After zero playoff wins since 2016 and in the aftermath of an absolutely disastrous season for the Toronto Blue Jays, fans were rightfully clamouring for big changes within the organization heading into the offseason.
A frustrated fanbase, which trudged through a hopeless 2024 campaign, held out hope those changes would come on Wednesday when the club held its end-of-season press conference. However, it became immediately obvious that, once again, team president Mark Shapiro won’t be making the move to fire longtime general manager Ross Atkins, even after finishing dead last in the American League East division by a long shot with 74 wins.
Instead, Shapiro is sticking with his guy — for one more season, at least.
“There won’t be a change with Ross,” Shapiro said to kick off the press conference. “The reason for that is, you know, the process that I went through to consider whether or not there would be a change with his role was one of both considering alternatives and looking at the work that’s been done.”
Shapiro elaborated on the decision to keep Toronto’s maligned GM in the mix for at least another season, essentially saying the four years prior to this one weren’t quite bad enough to justify making a change at GM.
“I also think about the fact that we played in the playoffs three of the past five years and that for the past five, we played meaningful games in September, that each of the past four, we left spring training objectively with a chance to be a contending and playoff team,” Shapiro said. “And to me, that’s not grounds to make a change.”
The Blue Jays president also said the quiet part out loud, implying that Atkins is the best person for the job right now because of a lack quality options available to replace him.
“If I felt there was a better alternative to run our baseball operations, I’d make that change.”
No matter Shapiro’s reasoning, Blue Jays fans were understandably rattled to the core over the news — or lack thereof — with many flocking to social media to torch Atkins, along with Shapiro and the team for giving him a 10th season at the helm despite a shaky track record at best.
When Ross Atkins arrived 9 years ago he said he wanted to create a pipeline of MLB talent and bring a championship back to Canada.
He has had 9 years and his “pipeline” has produced 1 quality mlb player (Bo) and we aren’t even close to a championship.
We are being gaslit.
— Mike Wilner’s ego (@Marner2Gitmo) October 2, 2024
Why did I stop being a Blue Jays fan?
Because Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins shouldn’t be running a high school baseball team let alone a #MLB franchise.
Vladdy would be smart to sign somewhere ELSE and not with this franchise https://t.co/Byr8LDCXMd
— Terry Edelmann (@LetsGoWildPicks) October 2, 2024
Ross Atkins is the sixth longest-serving GM in MLB.
The other five have all won a playoff series in the last five seasons.
Yes, even the Athletics David Forst. https://t.co/bZLOgZjjaX
— Jamie Nye (@jamienye) October 2, 2024
dork ass Mark Shapiro and double dork ass Ross Atkins should be doing their availabilities together so they can’t be so evasive in their bullshit. I’d like to avoid that question, please, because it’s hard and I’d rather punt it to… this guy sitting on my left right now
— findlay (@s_findlay) October 2, 2024
Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have all the alibis.
It was injuries.
It was Shohei Ohtani.
It was bad luck.
It was the process.Nearly a decade’s worth of blah blah without a single playoff win and a whole new baseball generation growing up thinking this is somehow normal.
— Ari Shapiro (@ari_shapiro) October 2, 2024
It was, and always will be, a disgrace that Rogers chose to allow the hopeless duo of @MarkShapiro and Ross Atkins to force Alex Anthopoulos out of his leadership role. Truly the worst event in Jays history.
— Steve Clarke (@SteveClarkeMLB) October 1, 2024
How on earth did Mark Shapiro & Ross Atkins get the green light for 2025? Feels like they’re on auto-renew while the rest of us are stuck hitting refresh. Is it too much to ask for better options?
— Doc Naismith ℠ (@DocNaismith) October 2, 2024
You guys gotta stop being so hard on Ross Atkins. He probably just heard OK Blue Jays and took it literally.
— Cake McJabe (@LeBronMaclean) October 2, 2024
The best organization for rewarding failures in sport. This front office has accomplished absolutely nothing. Name one reason why the 9th season of this regime will work out? It’s gotten worse every single season. https://t.co/FiKgvzSxvX
— Colin Ward (@Colinward_O) October 2, 2024
Anytime you can bring back a GM who has brought zero playoff wins since 2016, a last place finish in year four of a competitive window, and zero contract extensions for a franchise player a year away from free agency, you gotta do it. https://t.co/64sRHZuKDb
— Shad da 5’9 🇵🇸 (@defenseandvibes) October 2, 2024
Though it’s going to fall on mostly def ears, Shapiro did, kind of, take some responsibility for where the team is at.
“This past season was a bitter disappointment. The accountability and responsibility lies with me,” said Shapiro, adding, “Ross needs to be better, I need to be better, our entire baseball operations need to be better.”
It’s no easy job to to sit in front of a tense gaggle of media and trot out reasons for fans to be optimistic, and Shapiro tried. But it was absolutely not a good day in front of the mic for the Blue Jays president, who was torched by Blue Jays media for many of his responses and comments on Wednesday.
Maybe Shapiro was a bit caught off by the framing of the question, but it was a weird answer when it should have been a pretty easy thing to compliment Vlad on a nice season and say that the organization will do what it can to try to extend him. https://t.co/zBU7ZBMwle
— Brandon Wile (@Brandon_N_Wile) October 2, 2024
Continually defining “success” as playing meaningful September — not October — baseball is really frustrating.
Even if the front office truly feels that way due to baseball’s grind & playoff randomness, it’s terrible P.R. and speaks to lower aspirations than fans have.
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) October 2, 2024
What a crock of nonsense Mark Shapiro just delivered. Just like the season – embarrassing.
— Steve Simmons (@simmonssteve) October 2, 2024
Mark Shapiro put part of the blame on the 2024 season on Injuries.
The Toronto Blue Jays ranked 24th in baseball in injuries with only $19 million cash total per days missed lol.
— Gate 14 Podcast (@Gate14Pod) October 2, 2024
Shapiro’s underwhelming presser could be summed up with this wild exchange between the Blue Jays prez and provocative Toronto sports writer Rosie DiManno.
Yikes:
Some changes, though minimal, have been made since the team ended its atrocious 2024 season on Sunday.
On Tuesday, the club parted ways with hitting coach Guillermo Martinez, who has been with the Blue Jays since 2018. The team also announced that Don Mattingly will return to the position of full-time bench coach after spending the 2024 campaign as the club’s offensive coordinator, while Gil Kim (field coordinator) and assistant pitching coaches Jeff Ware and David Howell will be moving into new, minor-league roles.
It also appears polarizing manager John Schneider will be back for another shot at it next season. Asked how he thinks his skip did this past campaign, Shapiro said: “Good job. He keeps getting better and will continue to get better.”
Shapiro and Atkins’ group — one that was constructed largely before the pair arrived — last won a playoff game during the pair’s first season at the helm in 2016. Since then, it’s been a rocky ride to say the least. Here’s how the club has fared over the past nine campaigns.
The Mark Shapiro/Ross Atkins era:
2016: 89-73 (lost ALCS)
2017: 76-86
2018: 73-89
2019: 67-95
2020: 32-28 (lost ALWS)
2021: 91-71
2022: 92-70 (lost ALWS)
2023: 89-73 (lost ALWS)
2024: 74-88Missed playoffs in 5 of 9, 683-673 record.
How are they still employed?
— Frank Ammirante (@FAmmiranteTFJ) October 2, 2024
With little-to-no success on the field, it hasn’t been much better on the organization-building side of things. The team’s prospect pipeline is pretty week, with the club’s farm system ranking 24th out of 30 teams, according to MLB.com.
Atkins is signed through 2026 after inking a five-year extension with the organization back in 2021.