Atkins hopes Donaldson deal buys Blue Jays good will

Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins didn't need to be with the organization last season to recognize Josh Donaldson's worth to the club.

Atkins officially pulled off the biggest deal of his early tenure Wednesday, avoiding arbitration with the reigning American League MVP by signing Donaldson to a two-year, $28.65-million contract.

"Yes, good will was a part of it," Atkins told Bob McCown of Sportsnet 590 The Fan of the team's desire to get a deal done. "If that's the term, I guess we were trying to show him how much we appreciated his accomplishment and that was one way we could do it."

The new deal buys out the next two years of Donaldson's arbitration eligibility, however the 29-year-old and the club still faces the possibility of reaching arbitration in 2018 - the final year Donaldson's under team control.

Atkins acknowledged that he and the club assumed most of the risk with Donaldson's new deal, but that they were also willing to offer a longer-term deal, though the two sides weren't able to reach an agreement.

"We would love to have an extension with Josh," Atkins said. "You know really it comes down to bridging those gaps and agreeing on what those values are and the numbers of years. We've talked about a variety of scenarios, a variety of extensions and multi-year deals."

Atkins added: "We were open to guaranteeing three years. We were open to extension years. It becomes a significant investment, that's obvious. But it only becomes more and more complex when you try to define what those values should be when you're already at record-setting territory so it takes a lot of work. We felt it would be much more powerful to have the relationship, a little bit of good will so that we could focus on a future together after we close the book on two years."

With Donaldson locked up, the Blue Jays' front office can continue to focus its attention on re-signing impending free agents Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista.