Matt Chapman move shows Blue Jays are all-in once again

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Shortly after he’d taken over the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, president Mark Shapiro made it fuzzily clear that he wasn’t a fan of the team’s all-in mentality.

“In every decision, there’s balance. There’s risk/reward. There’s short-term and long-term,” Shapiro said, while the crowd tried to imagine the PowerPoint that went with this presentation. “There are challenges that come with trading players and those challenges, I think, need to become part of a long-term strategy.”

This was the equivalent of new management walking into the shop, running a finger over the countertop and saying, ‘I guess they were too busy to make cleaning a priority.’

It wasn’t a direct insult. But it was an insult coming from some direction.

That’s what everybody does. Because if there isn’t something to fix, there wasn’t much point in hiring you, was there?

But in baseball, every executive eventually becomes that which they once maligned. Seven years in, Shapiro & Co. have had a little rethink about how that “balance” works. The move that tipped you off was this week’s trade for third baseman Matt Chapman.

Third base has been an annoyance for the Jays. They had Vladimir Guerrero pencilled in there until they realized he was one awkward jump away from detonating a bunch of perfectly good ligaments. Since then, it’s been a conga line of fill-ins and half-solutions.

Chapman plays third as well as anyone in the game. He’s also lowered his batting average in every one of his big-league years. His current seasonal mark (.210) is hovering just above the Mendoza line. Most teams would not see this guy as someone to start shaking out the stables for.

As is their habit, the A’s are in the midst of a routine controlled detonation of their roster. If you make a lot of money or will make a lot of money in the near future, it’s time for you to go somewhere other than Oakland. In return, the A’s want prospects. The greener, the less major-league ready, the more potential upside, the better.

And the Jays – once the longest of long-term thinkers – were happy to help. They sent along four minor-leaguers for Chapman. These weren’t Toronto’s best prospects. But a couple of them were pretty good pieces. And as soon as the A’s – who may be the best scouting team in baseball – want them, you should feel around to make sure your wallet is still in your pocket.

But that’s what winners do. They don’t worry too much about what might be. They worry about what is. Right now, the Jays need a third baseman who doesn’t try catching the ball with his face. This is that guy.

That’s why people bristled at Shapiro’s initial assessment.

The Yankees and Dodgers don’t do news conferences where they explain to fans why losing can be a good idea. They are all in, all the time. They want the farm team and the guaranteed playoff spot. If they can’t have both, they spend the difference. They are winners.

So I guess that makes the Jays winners now.

On the one hand, it’s about time. On the other hand, time seems less important once you’re stacked with all-stars.

This is what Shapiro understood all along, especially when he was taking it in the neck during a dismal run from 2017-19. That once you’re good, people forget you were ever bad.

(Shapiro has an advantage in this regard because he spent a lot of his career in Cleveland. If group psychology didn’t work this way, the residents of Cleveland would have disincorporated the city a long time ago.)

Position by position, the Jays are now one of baseball’s elite teams. They took big hits losing infielder Marcus Semien and Cy Young winner Robbie Ray in free agency. But in terms of aggregate talent, they have been replaced.

The Jays have a murderer’s row lineup, five viable starters and an okay bullpen. It says something about the way baseball chews through employees that very few other organizations have as well-rounded a set-up.

Right now, this is the most golden moment of all – one where everything seems possible.

That extended lull is what allows Guerrero to tell reporters down in Dunedin that last year was “the trailer” and “now you guys are going to see the movie.” Guerrero said it with a little grin, as though it were something he’d thought up a long time ago and had been just itching to use.

It’s a great quote. Off the top of my head, I can think of about a dozen ways a headline writer could use it to beat you senseless if things don’t work out.

But once again, the mark of a winner is that he doesn’t live in the future. He thinks only in terms of the present.

The tricky part is the follow through. It took seven years to get the Jays to a place where their pieces are arrayed in an advantageous position. Now they have to win. Not should win, or can win, but must win.

Because the next step of this all-in process is trading people you don’t want to lose for immediate, often niche, assistance. It’s giving away Cavan Biggio for some 40-year-old power hitter who’s only good against left-handed pitching when Mars is in conjunction with Venus.

It’s not everybody who gets here. But having done it, you can’t say you’ve arrived. Because now there is the crucial matter of the dismount. You win five in a row. Great. Who cares? But you lose five in a row? Get the lifeboats ready. Time to start abandoning ship.

In a couple of months, this will either be the team everyone hopes it can be or it will be panic stations.

That’s the most you can reasonably expect from any team you follow. That what they do on the daily seems important. That they can hold your attention in May and June as well as April and September. The Jays are that team now.

Did it take too long? Was it silly to make it sound back then that this moment wouldn’t come around again? Those aren’t useful questions any more.

All that people care about right now is just that – the right now.