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Poll Time: Do you approve of the job Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are doing?

By Tom Dakers
We need more pictures of these two.
We need more pictures of these two.
Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

We haven't done an approval poll on the new management team yet, so let's take everyone's temperature.

Mark Shapiro had a pretty rocky start to his time with the Jays. Alex Anthopoulos decided to leave the team, and since Alex had just put us into the playoffs, we weren't very happy. Then Shapiro hired an old friend for the GM job and people were less happy.

Shapiro and Atkins took over a team that made it to the playoffs for the first time in forever. The major league team was/is pretty stacked. The farm system,on the other hand was decimated by the deadline trades that pushed the team to the playoffs. Not terribly surprisingly, Shapiro and Atkins talked about building up the minor league system and building depth for the major league team.

A fanbase that just watched their team play in the playoffs weren't really interested in depth moves. We had grown used to big moves every winter and suddenly we weren't getting the big moves. Course you can easily argue that the team no longer needed the big moves.

They did spend the winter making little moves that added to depth but not many moves that forced Sportsnet to break into their regularly scheduled poker programs to announce the breaking news. The biggest stories were the moves the Jays weren't making:

  • We didn't sign David Price.
  • We didn't sign Jose Bautista or Edwin Encarnacion to contract extensions (at least yet).
  • There weren't huge free agent signings.
  • There weren't big trades happening.
What they did do over the winter included:
  • Trading Liam Hendriks for Jesse Chavez. A deal that was pretty universally panned, though it did seem to be the basic sell high/buy low type trade.
  • Re-signed Marco Estrada.
  • Signed J.A. Happ (for more money than I expected).
  • Traded Ben Revere for Drew Storen. Which seemed to be one of those trades that you either really liked (I did) or really didn't like.
  • Signed Gavin Floyd.
  • Tried to trade Michael Saunder for Jay Bruce.
A pretty quiet winter, compared to what we had grown used to over the past few years, with Alex. I liked Alex a lot. I was sorry to see him go. Then again, I'm not unhappy that I won't have to listen to him speak, on and on, without really telling us anything.

On the other hand, I've never believed there is only one person that could possibly do the GM job. I'm fine with the moves that were made. I would have enjoyed seeing Price pitch in a Blue Jays jersey this year, but I don't think Alex would have beat the Red Sox offer of 7 year and $217 million. I like that the Jays built some depth into the starting rotation. I remember, two years ago, when the team decided, at the end of spring training, that Dustin McGowan. This year we had 3 or 4 reasonable options for the fifth starter spot.

Anyway, let's have the poll.

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