Blue Jays Hot Stove Gets Hotter
Jays hoped-for rebound begins with scouting director
The Blue Jays have a problem. How does one sell a 74-win team to the most talented free-agent on the current major-league market? For the first time since 2019, GM Ross Atkins and CEO Mark Shapiro can no longer play the “we’re-on-the-periphery-of-a-deep-run” card in any free-agent negotiations.
Fast forward to the situation of Yankees’ outfielder Juan Soto, who is being touted as the next Shohei Ohtani in terms of on-field impact for any of 30 major-league teams fortunate enough to sign him.
The touter-in-chief for this year’s flesh-and-blood golden ticket is Soto’s super-agent Scott Boras, former minor-leaguer and genius salesman who, as everyone is aware, is not participating in his first rodeo. Boras is quite skilled in the art of bringing also-ran bidders into the equation to drive up the final dollar-amount on his client. Raise the bar. Such a fate seems to be the inevitable plight of these Blue Jays.
Toronto’s front office may be genuinely confident in its ability to add an additional 14-16 wins to the club’s total in one off-season, certain of being able to pick themselves up and get back in the AL race. But it’s Soto’s choice. He surely wants a more sure thing and the Jays are not that. Soto is a superstar who has been to two World Series in six seasons. He is not looking for a team offering hope over evidence.
On the rumour schedule, it has been reported Jays brass will fly to southern Cal on Friday to meet with Boras, and perhaps even Soto. The meetings will be at the agent’s plush Newport Beach offices. The Jays delegation is expected to be followed west by the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets. Of course, Boras does not need to announce any scheduled session with the Dodgers. They share the same backyard.
Last winter, a similar Jays negotiating situation happened with Ohtani, the most coveted free agent on the market. The eve of the Winter Meetings in Nashville, Ohtani and his reps flew via charter from Los Angeles to Tampa, then limou’d across the bay to the Jays’ pleasure palace PDC headquarters to meet with Shapiro, Atkins and other key players in an effort to make a best case pitch for the best player in baseball to sign with the Jays in ’24 and beyond. The sales pitch? He could rep an entire country for an up-and-coming organization with state-of-the-art facilities. In Toronto they could only promise a statue, but in L.A. it would be a shrine.
This year, it’s the process in reverse, as it will be Atkins and Shapiro headed to L.A. to meet with the free-agent player and his agent. The end result is likely to be similar.
Here's a clue to consider, one gleaned from 52 years of experience in the game. A consistent history, from the outside looking in, after years of observing the process surrounding, especially managerial candidates applying to a new team, is that if your man has the first interview it’s not a good sign. The likelihood is you are being used to set the bar in terms of ideas, strategy and salary. In this case, cherchez les Jays.
The Soto speculation on what it will take, from pundits guessing the value of the winning contract, is in the area of 14 years/$630-million. For Ohtani, it was 10 years, $700M – and don’t try and sell me the B.S. that since it’s deferred money it’s really only worth $460M. That’s a load of crap. It’s a book-keeping trick for the luxury tax. The winning team, that finally ends up with Soto, might use the Ohtani structure as a guide, but the total dollar-amount is real.
For the Blue Jays, a year ago, realistically, the Rogers ownership was only interested in inking Ohtani because that contract would also come with immense business opportunities in the Asian/Japanese market. Rogers would have had a chance to pay for much of the epic Ohtani overprice with new and lucrative Rogers Corp. business opportunities. With any pending Soto deal, those same opportunities do not exist for the Caribbean market. Signing Soto is all about baseball and Rogers did not arrive where they are in the world-wide market by being baseball fans.
Blue Jays Welcome new Scouting Director
After a brief search and with 10 days of scouting meetings scheduled at the PDC on the immediate schedule, the Blue Jays have found their director, amateur scouting. He is Marc Tramuta, 53, hired internally, who previously was Special assistant, Player Personnel to GM Ross Atkins. Tramuta replaces Shane Farrell, who had been Jays’ scouting director in Toronto since 2020.
Tramuta had worked a previous stint with the Jays, from 2003-12. He originally had been hired as an area scout under then-GM J.P. Ricciardi, working his way up to Jays’ regional scout, then national crosschecker, before leaving for New York to join his former boss, Ricciardi, who by that time was asst. GM with the Mets.
After joining tghe Mets in 2013, Tramuta was the Mets’ amateur scouting director for six seasons, from 2017-22. Over his six drafts, the Mets selected 15 players that have reached the majors, including 3B Mark Vientos, OF Pete Crow-Armstrong, LHP David Peterson, OF Jarred Kelenic, RHP Simeon Woods-Richardson, RH Tyler Megill and 3B Brett Baty. Tramuta was assistant to Tom Tanous in 2016, when the Mets chose 1B Pete Alsonso in the second round of the process.
“He brings a good mix of old and new,” said one insider, familiar with Tramuta from his first go-round with the Jays. “He is a traditional scout with a deep respect for technology. He accepts information from everyone. He is ideal for that role.”
The Blue Jays over the past 85 rounds of five amateur drafts have had just one player reach the major leagues, UT Austin Martin, the first pick in the COVID shortened, five-round 2020 process. Martin was included in the trade with the Twins for RHP Jose Berrios and was promoted to the majors in Minnesota this past summer. Coincidentally, the other player in that trade was Woods-Richardson, who had been chosen by Tramuta and the Mets in the second round of 2018.