Article: The Blue Jays Front Office and the Hot Seat

[Mike LeSage]

Considering the case for replacing Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, and the horrifying realization that maybe they’re safe.

The Athletic recently published the results of an insiders poll – 32 executives, former executives, coaches and scouts – ranking the pressure index of each team’s front office. It should come as no surprise to Blue Jays fans that the cliche-spewing, disingenuous-seeming tandem of president and CEO Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins didn’t just lead the voting, but very nearly lapped the field. They earned 22 votes, while no other team had more than 12. Let’s look at the front office situation from a few viewpoints: a fan’s perspective (specifically mine), the front office itself, team ownership.

Fan Perspective
Excuse me while I scream into the void for a moment. Shapiro and Atkins were hired following the 2015 season. That year, the Jays won the division with 93 wins behind AL MVP Josh Donaldson, Cy Young runner-up David Price and Level of Excellence member Jose Bautista. They haven’t won a division in the nine seasons since. They’ve been to the playoffs 4 times, but haven’t won a game since 2016. They’ve finished on average more than 16 games behind the division leader. They completely mishandled the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extension, and looking around, if winning is his goal, how could we expect him to stay?

Front Office Perspective
Meanwhile, the front office has to think it’s doing a good job – or at least as good a job as is possible under some difficult circumstances. They’ve brought in some big names and spent some big money for sure, but that hasn’t translated into success. They’ve also talked a lot about their player valuation process and have (seemingly) stuck to their word when trying to sign or extend players. I’m sure they’ve spent lots of time the last two years planning their pitches and forecasting their budgets for Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. Those efforts turned out to be futile, but I would love to know the operational cost of planning for a reported offer of $700 million to Othani and slightly less than that to Soto. Is that partly why negotiations with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. never really seemed to take much urgency? Or why talks with Bo Bichette haven’t even started?! The farm system features some interesting names, but FanGraphs ranks the organization 23rd overall, so it’s not as if we’re well positioned for the future. Back to the Guerrero negotiations for a moment, without anyone leaking numbers (yet) we’re all just guessing how far apart “not close” is.

Scenario	Vlad Wanted A Reasonable Deal	Vlad Wanted Too Much
Jays Made a Reasonable Offer	A fantasy land where we get to be happy.	Jays have to get creative, but a deal probably gets done.
Jays Lowballed Vlad	A deal probably gets done	We are here?

Maybe this is giving the front office too much credit — and “too much” is just as nebulous as “not close” — but unless their internal valuation and projections for Vladdy are more Sano and less Soto, they must think they’re making the right call.

Ownership Perspective
The reality of the Jays front office situation is that Shapiro and Atkins only have to be worried about their jobs if Edward Rogers and the board of directors are unhappy. Rogers is spending a reported $300 million on their multi-year renovation project. They’ve raised single and season ticket prices annually. How much of a dip in attendance would have to be projected for Shapiro and Atkins to really sweat? Last year saw a drop of 4,000 tickets per game from 2023. Can the fan base and ticket sales handle an honest, teardown rebuild? Or would ownership be content if the Blue Jays remained just competitive enough to be in the Wild Card hunt? As the offers to Ohtani and Soto indicated, Rogers was okay with spending $700 million under the right circumstances, but they’re certainly not handing the Jays a handful of blank cheques to go on a spree with.

I’ve asked a lot of questions through this piece with very few answers, but from all perspectives,  the biggest one might be: Who is best to lead this franchise forward?

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[Delete_My_Account_Thanks]

Great article!

For those who want Shatkins gone, this is a decently written petition to sign.

It's in its early stages but maybe we could help give it some steam?

 

Petition for Rogers to fire Shatkins

[Owen Hill]

I think it's also important to note that Shapiro's contract is done after the 2025 season so if he's sticking around he'll need a new deal.  Atkins' finishes after 2026 but if Shapiro isn't coming back then I doubt the new President gives Atkins a shot.  

It is so unclear if these guys will be back because if the Jays suck again do you really want them picking the 2026 direction at the trade deadline just to be out the door two months later?  Do you trust an entirely new front office dealing with the Vlad FA negotiations?  

If the team is really good they'll both get new deals, but at the same time, 0 division titles and 0 playoff wins in their tenure considering the resources they've had to work with is completely unacceptable.

[Terminator]

Not so fast my friend!

I would have brought in new leadership but by giving them another year Shatkins has another chance to stick around and make this work.

If a couple of Buffalo Boys surprise, the pitching remains healthy-ish, and we get big walk years from Vlad and Bo (all of which is very possible), this team could make some noise. 

[Laika]

What flavour of crack were we smoking when this chart was created? 

Scenario	Vlad Wanted A Reasonable Deal	Vlad Wanted Too Much
Jays Made a Reasonable Offer	A fantasy land where we get to be happy.	Jays have to get creative, but a deal probably gets done.
Jays Lowballed Vlad	A deal probably gets done	We are here?

What does "Jays have to get creative but a deal probably gets done" even mean if the premise is Vlad wants too much? 

The text in two of these boxes is hilarious and wrong. The chart should be illustrating that to extend at this juncture both sides need to be reasonable parties, otherwise there is never a deal. I dunno how you could see a deal happening with one party acting unreasonable. 

Here is the deal on the Vlad negotiations...

• We have a pretty big sample size on how the Toronto Blue Jays present front office handle negotiations with players and free agents. What they seem to do is cast their net widely, evaluate all alternatives, make an assessment on all options, explore big money free agents if their assessment is competitive, stay patient until their assessment lines up with a target's actual market or desires. 
• We have a tiny sample on how Vlad will handle contracts and negotiations. Some statements about him being the best there is. Some irresponsible social media likes about him signing with the Yankees or Red Sox. 

So I really don't think we are in the "Jays Lowballed + Vlad wants too much" box. More likely in the top right box. Why? Because the Jays historically make a "reasonable offer" on f***ing everybody. They are so "reasonable" that it makes us want to throw up sometimes. 

Who is more likely to be acting unreasonably? The guy with 17 kids at 25 years old, who still can't run the bases, and doesn't know when to not click like on Instagram? Or the executive who takes a paper towel and dabs the fat off of his turkey bacon every other Sunday when he treats himself? 

[Terminator]

Vlad could stand in the middle of Yonge Street and shoot somebody, and he wouldn't lose any of his supporters who would still find a way to blame Ross Atkins

[Jays24]

51 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Gotta fill that article quota.  This barely skims the surface of some of the issues.  With an controversial title, this would clean up on Facebook.  Lots of casuals would voice their anger with mindless, ignorant and irrelevant comments.  Click bait heaven.

 

I didn't even read the article but giving you a thumbs down for being a jerk lol

[BatFlip]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Who is more likely to be acting unreasonably? The guy with 17 kids at 25 years old, who still can't run the bases, and doesn't know when to not click like on Instagram? Or the executive who takes a paper towel and dabs the fat off of his turkey bacon every other Sunday when he treats himself? 

This is a goddamn home run.

[Terminator]

To be fair to OP, Zips just cooked the franchise on Fangraphs today.

Quote

So now the Blue Jays find themselves at a crossroads. Personally, I think their failure to sign Guerrero before his deadline should be treated as the fatal blow to the organization — not just for the next few years, but for this one as well. A lot of things would need to go right for Toronto to turn a Guerrero-less roster into a serious AL East threat if he leaves as a free agent. Considering this, the Jays might be better off trading Guerrero — they would almost certainly get an excellent return package for him — to retool for another run two or three years from now, even though that would all but officially take them out of contention for the 2025 campaign. Whatever happens, because the Blue Jays didn’t extend the face of their franchise, this is shaping up to be their most consequential season since the mid-1990s.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-would-a-vladito-contract-look-like/

But if you dive into the actual article, he says that his own projections system wouldn't even have offered Vlad the supposed $340 mil that the Jays already offered. So I guess he doesn't trust his own numbers?

[John_Havok]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

Just calling a spade a spade.  This is an epidemic across North America (the world?).  We live in a clickbait world where there's more reward in volume than their is quality. 

And the ridiculous part... making a post on it to say how bad it is...helps drive traffic. 

Honestly man, if you really want to help discourage these kinds of articles, not commenting at all is the way to go. 

Think of trash heaps like this article in wrestling terms. Silence is worse than boos.

Oh, and of course, have patience and stuff. Learning... improving blah blah. Davy will have these people creating good content containing with real analysis rather than grade 8 level recess opinions soon.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, John_Havok said:

Oh, and of course, have patience and stuff. Learning... improving blah blah. Davy will have these people creating good content containing with real analysis rather than grade 8 level recess opinions soon.

Feel free to not read the articles. Seriously, just don't if this is your attitude about a bunch of inexperienced people trying their best to learn a craft.

[Jays24]

3 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Feel free to not read the articles. Seriously, just don't if this is your attitude about a bunch of inexperienced people trying their best to learn a craft.

Now you get to see how they really behave when people state an opinion they don't like lol.  

[John_Havok]

15 hours ago, Jays24 said:

Now you get to see how they really behave when people state an opinion they don't like lol.  

My expression has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the article.

[Jays24]

11 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

My expression has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the article.

Can't wait to read your write up. 

[Delete_My_Account_Thanks]

20 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Feel free to not read the articles. Seriously, just don't if this is your attitude about a bunch of inexperienced people trying their best to learn a craft.

There are a lot of posters on here that are just nasty people.  Nasty, nasty people.

[Laika]

Feel free to not post here. Seriously, just don't if this is your attitude about a bunch of posters.

[Jays24]

4 hours ago, Laika said:

Feel free to not post here. Seriously, just don't if this is your attitude about a bunch of posters.

LOL how about you acknowledge the person who actually runs this board calling out the negative remarks you're defending.  I'm sure the "not posting here" applies to them too :)