Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins: Team shifting offseason focus to offense

The Blue Jays’ offseason has primarily been focused on run prevention to this point, as the club has added Chris Bassitt to their rotation, Erik Swanson to their bullpen and defensive specialist Kevin Kiermaier to their outfield. 

General manager Ross Atkins spoke with the media Monday as part of Bassitt’s introduction to the press and said that their focus will now “shift to offensive improvement,” per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.

The Blue Jays were one of the strongest offensive teams in the league in 2022, as their collective .264/.329/.431 batting line was 18% above league average. 

The team-wide 118 wRC+ was the second-best mark in the majors, trailing only the 119 of the Dodgers. 

Most of the club’s lineup projects to be back for 2023, with the most notable departure being Teoscar Hernández, who went to the Mariners in the Swanson trade.

The club has since added Kiermaier to their outfield mix, who is a much better defender than Hernandez but inferior on offense. 

Kiermaier hit .228/.281/.369 in 2022 for a 90 wRC+ and has a career batting line of .248/.308/.407, 97 wRC+. Hernandez hit .267/.316/.491 in 2022, 129 wRC+, and has a career slash line of .262/.319/.499 for a 120 wRC+. 

Given that gap, it’s unsurprising that the club would look to find some more offense before the offseason is done.

The most likely method for the Jays to find that extra pop in the lineup is through a left-handed hitting outfielder. The club has already been connected to players like Brandon Nimmo, Cody Bellinger, Michael Brantley and Masataka Yoshida, though all four of those players have now agreed to terms elsewhere. 

Michael Conforto in still unsigned, with the Jays having been connected to him in the past. He would be a risky play since he missed all of 2022 due to shoulder surgery and also had a disappointing season in 2021. 

But in the four-year stretch from 2017 to 2020, he hit .265/.369/.495 for a wRC+ of 133. If he’s capable of getting back to that range, that would go a long way to making up for the departure of Hernandez.

Signing Conforto or some other free agent like Jurickson Profar, Matt Carpenter or David Peralta would add to the club’s payroll and luxury tax ledger, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue at the moment. 

“We’re not limited financially,” Atkins tells Nicholson-Smith. 

Roster Resource puts the club’s payroll at $207M at the moment, which is already a franchise high. They are also into luxury tax territory for the first time, with their CBT number just a hair over the $233M threshold. 

Based on Atkins’ comments, it seems there’s still more room to continue adding.

Another path to the club upgrading would be trade, with the club’s three catchers being frequently mentioned in trade rumors for quite some time. 

The club has yet to pull the trigger, with Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Gabriel Moreno all still on the roster. Recent reporting suggested that the club would be comfortable holding onto all three and Atkins backed that up Monday. 

He said that the catching market is “exceptionally strong,” per Nicholson-Smith, but that the Jays are “100% comfortable” keeping all three and “remaining in that position of strength.”

Though the focus is on offense, it seems a pitching upgrade is still on the table. 

“We’ll continue to think about ways to improve,” Atkins told the press, per Nicholson-Smith. 

That lines up with recent reporting that suggested they’ve shown interest in Johnny Cueto, though it seems the lineup will be top of the agenda for now.