11:00am: Atkins revealed throughout his personal media availability that bench coach and offensive coordinator Don Mattingly will not oversee the workforce’s offense; he’ll fill a “extra conventional” bench coach function. Between the change in Mattingly’s function and the reported firing of hitting coach Guillermo Martinez — which Atkins confirmed — the workforce will conduct an exterior search to usher in new voice to supervise the workforce’s offense.
10:15am: Blue Jays workforce president Mark Shapiro is at present assembly with the media on the heels of a season he described as a “bitter disappointment” and introduced that Ross Atkins will return because the workforce’s common supervisor for the 2025 season. “There gained’t be a change with Ross,” stated Shapiro. (Readers can watch the reside press convention through Sportsnet.) The 2024 season was Atkins’ ninth season as Toronto’s common supervisor after spending 14 seasons as an integral a part of Cleveland’s participant improvement division. He signed a five-year contract extension overlaying the 2022-26 seasons again in April of 2021.
This previous season was certainly a catastrophe for the Jays, who completed out the season at 74-88 — final place within the American League East. The Blue Jays made a spirited run at Shohei Ohtani in free company final offseason however added primarily complementary items after he signed a ten-year take care of the Dodgers. The Toronto entrance workplace inked Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Yariel Rodriguez to multi-year contracts, additionally including veterans Justin Turner and Kevin Kiermaier on one-year offers (Kiermaier’s second one-year pact with the Jays).
Depth proved to be an Achilles heel for the Jays as accidents mounted. Bo Bichette endured a number of IL stints and was restricted to half a season’s price of uncharacteristically feeble manufacturing on the plate. Alek Manoah underwent UCL surgical procedure. Nearer Jordan Romano pitched simply 13 2/3 tough innings earlier than present process arthroscopic elbow surgical procedure. High prospects Orelvis Martinez (PED suspension) and Ricky Tiedemann (Tommy John surgical procedure) had misplaced seasons. In the meantime, key veterans like Kiermaier, George Springer, Danny Jansen, Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza and others turned in performances that weren’t commensurate with their prior requirements. The Jays turned to a number of in-house stopgaps however, notably within the bullpen, had been unable to piece collectively a serviceable efficiency.
The tip end result noticed Jansen, Kiner-Falefa, Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi Garcia and Nate Pearson all traded away in deadline swaps for youthful expertise. The Jays had been universally praised for a powerful return on Kikuchi, an impending free agent. Nevertheless, that’s at greatest a silver lining when contemplating the workforce entered the 2024 marketing campaign trying to construct on final yr’s Wild Card berth into the playoffs and was seen as a legit contender in a deep AL East division.
Heading into the 2025 season, it’ll be incumbent upon Shapiro and Atkins to engineer a direct turnaround, lest the requires modifications in management develop even louder. Requested concerning the membership’s payroll outlook for the ’25 marketing campaign, Shapiro demurred, calling it “early” to ask such a query and suggesting that subsequent month’s GM Conferences and even December’s Winter Conferences could be a time at which he might provide a clearer reply. For now, the membership’s president merely prompt he didn’t anticipate participant payroll rising or lowering in a major method.
If that’s certainly the case, Atkins can have his work reduce out for him. The Jays entered the 2024 season with a club-record $225MM Opening Day payroll. RosterResource at present pegs them for simply shy of $125MM in 2025 commitments, not together with an arbitration class projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to value greater than $61MM in whole. Add in a slate of league-minimum gamers to spherical out the roster, and the Jays are at simply over $194MM. There are some seemingly non-tenders on this offseason’s class of arbitration-eligible gamers, however the group is headlined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his projected $29.6MM wage, with notable paydays projected for Romano ($7.75MM), Daulton Varsho ($7.7MM) and Alejandro Kirk ($4.1MM) as nicely.
Requested a number of instances about Guerrero’s future, Shapiro usually sidestepped the query. The slugger is coming into his last season of membership management earlier than probably changing into one of the crucial coveted free brokers in current reminiscence. Supervisor John Schneider just lately touted Guerrero as a generational expertise. Requested at the moment whether or not he agreed with that evaluation, Shapiro questioned the definition of what constitutes a generational participant and prompt that it’s robust to say proper now, noting that Guerrero has the “potential” to turn into such a participant however implying that such a label can’t be positioned on him this early in his profession.
Atkins spoke extra straight on the matter of Guerrero’s future, suggesting that possession will present the help to make long-term commitments to each Guerrero and Bichette. That doesn’t assure an extension for both participant will occur, in fact, and Atkins famous that it’s “troublesome” to assemble a contract of such magnitude for even one participant — not to mention two gamers. Nonetheless, he voiced confidence that the Jays can help long-term offers for each and nonetheless have the sources wanted to construct a aggressive roster round what would presumably be a pair of considerable contracts.
With regard to the forthcoming offseason, Atkins spoke usually concerning the have to be “extra aggressive” with exterior additions to the roster than the Blue Jays had been this previous offseason, particularly within the bullpen. He additionally referred to as including an influence bat “low-hanging fruit” but in addition famous that it’s not so simple as including a pure slugger, citing a necessity to have a look at contact capacity, on-base expertise, and strengths towards particular pitch sorts.
Requested whether or not the aforementioned Rodriguez and Bowden Francis have pitched nicely sufficient to solidify their spots within the rotation subsequent season, Atkins praised each pitchers for the job they did within the season’s second half. The Jays will likely be out there for each depth and “affect” beginning pitching, per Atkins, however with Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Rodriguez and Francis all within the fold, the GM stated he feels lucky to not really feel a dire have to be out there for a high free-agent starter.
The style during which the Jays will pursue upgrades was left pretty open-ended. Each Atkins and Shapiro spoke favorably of the 13 younger gamers Toronto acquired at this season’s commerce deadline. Atkins acknowledged that whereas lots of these gamers are seen as potential near-term contributors, that inflow of expertise into the system additionally opens the door for potential trades involving a few of those self same prospects. The Blue Jays will discover each the free agent and commerce markets as they give the impression of being to revamp the roster, nevertheless it’s clear from each males’s feedback at the moment that the membership doesn’t plan to take any sort of step again and can endeavor to place a playoff contender on the sphere subsequent yr. That a lot has been reported at numerous factors because the deadline, however at the moment’s on-record dedication to such an method from the workforce’s high two decision-makers is nonetheless notable.
