Source confirms: Blue Jays in agreement with free-agent outfielder George Springer. Per @JonHeyman, six years, $150M. Pending physical.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 20, 2021

Wow.

Springer to Toronto has been a ‘thing’ for while and Mark Shapiro appears to have outbid and outmaneuvered the suddenly rich Mets for the services for George Springer for the next six years.

Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. Not “Shatkins”. These are two different people. With the same end goal. Sustainable winning. Appreciate them. Don’t take them for granted. #BlueJays pic.twitter.com/j00ZPSP1Tw

— Dame (@99_Dame) January 20, 2021

Springer, the best leadoff man in baseball, has a .361 on-base percentage along with a .491 career slugging percentage and he is the PERFECT compliment to the Jays young, superstar laden core of Biggio, Bichette, and Vladdy.  He’ll set the table for the jays offensively and defensively he’ll be their best outfielder by a country mile.

Springers’ playoff numbers are ridiculous, too.  Springer sits fourth all-time in postseason history home runs (19 in 63 career playoff games). He scored 43 times with 38 RBI’s and was the Astros World Series MVP in 2017 thanks for the Astros sign-stealing but, whatever.  I don’t give a shit about that and you shouldn’t either.   I blamed Alex Cora and AJ Hinch, anyway.

Reminder: Here’s the last two ABs for George Springer as a member of the home team at MMP. Couldn’t script it any better. (The #Astros went on to win the game by 1 run.)pic.twitter.com/C9GIubRgEU

— Ben DuBose (@BenDuBose) January 20, 2021

This is now, he’s a Blue Jay and all is forgiven because I care about what people CAN do not what they DID and what Springer CAN do is legitimize the Blue Jays’ chances of competing for a World Series in 2021 if he’s just him.

Don’t gloss over the financial commitment the Blue Jays/ROGERS made to Springer either.  Ownership deserves a ton of credit for making this happen.  25 million per year over 6 years is probably more like 50 million/year for a team that has generated next to no revenue for the past 12 months with no gate $ in sight.

NEVER SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT SHAPIRO AND ATKINS BABY

— Paul Ross (@RealPaulRoss) January 20, 2021

That brings me to Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins.

Working silently for the past 5 years, they have been dragged, questioned, hated, and laughed at.   We made fun of them for working in a silo for half a decade.  We shit on them for giving away players like Donaldson and Sanchez, hated them for not being Alex Anthopolous, and shit on their every move for fun.

In return, team president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins stayed the course, building a sustainable, controllable contender, built around one of the best young cores in baseball now complemented by one of the best offensive outfielders in baseball, and according to baseball insiders, they aren’t done.

As one of those people who enjoyed dumping on Blue Jays management, ‘I’m sorry, buds’.

I get it now.

I mean, 5 years is a long fucking time for fans to sit and wait in the dark, but I get what Shapiro and Atkins were doing.  They worked on and waited for their young core to mature.  They pieced together rosters while making wildly unpopular decisions waiting until they could justify long-term commitments to complement their studs with a superstar like Springer who checks ALL the boxes.

They still need to play some games, but Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, and Ted Rogers deserve a tip of the cap for yesterday’s MONSTER signing of George Springer, relentlessly staying on course while we all screamed at them for being useless.

Our bad.

DB