A BITTER END

Nicholas D'Agostino

Last week, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins held his end of season media conference in which he answered some questions about the current and future state of the Toronto Blue Jays. During his media availability there were a couple things that stood out to me.

Ross Stripling is Gone?

Another thing that was brought to my attention was when Atkins mentioned that they will need to fill the role of Ross Striplings in the rotation. When he was asked about his comments he states that Stripling is a free agent and they were gonna go from there.

To me this sounded like Stripling and the Jays have already had conversations and it has become clear that Stripling will test the free agent market. Now this may not be the case but it seems that it is extremely likely.

Stripling pitched really well this season and he may have priced himself out of a return to the Jays. I'm sure the Jays would like to keep him but committing a bunch of money to a guy in his early thirties who just had a career year can be a little risky.

The Core Stays

Throughout the media availability, Atkins made it clear that he and the rest of the Jays front office are extremely confident in the Blue Jays young core. He also stated that he does not see a big offseason move that skates up the core of this team but he also added that he will do whatever is best to improve this ballclub.

Atkins also mentioned that he has started the process to extend multiple players and it will be interesting to see if the Jays can come to terms with any of their young stars. Either way Atkins has remained confident in his young core players and hopes that next year they will take another step in their development.