Yeah, felt almost like spite the way that the AA team was just disassembled. I think AA would've won within the next year or two of leaving, but alas.
I mean, two years after all this, AA took over a 72 win team and after 4 first place finishes, he won the World Series this year. But yeah, Shapiro and Atkins have just been on fire turning the first place team they inherited into a wild card contender in only 6 years.
They aren't.
No, but they should have retooled by trading their veteran assets for good players or solid prospects instead of “mlb ready” garbage.
We pretty much all agree they didn't do the greatest job in trading off pieces. My only argument here is that they got unlucky with Josh Donaldson (injured pretty much all year until right at the trade deadline) and there wasn't much demand for a struggling J.A. Happ, so they rolled dice on a couple of post-hype prospects (Drury & McKinney) rather than a couple of mediocre guys in A ball. I don't hate it, but it didn't work.
Yeah, they really should have sold off their young assets to build around a core group of sluggers in their mid 30s.
Also, the thing that keeps getting forgotten is that these guys were brought in to tear down the roster and rebuild it. Then the team made a run and got into the playoffs the year Shapiro was brought in. So what did these shitheads do the next year? Tear apart a winning team for no reason? Nope, they kept the group together for one more year and made the playoffs again.
Live footage of you guys reading this post:
Not build a team around, but they should've given that core another couple of years.We pretty much all agree they didn't do the greatest job in trading off pieces. My only argument here is that they got unlucky with Josh Donaldson (injured pretty much all year until right at the trade deadline) and there wasn't much demand for a struggling J.A. Happ, so they rolled dice on a couple of post-hype prospects (Drury & McKinney) rather than a couple of mediocre guys in A ball. I don't hate it, but it didn't work.
And do you really think they were brought in to try and build a team around a 36 year old Jose Bautista, a 34 year old Edwin Encarnacion, and early 30s super injury prone Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki?
They had Vlad. And thank fuck they didn't say yee-ha, these guys on the internet want us to keep trying to win with this aging core for a couple more years so let's trade him for a good vet.
What are you even taking about? Why is your standard this imaginary idea of what they were “brought in to do” instead of what they actually took over and what they actually did with it?We pretty much all agree they didn't do the greatest job in trading off pieces. My only argument here is that they got unlucky with Josh Donaldson (injured pretty much all year until right at the trade deadline) and there wasn't much demand for a struggling J.A. Happ, so they rolled dice on a couple of post-hype prospects (Drury & McKinney) rather than a couple of mediocre guys in A ball. I don't hate it, but it didn't work.
And do you really think they were brought in to try and build a team around a 36 year old Jose Bautista, a 34 year old Edwin Encarnacion, and early 30s super injury prone Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki?
Meh. Strawman is correct. Have at it.
I am talking about what they did.
"Impressive accomplishment" = Shapiro and Atkins turning the division winning team they took over into a wildcard team, then a bottom-5 team, while getting nothing in return for any of the assets they inherited. Sorry, "nothing in return" is actually a bit too generous. Drury and McKinney put up a combined -1.4 WAR in Toronto. They would have been better off to just release Happ (the best SP on the market) at the deadline in 2018. (A propos of nothing, I guess, the Rays traded Chris Archer that very same day for Meadows, Glasnow and Baz. And they've been in the playoffs every year since.)
