Heyman says jays offered Chapman a contract late in process before signing with SF. Odd that we would do that with Chapman supposedly telling atkins he wasn’t signing here very early in the process. I always doubted that since I don’t think he would definitely rule out coming back and even if he did, I doubt he would lose his leverage by doing so. If we went out and got an urshela type , it would be obvious we were out.
I think Atkins knew there was still a chance to get him back and his moves of IKF, Escobar and lesser extent Turner were simply hedges in case we couldn’t get Chapman back. If we got him, IKF becomes back up and expendable players could be moved to offset some of the salary. Market ended up cratering tho and those players may not have been able to be moved in which case, it would seem, there is indeed more money to spend.
Would have been an interesting alternate offseason if Atkins were able to start by selling Garcia, espinal, Richards, and biggio and waited and waited and waited on the market for steals.