Atkins shifts media session while in pursuit of big-time stars

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Where in the world is Ross Atkins? He’s not saying.

The Blue Jays’ general manager sat in front of a blank, white wall Monday afternoon, speaking over Zoom with a small group of reporters all located in Nashville, where the MLB Winter Meetings are underway. The meeting, scheduled to take place in person, was shifted online just over an hour before it began due to “a scheduling conflict” for Atkins.

Clues were sparse. Atkins sat in a black suit and crisp white shirt, two overhead lights illuminating the white wall behind him. There was no wallpaper, no sunlight coming in from a certain angle, no sign of Shohei Ohtani walking through the background of the shot, waving at Atkins.

“Due to scheduling conflicts, I was able to be on this call, and I am grateful for your adjustment to be here with me today,” Atkins said when pressed on his whereabouts. “I wanted to make sure that I was with you, and Zoom permitted that.”

Welcome to Ohtani Watch, where spy games meet a poker game with the highest stakes in baseball history.

The obvious suspicion here is that Atkins is far from Nashville, working to court Ohtani. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Ohtani met with the Blue Jays at their Spring Training complex in Florida as they make a serious push for the two-time MVP with the potential to change the entire direction of a franchise for the next decade-plus. It’s expected to cost more than a half-billion dollars, and even after several offseasons spent shopping near the top of the market, the Blue Jays will need to burst into a completely different universe of spending to make this happen.

Until Ohtani picks his new home, a process that is quickly becoming its own version of LeBron James’ “The Decision” in 2010, everything else is on hold. The team that lands Ohtani can suddenly throw any existing notion of their “championship window” out the … well … window.

The Blue Jays have to wait on this, but they can’t sit idle.

Their other grand pursuit is expected to be Juan Soto, the 25-year-old Padres star who is expected to be traded this winter. Soto has just one year remaining of club control before his free agency takes a chokehold of next year’s Winter Meetings, so this is a drastically different conversation than the Ohtani pursuit.

Then, we come to names at the top of the free-agent market like Cody Bellinger, the top free-agent bat available who’s being overshadowed by the flashing lights on the trade market. Speaking broadly about the star players available, Atkins kept the door cracked open to the unlikely potential of landing two of the big fish, not just one.

“To add two of those to our roster would be exceptionally difficult to pull off, but as we always talk about, the relationship we’ve built with [Blue Jays chairman] Edward [Rogers] and [Rogers Communications president/CEO] Tony [Staffieri] — and the ability to go to them and present something to them — is real. I would never eliminate us.”

That said, any club that walks away with Ohtani, Soto, Bellinger or Japanese sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto will have accomplished something truly great. For the time being, Ohtani is the shining star the Blue Jays are chasing after, but there’s still a whole offseason to play out once that decision is made. The Blue Jays have a need at third base, as Matt Chapman tests the open market, and in the outfield, with Kevin Kiermaier a free agent. That’s just the big-ticket items.

Let’s call it Phase 2 of the Blue Jays’ offseason. Whenever that comes, they’ve already laid the groundwork on the trade market to move quickly and aggressively.

“We’re so focused on position-player acquisitions,” Atkins said. “The free-agent market on the position-player front isn’t quite as robust as it is on the pitching side. But there are opportunities on the position-player side, for sure, on the trade market.”

By then, the stakes will be much lower. Nothing compares to the pursuit of Ohtani, and we may not see this frenzy matched for decades.

That’s why Atkins is being so tight-lipped. Ohtani is baseball’s great enigma, a fiercely private star. For all the noise being made about his next move, at the heart of all of this, we have negotiations that are proceeding in secret, just as Ohtani wants it.

That’s why Atkins is right where he should be: in front of a blank white wall, refusing to even confirm or deny if that wall is white at all.