NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The place on this planet is Blue Jays basic supervisor Ross Atkins? He’s not saying.
Atkins sat in entrance of a clean, white wall Monday afternoon, talking over Zoom with a small group of reporters all positioned in Nashville, the place the MLB Winter Conferences are underway. The assembly, scheduled to happen in individual, was shifted on-line simply over an hour earlier than it started attributable to “a scheduling battle” for the GM.
Clues have been sparse. Atkins sat in a black swimsuit and crisp white shirt, two overhead lights illuminating the white wall behind him. There was no wallpaper, no daylight coming in from a sure angle, no signal of Shohei Ohtani strolling by the background of the shot, waving at Atkins.
“Resulting from scheduling conflicts, I used to be in a position to be on this name, and I’m grateful to your adjustment to be right here with me as we speak,” Atkins stated when pressed on his whereabouts. “I needed to be sure that I used to be with you, and Zoom permitted that.”
Welcome to Ohtani Watch, the place spy video games meet a poker recreation with the very best stakes in baseball historical past.
The plain suspicion right here is that Atkins is way from Nashville, working to court docket Ohtani. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Ohtani met with the Blue Jays at their Spring Coaching advanced in Florida as they make a severe push for the two-time MVP with the potential to alter the whole course of a franchise for the subsequent decade-plus. It’s anticipated to price greater than a half-billion {dollars}, and even after a number of offseasons spent procuring close to the highest of the market, the Blue Jays might want to burst into a totally completely different universe of spending to make this occur.
Till Ohtani picks his new residence, a course of that’s rapidly turning into its personal model of LeBron James’ “The Resolution” in 2010, all the things else is on maintain. The group that lands Ohtani can all of a sudden throw any present notion of their “championship window” out the … nicely … window.
The Blue Jays have to attend on this, however they’ll’t sit idle.
Their different grand pursuit is predicted to be Juan Soto, the 25-year-old Padres star who is predicted to be traded this winter. Soto has only one 12 months remaining of membership management earlier than his free company takes a chokehold of subsequent 12 months’s Winter Conferences, so it is a drastically completely different dialog than the Ohtani pursuit.
Then, we come to names on the high of the free-agent market like Cody Bellinger, the highest free-agent bat obtainable who’s being overshadowed by the flashing lights on the commerce market. Talking broadly concerning the star gamers obtainable, Atkins stored the door cracked open to the unlikely potential of touchdown two of the large fish, not only one.
“So as to add two of these to our roster can be exceptionally tough to drag off, however as we at all times speak about, the connection we’ve constructed with [Blue Jays chairman] Edward [Rogers] and [Rogers Communications president/CEO] Tony [Staffieri] — and the flexibility to go to them and current one thing to them — is actual. I might by no means eradicate us.”
That stated, any membership that walks away with Ohtani, Soto, Bellinger or Japanese sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto could have achieved one thing really nice. In the meanwhile, Ohtani is the shining star the Blue Jays are chasing after, however there’s nonetheless an entire offseason to play out as soon as that call is made. The Blue Jays have a necessity at third base, as Matt Chapman exams the open market, and within the outfield, with Kevin Kiermaier a free agent. That’s simply the big-ticket objects.
Let’s name it Part 2 of the Blue Jays’ offseason. At any time when that comes, they’ve already laid the groundwork on the commerce market to maneuver rapidly and aggressively.
“We’re so centered on position-player acquisitions,” Atkins stated. “The free-agent market on the position-player entrance isn’t fairly as sturdy as it’s on the pitching aspect. However there are alternatives on the position-player aspect, for certain, on the commerce market.”
By then, the stakes will likely be a lot decrease. Nothing compares to the pursuit of Ohtani, and we could not see this frenzy matched for many years.
That’s why Atkins is being so tight-lipped. Ohtani is baseball’s nice enigma, a fiercely non-public star. For all of the noise being made about his subsequent transfer, on the coronary heart of all of this, now we have negotiations which might be continuing in secret, simply as Ohtani needs it.
That’s why Atkins is correct the place he ought to be: in entrance of a clean white wall, refusing to even affirm or deny if that wall is white in any respect.