No easy answers for Blue Jays ahead of trade deadline

Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins on Baseball Central to discuss whether Boston’s flurry of trade action puts any pressure on this organization to make deals, and what effect it has on the trade market.

With the exception of some ill-advised hot takes about trading players with full trade veto rights, the question as to whether the Toronto Blue Jays are buyers or sellers as the deadline approaches is thankfully moot. If you can believe the rumblings coming out of the all-star break, it seems as though the Blue Jays are poised to make moves to improve their roster.

The question is, what sort of move will the Blue Jays make?

This isn’t so much a question of needs or roles, or what positional weaknesses the team needs to shore up for their stretch run. It’s more a matter of what sort of assets the team is willing to part with, and what sort of player they want to get in return.

As such, the essential question the front office must surely be attempting to answer as they consider moves is: What’s our competitive window? That’s certainly an aspect of the discussion for any team in any year, but for the Blue Jays at this point in their history, it’s not a simple question to answer.

This year’s team seems bound for a compelling run towards a playoff berth. But for the sake of sound and forward-thinking planning, the Blue Jays will likely have to assume they will not re-sign any of their free agents beyond this year. That means no José Bautista, no Edwin Encarnacion, no Michael Saunders or Brett Cecil or R.A. Dickey either.

With that many holes to fill for 2017 and beyond, is this season the team’s last best chance for several years to make a run at the World Series? Or is there enough of a core, with Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin and most of the starting rotation back for at least next season, to assume that the first team of a new era could still be a predictable contender?

If it is the former, and there is added urgency to the here and now, one would imagine the team should be more willing to deal from the upper tier of their prospect depth in order to find players who they believe could make a substantial contribution while the opportunity still presents itself. If the right deal for a starting pitcher or a legitimate high-leverage reliever were to present itself, it would be worthwhile to risk prospect potential for this moment.

But if the Blue Jays brain trust believes they remain in a solid competitive position in the coming years, their approach could be to focus less on the players exchanging places, and more on the players they could acquire by assuming payroll obligations.

To some extent, this scenario could result in the more momentous deals, if the team were to acquire a noteworthy veteran with a substantial contract of which a team on the other end of the spectrum would be happy to rid themselves. And now that Troy Tulowitzki has had four consecutive weeks of playing like someone resembling Troy Tulowitzki, this type of deal might not carry the same stink it might have a few months back.

For a front office that speaks in terms of systemic, process-driven decision-making, one has to assume they are approaching this crucial period for the team by developing scenarios for both the trade deadline and the long-term sustainability of the team.

Obviously, the scenarios which the front office will develop are unlikely to be so clear-cut as outlined above. There are many internal factors which may still be difficult to define, such as a long-term view of the payroll, the progress that has been made or can be made to replenish their organizational depth, and the state of health or rate of decline of the players currently under the club’s control.

At the same time, external factors are often harder to predict and certainly beyond the team’s control. Those unknowns, such as changes in the market for talent and currency fluctuations, will unquestionably present unknown risk as these decisions are being made.

In the immediate term, their internal needs might not mesh so perfectly with the external realities of the market, especially given the scarcity created by the small group of teams that are realistically out of contention who seem likely to be sellers right now.

From the outset of the season, this has felt as though it is a turning point for the Blue Jays franchise. The windows of contention for many teams often ends with a whimper. The question now for Blue Jays fans is whether the brain trust believes a new era for this team can begin immediately, and with a bang.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.