Blue Jays Criticized After MLB Offseason Move

Toronto has signed starting pitcher Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million deal, Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto to a four-year, $60 million contract and right-handed reliever Tyler Rogers to a three-year, $37 million agreement, among others.

One person the Blue Jays lost this offseason from their World Series run was bench coach and baseball legend Don Mattingly. On Jan. 5, the Philadelphia Phillies announced that they hired Mattingly to be their bench coach.

On Tuesday, former general manager of the Minnesota Twins and Washington Nationals, and current reporter for The Athletic, Jim Bowden, criticized the way the Blue Jays handled Mattingly's transition from Toronto to Philadelphia.

"Don Mattingly is one of the classiest people in baseball," Bowden said. "He made it clear to the Blue Jays this offseason that he wanted to move on from their bench coach job to join the Phillies, where he would have the opportunity to work with his son Preston, who is the GM in Philadelphia."

Mattingly spent the past three years with the Blue Jays, and the Phillies had to wait until his contract was up with Toronto to officially bring him on staff, according to MLB.com's Todd Zolecki and Paul Casella.

"Toronto understood his reasoning and empathized with it, so why did Mattingly have to wait until his contract ran out on Dec. 31 to secure his new deal in January with the Phillies? Seems curious to me," Bowden continued.

"Mattingly had already done his work with Toronto, which expired after the last out of the World Series. The Blue Jays should have just paid him the rest of the deal and let him move on instead of this bizarre decision to make him wait the contract out. I felt like both teams could have made this work a different way."

While it may have taken longer than he expected it to, Mattingly, 64, is now part of the Phillies organization, as he brings a lifetime of knowledge and experience into the fold.