Yeah, you’re right, the title is a little bit dramatic. This front office has been known to emphasize flexibility and analyze every last piece of data available before making even the smallest decisions, much less dramatic ones such as potentially moving on from one or both of what are supposed to be their franchise cornerstones. In baseball, where that data takes literally hundreds of outcomes to normalize, this is probably the best way to do business.
This philosophy would ordinarily caution fans and the media, but especially the team from panicking after a really disappointing 16-19 start to a season. And while the fans and media tend to lean dramatic, allowing the frustrations to boil over and pressing the players and manager with questions about how this season is going to be turned around, patience has continuously been preached. That is, until the last couple of days, when we’ve seen (albeit slight) lineup changes dropping Bo Bichette in the order and some interesting quotes from John Schneider indicating a sense of urgency.
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This Sportsnet Article details the sudden change of tone with this quote from John Schneider:
“It’s not that early, you know what I mean? The runway gets shorter and shorter… I mean, we still trust these guys. So, it’s just, ‘go do what you do.’ And don’t worry about outside noise that may start to creep in. And if there’s a time to make adjustments, that’s on me. But I think not waiting around for it to happen is very, very important.
“I think we fell into that last year a little bit with the guys that are still on this team, or for guys that were there last year that aren’t here this year. Just, ‘hey, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen.’ It needs to happen.”
I agree with every single word Schneider says here. This is NOT just a 35 game sample size at the start of the year where the offence is struggling. We dealt with this for a full 162 last year and saw that this brand of baseball does not work in October. But the interesting thing to me is not the fact that the tone has changed; in fact I think this is what the tone should have been from game 1 of the season, especially with how this team performed in 2023. The interesting thing about this 180° shift from patience to urgency is WHY this is happening. And I don’t think it’s just because Schneider was sick of losing.
I will preface the following by saying I am not a journalist, I do not have any contacts in Major League Baseball, and my general thoughts and predictions about the Blue Jays have no impact on how Mark Shapiro and Rogers choose to run the Jays. Now, I’ll be candid and say: to me, that sounds like something somebody who was informed they could be managing for their job would say. And to me, that’s some waste of time and money eyewash that doesn’t address any of the problems that are actually making this team bad.
Do I agree with every decision John Schneider makes in games? No. Absolutely not. If you gave me the lineup card for a day it would look a lot different than what he continues to run out there. I’d make different bullpen decisions. And I MOST DEFINITELY would not be asking one of my best contact hitters to sacrifice bunt with a runner already in scoring position and the lead in hand. But changing the lineup cannot fix the fact that Bo Bichette, George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are your 13th, 14th, and 15th best players since the 2023 all-star break according to fWAR:
John Schneider managing his bullpen in even the perfect, most optimized way possible wouldn’t change the fact that it’s literally performed as the worst in baseball so far this season:
So no, firing John Schneider won’t solve the problems that have plagued this iteration of the Blue Jays and sure as hell won’t fix the fundamental issues within the Blue Jays’ organization. Firing John Schneider isn’t going to change the construction of this roster and it sure as hell isn’t going to make this team good. The problem with the Toronto Blue Jays goes a lot further than the manager.
If John Schneider’s seat is getting hot, Ross Atkins’ should be engulfed in flames.
As currently constructed, the Toronto Blue Jays are not good enough. Fortunately for them, there are 3 ways to add impact players to an organization: internal development through the draft and international signings, trades with other organizations, and free agent signings. I’ve written about my frustrations with the recent struggles to bring in and develop talent that can be used to either directly supplement the roster or be used as trade bait to add an established player.
Addison Barger recently came up and was sent down after managing just 1 hit in 18 plate appearances. Guys like Nathan Lukes or Spencer Horwitz don’t project to make an impact on this team barring a significant injury, Ricky Tiedemann continues to struggle to stay on the field, and the lower levels of minors don’t have a much brighter outlook. The farm system is rated in the bottom third of the league according to just about every major farm system ranking. This is the reason the Jays weren’t able to make a play for Juan Soto this offseason, and will be the reason we’re inevitably disappointed by the lack of additions at the trade deadline in July.
So that leaves us with free agent signings. I can tip my cap at Ross Atkins here, because he’s done a solid job of adding free agents like George Springer, Marcus Semien, Kevin Gausman, Brandon Belt, Kevin Kiermaier, and Justin Turner. However this gets expensive quickly, leading to the Jays having a top 10 payroll in baseball. The general consensus is that they’re up against the payroll that Rogers has set for them, and it’s definitely not going to get much higher if they continue to underperform.
That is a very long winded way of saying: this roster is really handcuffed, and the only way to change (much less improve) it is to subtract from the Major League Roster, and continue to attempt developing players. This is how teams typically look right before a rebuild.
Here’s a list of names that are free agents after the 2024 season: Justin Turner, Yusei Kikuchi, Kevin Kiermaier, Yimi García, Daniel Vogelbach, Danny Jansen and Trevor Richards.
Here’s a list of names that are free agents after the 2025 season: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Jordan Romano, Chris Bassitt, Chad Green, Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, Cavan Biggio, Tim Mayza, Erik Swanson and Génesis Cabrera.
That is 73% of the current 26-man roster that will have the opportunity to test free agency in this offseason or next. And we JUST talked about the fact that there’s nobody in the minor league system coming up to take those spots.
Ross Atkins built this team. He used every resource available to make it as good as possible, and didn’t make it good enough. We can analyze every single move he’s made in his 8 year tenure, and for the most part it’s positive, but unfortunately this team is out of runway to work with. This team is not going to win the World Series this year or next year. It’s just not good enough. And if you can’t win the World Series, you’ve failed.
So where do the Blue Jays go from here?
I’ve ‘hinted’ at it throughout this article, but if it were up to me Ross Atkins would lose his job. He had his chance to build this team, and as anybody who consistently watches this team knows, he failed. He should not get the opportunity to try and clean up this mess, and frankly I have no confidence in his ability to clean it up.
He certainly should not get to fire and hire a 3rd manager.
With major roster turnover coming, the upcoming trade deadline is an opportunity for the Blue Jays to get the most out of the few assets and resources they have left. Pieces like Jano, Kikuchi, Turner and García likely get a fair bit back in a potential trade. So would guys like Romano, and Bassitt. It makes me cringe to put this into words but a Bo Bichette and/ or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. trade would likely go a long way into restocking that empty farm system (although I have my doubts about Vlad’s perceived value around the league).
It doesn’t even need to be a full rebuild, I lean that way because I’m frankly sick of this team, but there is a good team in there keeping some of these guys around past the end of their contracts.
It sucks, and it’s not the conversation we thought we’d be having after watching the 2020 through 2022 teams, but I think we’ve seen enough of this current iteration of the Blue Jays, and I’m ready to see somebody other than Atkins try and figure out this mess.
