But alongside those broad questions, Atkins also faces a more immediate challenge: What to do with a team at a crossroads. In 2016, his first season as GM, the Blue Jays celebrated a walk-off win in the wild-card game and advanced as far as the ALCS. One year later, the club stayed in last place until the final Sunday of the season. Now the 44-year-old former minor-league pitcher must address a roster with some legitimate talent but more than a few shortcomings.

Adding to the sense of urgency, the Blue Jays’ franchise player, third baseman Josh Donaldson, will hit free agency less than a year from now. Meanwhile, Toronto plays in one of baseball’s toughest divisions. The Boston Red Sox look like perennial contenders and the New York Yankees just added Giancarlo Stanton to an already impressive roster. Outside of the AL East it doesn’t get much easier, as powerhouse teams in Cleveland, Houston, Washington and Los Angeles await anyone who lasts late into October.

For years, baseball executives have behaved as though the playoffs are, as Theo Epstein put it, “a crapshoot.” Reaching the post-season requires talent, there’s no denying that, but so much in-game randomness impacts a short series that its outcome is about as predictable as a coin toss — or so the thinking goes. That perceived unpredictability pushed teams on the cusp of post-season contention toward short-term solutions, and they often worked, most recently in 2014, when the World Series featured two wild-card teams. For many executives, the crapshoot theory still holds water.

But there’s also a counter-argument that’s worth re-examining after an October that featured so many elite teams. Does anyone outside of the Minnesota faithful really believe the Twins would have toppled the Astros if they’d somehow reached the ALCS this fall? That they would have beaten the Dodgers in the World Series? Maybe those long-coveted wild-card berths simply aren’t as valuable for any team with a merely ordinary talent base. And if clubs need more than 85 wins and a couple of lucky bounces to find true success in today’s game, they should plan accordingly — even if it means accepting some of the struggles that the sport’s last two champions endured.