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

We haven’t done one of these for awhile.

There is lots going on with the front office.

The minor league system is looking better and better each year. Some of that is Mark and Ross and some of that is the improvement of the players leftover from Alex’ time.

John Lott wrote about their ‘leadership lessons’ that they are making part of the minor league system. We talked about it more here.

Before the season the emphasis was on building depth. It seems to have worked, we have more infielders than we can use. And the outfield has more players than we can use too. We have four catchers on the roster at the moment and any of them could be on the roster next year.

On the flip side Sam Gaviglio has 21 starts and that’s not a rave for the depth of the starting rotation. On the other hand Ryan Borucki, Sean Reid-Foley and Thomas Pannone have all made starts and all look like they could be major league starters

Shi Davidi writes about the 40-man roster and the decisions that have to be made this winter.

The front office has some tough decisions ahead. That’s not totally a bad thing really. Having too many players is better than having too few. But I don’t know how they are going to figure out who should be on and who shouldn’t. I really could see us losing a player or two in the Rule 5 draft. Shi lists these players as guys who would be needing to be added to the 40-man or would be available in the Rule 5 draft for the first time:

Hector Perez (acquired from Houston in the Roberto Osuna deal), Patrick Murphy (named Florida State League pitcher of the year after starring at Dunedin), Yennsy Diaz, Jon Harris (the 2015 first-rounder), Jordan Romano (a rock at double-A New Hampshire), Jacob Waguespack (acquired from Philadelphia for Aaron Loup), Corey Copping (acquired from the Dodgers for John Axford), Forrest Wall (acquired from Colorado in the Seunghwan Oh deal), Harold Ramirez, Kevin Vicuna and Max Pentecost.

And not that it has anything to do with the Rule 5 draft, but Vlad Jr. will have to be put on the 40-man in mid-April.

Who can they drop off the 40-man? Well, Mark Leiter likely will go. Some of the other reliever types will go. It really doesn’t look like they are wanting Dalton Pompey anymore.

Tulo is on the 60-day, he would have to be added to the 40-man, or released. Julian Merryweather will be on the team after the season.

They will be trading to trade off guys, but then every team will be trying to trade guys to make room in the 40-man. I’m sure they would love to find a way to trade Solarte.

The Donaldson trade was handled awkwardly. I’m not sure there was a better option. They didn’t want to be forced to give him a QO, he’d almost have to take it. If he takes it you have a player, a MVP type player and you wouldn’t really have a position for him to play. And they couldn’t trade him until well into the season.

Still the optics weren’t good. I guess the optics would have been even worse if they kept him and didn’t make a QO.

I don’t think there was a way for the front office to come of the Donaldson thing looking good that didn’t involve time travel.

I do think the best thing that Mark and Ross have done is bring Ben Cherington into the organization.

One of the stated reasons for bring in Shapiro was to make changes to Rogers Centre and yet we still have no idea if renovations will be made. I don’t know if it is Shapiro being slow or Rogers being slow or a them not wanting to spend money. I would like to see some movement on this.

I think the thing is that the FO has been great at building up the minor league system. We are yet to see if they can make a winning team out of that. That’s going to be the question.

With Mark and Ross or without, the way our veterans have aged, we were in for a down turn. If Alex was still here, I can’t see how he would have stopped Troy, Josh, Russell, Marco and all from getting old. I guess the question is would the bounce back be quicker with anyone other than Mark and Ross.

Anyway let’s have the poll: