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Most observers of the Toronto Blue Jays have known this for a while.

A run to the American League Championship Series for the third year in a row is out of the question.

Barring some sort of unexpected and monumental turnaround, so is a spot in the post-season entirely.

Jays general manager Ross Atkins essentially admitted as much Monday night when the Jays returned home from a 3-7 road trip to open a seven-game homestand that will finish up on the eve of the July 31 trade deadline.

“A month ago, we were talking about the need for our team to play well and to get hot,” said Atkins, who will turn 44 a few days after the non-waiver deadline comes and goes. “We didn’t have to absolutely catch fire, but we haven’t done that. We haven’t gotten hot, we haven’t gotten on a streak and now we’re in a position where it’s a lot more difficult to add to a team like this, objectively, subjectively, as you look to it. The scale of deciding of whether we add or subtract has definitely changed.”

In other words, the front office is looking at the final nine weeks of the 2017 campaign the same way the fan base is — as a lost cause.

The much-talked-about plan to reboot and contend in 2018 is something that has not changed, however.

While Atkins noted any additions in the next week will be about controllable contract years, a major teardown isn’t coming.

“That hasn’t changed,” Atkins said while seated in the Blue Jays dugout prior to the series opener against the Oakland Athletics at Rogers Centre. “Again, it’s about control. We still feel like we have a great team in 2018 that we’ll need to add to. If there’s a way to do that, that could mean subtraction from this team (or) it might not. We would hope to and like to for this team to remain relevant (this season) and a contending team, potentially. I think the odds of that have decreased dramatically, but we still feel confident we can put a quality team on the field.”

The trio of no-doubt free agents — starters Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano, as well as right-handed setup man Joe Smith — are available.

Jose Bautista, whose status as a trade chip is clouded by 10-and-5 rights that Atkins wouldn’t say if he’s approached the veteran about, is another.

From there, no one really knows who the Blue Jays believe is integral to the dream of being back in contention a year from now.

Lefty starter J.A. Happ, all-star first baseman Justin Smoak, and utility man Steve Pearce are all signed for 2018 and could interest teams at the deadline, but Atkins will be hesitant to deal them away.

As for untouchables, Atkins said there are players who fit that description, but wouldn’t say who they are.

Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Roberto Osuna and Josh Donaldson, whose contract expires following the 2018 season, are likely among them.

Atkins, however, did note that no one is ever truly untouchable.

“There’s always guys we just don’t talk about,” Atkins said. “They come up in discussion and there’s really not any discussion in and around them because we’re thinking about building around certain players. To say that someone is completely untouchable and not tradable I don’t think is good business, either. But there are a number of guys that we don’t have many discussions about.

“I can’t get into specific players that we wouldn’t talk about or will talk about because it’s a sliding scale. Each one of them is a little bit different.”

With less than a week to go until the deadline — the Jays will be opening up a three-game series with the rebuilding White Sox on the south side of Chicago when Monday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline arrives — conversations are ramping up.

Atkins estimates he and the rest of the Blue Jays’ decision-makers talk to anywhere from five to 15 rival general managers per day, and the convos get more and more serious as time ticks down.

“Because of the human nature of deadlines, those offers start to become a little more concrete and not as ‘potential’ and ‘maybe we would consider that,’” Atkins said. “The nature of deadlines. People wait for them to see if you’re going to blink.”

After hoping they could turn it around coming out of the all-star break, the bad-baseball-playing Blue Jays forced the front office emphasis to change.

“We were shifting that focus more towards 2018 in the last week and we have a very good feel for what’s available to us to do that,” Atkins said. “We’ve also worked very hard to understand the needs of other teams and where that might match up and we can align to make our organization better.”

As always, different teams have different needs and different assets that are maybe duplicated or deemed expendable in the name of winning.

The Blue Jays have been doing their due diligence, which could explain the rumoured interest in top-flight talent like A’s starter Sonny Gray, who will take the Rogers Centre bump Tuesday, and Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon.

“The way that we treat the deadline is not dissimilar from how we treat the draft and how we treat free agency,” Atkins said. “The deadline is another opportunity to acquire — sometimes, there’s obviously subtraction — talent.”

If you need an example of the type of deal that the Blue Jays could creatively entertain with 2018 in mind, look no further than the Francisco Liriano deal from a year ago.

The Jays used some of Rogers’ financial clout, flipping right-hander Drew Hutchison to the Pittsburgh Pirates in return for the lefty and a couple of prospects.

Mainly, the Blue Jays were taking on the approximately $18 million remaining on Liriano’s deal and hoping he could not only help their 2016 playoff chances but be a key piece of this season’s rotation.

That hasn’t happened the way they had hoped, but the idea behind the move made sense.

“Everything is under consideration,” Atkins said. “There’s a lot of different ways to make a 2018 team better and some of it could just be in the form of the depth and some of it could be in the form of a controllable asset. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that we’ll acquire a major league starting pitcher for the 2018 team or a major league starting X for the 2018 team. Our ideal is that it is something in the form of control and slide right into the 2018 team, but that’s a hard thing for another team to give up.”

Meanwhile, manager John Gibbons and his players are still fighting to win ballgames amidst the rumours.

“I think the longer you’re around, you learn just to dismiss it,” Gibbons said. “Really, nobody knows what’s going to happen.”