Ross Atkins can save the Blue Jays offseason by pulling off the shock of the winter

An argument can be made that no MLB team has had more of a disappointing offseason than the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays were hoping to make a major splash one year after missing out on Shohei Ohtani and had several different ways to do that. They struck out everywhere they turned.

Juan Soto signed with the New York Mets, Max Fried is a New York Yankee, and Corbin Burnes took less money to sign with the Arizona Diamondbacks. All the Jays have done is sign Andres Gimenez and Yimi Garcia. They're probably better on paper than the 74-win team that they wound up being in 2024, but not by much. The fact that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is one year away from free agency and has not inked an extension with the club has Jays fans even more frustrated with Ross Atkins and Co.

Given how bleak things look for the Jays right now, little can be done to convince Jays fans that Atkins is the right general manager for the organization. He's been given nearly a decade in charge and has just two postseason series wins on his resume. Both of those wins came in his first season on the job with a team he most inherited from Alex Anthopoulos.

While the team overpaying for Anthony Santander or Alex Bregman probably isn't enough to win the fan base over, Atkins can sign the most coveted free agent still out there, Roki Sasaki, in what would be the stunner of the offseason.

Scott Mitchell of TSN reported in early December that the Jays are "all-in" when it comes to the Blue Jays and Roki Sasaki. His Tweet on Thursday telling fans to "hold on tight" suggests that the Jays might actually have a shot at this thing. If so, this would be quite the coup.

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Ross Atkins can save Blue Jays offseason and his own reputation by signing Roki Sasaki

Ever since it became clear that Sasaki was going to be posted this offseason, he's been linked to teams on the West Coast. The Los Angeles Dodgers were early favorites, the San Diego Padres made a lot of sense given their Yu Darvish connection, and even a team like the San Francisco Giants who play their home games in a pitcher's paradise made a lot of sense, too.

If Sasaki was going to sign with a team on the East Coast, there was reason to believe it'd be with a big market foe like the New York Yankees or New York Mets, putting Sasaki in the spotlight with the most earning potential. The Blue Jays have rarely, if ever, been linked to the right-hander, making this connection an exciting one.

Sasaki costing just a minor league deal and some international bonus money makes him affordable for all 30 teams. He'll be a steal financially for whichever team ends up with him. For a Jays team that has had trouble recruiting high-end talent the last couple of years and can only seem to garner interest if they overpay, signing Sasaki - a player they cannot overpay - would be huge.

Sasaki is a 23-year-old phenom who'd immediately become the team's ace for the next half-decade at least. Being able to sign him for a fraction of what he'd cost if he had waited until he was 25 years old would make up for much of what Atkins hasn't been able to do.

Is it likely that the Jays can actually lure Sasaki to Toronto? Probably not, but if we're being honest, nobody fully knows what Sasaki wants and is prioritizing. If he has relationships with the organization and is intrigued by the city, the idea of him coming over isn't far-fetched. If the Jays do pull this off, that'd be an offseason-saver.