The Blue Jays’ off-season makeover is starting with the high-performance department.

Toronto announced Friday that head trainer Nikki Huffman has decided to part ways with the organization to “pursue other opportunities.” Huffman is opening her own business where she will continue to train and mentor elite athletes.

The Blue Jays knew Huffman’s departure was a possibility when everyone went their separate ways at the end of September. They wanted to give her a few weeks to think things over before making any official announcements. The final decision was made earlier this week.

“Over the past four years, Nikki has contributed significantly to our evolution of providing cutting edge training and care to our players,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said in a statement. “We thank her for her tireless work ethic and look forward to seeing her success in the opportunities that lie ahead.”

The Jays view this as a loss. Huffman was a pioneer of sorts after becoming the second woman to serve as head athletic trainer in any of North America’s four major professional sports leagues. She had been with Toronto since 2015, first as a physical therapist and rehab co-ordinator, later as head trainer.

Huffman received credit inside the organization for fuelling an environment of collaboration. The days of the training staff acting in isolation from the rest of the team are over. In today’s modern sports world, head trainers take on the role of manager and need to oversee — or at least understand and co-operate with — a high-performance staff that can run 35 names deep.

There’s no denying Huffman did a lot of good things in Toronto and yet one can’t help but feel like this is an opportunity for a fresh start. Through no direct fault of her own, she was too closely tied to at least one former Jays pitcher.

Huffman officially joined the Jays a few months after she helped Marcus Stroman return from a torn ACL in his left knee. Stroman was expected to miss all of the 2015 season after getting hurt during spring training but he made it back by September and played a pivotal role in Toronto playing for the American League title.

Stroman credited Huffman and the medical staff at Duke University, where he worked out while recovering from surgery, as reasons he was able to beat the initial timeline. Stroman’s ringing endorsement paved the way for Huffman’s full-time gig in Toronto.

But she was aligned to a player who quickly became one of Toronto’s most polarizing athletes. By 2016, Stroman was considered a star and began acting as such. Some people inside the clubhouse loved him, others not so much, but the one common theme is that people viewed Stroman and Huffman as being tied at the hip because of their previous history.

That became an issue midway through 2016 when Stroman and Aaron Sanchez had a very public falling out. The two went from being best friends to barely speaking to each other, for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear. That was awkward enough for the Jays to deal with and it became a bigger issue the following year when Sanchez started going through his own health issues.

Sanchez didn’t want to work with Huffman because he viewed her as an extension of Stroman, almost as if she was his personal member of the medical staff. That wasn’t the reality but it was the way Sanchez perceived it. And after trainer George Poulis recommended a surgical procedure on his fingernail that didn’t work, Sanchez lost faith in the staff.

Stroman and Sanchez are somebody else’s problems now, and most of the Jays from that era have moved on, but the history and baggage were still there. That seemed evident when Stroman went on Twitter shortly after Huffman’s departure was announced.

“Sometimes you need to remove your people from toxicity in order to see them prosper,” Stroman tweeted. “Crazy excited for the future. Got (Huffman) back in my circle. Super thankful to have her with me every step of the way. She’s the best (physical therapist)/trainer/strength coach in the world and will change the lives of many athletes going forward. Time to climb. Loyalty over everything!”

There are a few things that stand out about those tweets. The use of terms such as “my” inner circle, thankful to have her with “me” and sometimes you need to remove “your people” from toxicity. Stroman is trying to take a certain level of ownership here, if not over the actual person, then by making it clear Huffman has always been Team Stroman first, Blue Jays second.

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That’s probably not fair to a professional like Huffman but it’s the environment the Jays have been living in for awhile. There’s no reason to believe Stroman was given preferential treatment, but if a star player is frequently bragging about the trainer being one of his people then it’s also easy to understand why there would have been a breakdown of trust within the four walls of the clubhouse.

Stroman has been gone for months but Friday’s tweets indicate he still isn’t done talking about the Blue Jays. Huffman’s departure creates the opportunity for a fresh slate and this time Toronto would be well-served to bring in someone more impartial to the current landscape.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca

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