Toronto Blue Jays: Mark Shapiro attempt at damage control misses point

Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro held a press conference to address all the reports about the team from the past couple of weeks.

When a team has struggled as much as the Toronto Blue Jays have this season there are bound to be some negative storylines written about the team, but it’s another thing when the issues are self-inflicted.

It all started with the trade involving Josh Donaldson and the fallout, with conflicting reports around the handling of contract negotiations between the team and Donaldson.

There’s also the issue with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the team not bringing him up as one of the September call-ups which my colleague Kurt Hill addresses here.

A report from Jon Heyman suggested the Blue Jays offered a similar deal to what Jake Arrieta got from the Philadelphia Phillies, at three years and $75 million. Then Donaldson’s agent Dan Lozano released a statement which was shared by Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, saying there was no attempt at an offer by the team.

Regardless of whether the Blue Jays offered Donaldson a contract or not, the way the whole situation played out was messy. Fans seem more upset about what the return was for the 2015 AL MVP over the fact he was traded, and there’s justification for this.

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If the team was not completely invested in keeping Donaldson then they should have traded him when his value would have been higher, instead of taking the chance they did this season.

Now, the Blue Jays don’t seem concerned with how the Donaldson trade played out, considering how Ross Atkins pointed out to Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun that four other teams made serious offers.

"“There’s more to it than the fact the (player to be named later) hasn’t touched the big leagues,” said Atkins. “It’s the years of control, the cost of the player and what that means for efficiency in your roster.“If you want to talk about it that way, is one year at whatever value that might be for Josh Donaldson more valuable than six years of Player X at Cost Y?”"

While there has been progress made in the team’s attempt to add young talent with team control, Shapiro and Atkins have failed to address the present and be straight up with the fanbase about their intentions.

If they said they were going to move on from Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista in order to prepare for a new era, then it probably would have been accepted with less hostility.

That’s what Brendan Shanahan told Toronto Maple Leafs fans when the team was starting their rebuild and what it did was place realistic expectations going forward. The fanbase was given the appropriate respect about the team’s position and now everyone is better off with it, given how the Leafs’ rebuild has gone.

So going forward Shapiro and Atkins should be upfront with fans about where they want the team to go, rather than leave people wondering how the franchise will get back to competing.

Right now neither has done a good enough job selling that, considering how the previous core was handled and with fan favourites walking away for nothing or just a player to be named later.