an excellent farm system?

Imagine how much better it could have been if he actually committed to the rebuild instead of spinning his tires.

 

[Kin]

Imagine how much better it could have been if he actually committed to the rebuild instead of spinning his tires.

It's ranked as the 5th best in baseball so the answer is that it couldn't have been that much better.

Practically either. Trading Donaldson and...I don't know, Smoak I guess, would have added a couple pieces to the farm system, not drastically changed things. They moved pieces, added others. The real problem with the farm system not being as good as it could be aren't the one or two guys Shapiro could maybe have moved to get one or two extra pieces, it's the litany of older players with bad contracts the Jays have that they can't really move on from that they can't turn into extra pieces. Imagine if instead of Tulowitzki or Martin the Jays had valuable guys who could be leveraged into other prospects.

Either way, not being able to acknowledge that Shapiro/Atkins have rebuilt through the farm system and have done a good job of it kind of indicates that this isn't really being looked at fairly by people who just want to criticize them for being left holding the bag from AA's lousy deals.

 

[Deebo]

I don't get EE at all. Should the Jays have traded him during the playoff run of 2016? Or should they have signed him to a deal they didn't like in the hopes of trading him later on? Because at the money he was asking for, I doubt they could get much more for him than the FA compensation draft pick.

Considering they drafted Nate Pearson with the compensation pick, I'd say that's accurate.

 

[Kin]

By the way, just look how under just the tiniest bit of scrutiny and a serious look at what Shapiro/Atkins have actually done the thread goes from "They haven't rebuilt" to "Yeah, but if they'd done a few things differently the rebuild could be better".

I get people are bitter how after years of no playoffs the competitive window as only a couple of years before another building process was needed but that's the issue with trying to build a team on older players rather than with young, homegrown talent. If what Shapiro/Atkins do here is build the Jays into what they built the Indians into, then the next window of competitiveness will be larger and Rogers has proven that they're willing to spend at a level that can keep a team like that together.