For fans of the Toronto Blue Jays, this baseball season started with high expectations after an early playoff exit at the hands of the Seattle Mariners a year ago. It has been an up and down season for the team so far, and as I write this the Jays sit outside the playoff cutoff. If the Blue Jays miss the playoffs this year, team owner Rogers Communications should seriously consider finding a new general manager and president.
Current general manager Ross Atkins and President Mark Shapiro were both hired in 2015, with the hopes of making this team a sustainable contender every year. However, since that time the Jays have missed the playoffs four times, and the only real success the team has found in the postseason was in 2016 when they won two rounds.
Shapiro and Atkins are already on their third Manager of their term, having fired John Gibbons and then Charlie Montoyo before hiring present Manager John Schneider. For those who don’t know, in baseball Managers are basically the head coach of a team. With success hard to come by recently, maybe this is a sign that a bigger change needs to be made.
In the last few years, the team has been betting hard on the success of stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk with limited success. Say what you want about the Toronto Maple Leafs core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander only winning one playoff round, but at least that team has made it to the playoffs every year. And this is the same management group which stripped the team of former hard hitting stars like Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, and Josh Donaldson. Yes I know, as a team ages you need to move on and find new talent eventually, but so far the Jays have not been able to thoroughly replace the offense they’ve lost over the years.
And on the note of offense, general manager Atkins did nothing at the trade deadline in early August to acquire any offensive players to bolster the team’s depth.
For now, I’ll continue to keep my fingers crossed that this team can find a way to finish the season strong and make the playoffs. But if they don’t, ownership may need to step in and make some big changes.