‘If I felt there was a better alternative to run our baseball operation, I’d make that change,’ Shapiro said
If you expected more substance than a $1 Rogers Centre hotdog from the Blue Jays braintrust on Wednesday, you were probably looking in the wrong place.
The digestion of the latest posturing from team president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins will come in the months ahead. The indigestion from a horrible season lingers.
Yes, both men were contrite at times when they met with the media in the Rogers Centre basement on Wednesday, albeit with promises that things aren’t really all that bad for a last-place team that scored fewer runs than it had in decades.
Sure, they acknowledged a need to get better and earnestly outlined some extremely minor changes to the coaching staff. But the real answers remain at bay.
Sign Vlad Guerrero Jr. in the off-season? Waffle, waffle, not going there.
Add some thump to a lineup desperate for it?
“I don’t think it’s as simple as adding a power bat,” Atkins insisted. “Power is low-hanging fruit to add.”
“We need to be more thoughtful in how we produce runs,” Shapiro added.
Are more gloomy days ahead? No way, said both baseball savants.
“We need to learn from the setbacks this past year, from the challenges,” said Shapiro, who spoke first on Wednesday. “This past season was a bitter disappointment, incredibly disappointing and, as a leader of the organization, the accountability and the responsibility for that clearly lies with me.”
Not sure if that’s exactly what Jays fans wanted to hear, but the solutions at this point are as vague and as indifferent as the team’s play over so much of a 74-88 season that was never headed anywhere but last place in the American League East.
To be fair, this season-ending confab went pretty much according to a now-familiar script, For those looking for scalps, Shapiro was at the ready for the inevitable questions about the return of his GM, Atkins who was never going anywhere.
“The process that I went through to consider whether or not there would be a change with (Atkins) role was one of both considering alternatives and looking at the work that’s been done,” Shapiro said. “Not going to avoid that this year was a disappointment, a significant setback. It’s not work that he’s proud of, now work that I’m proud of.
“Ross needs to be better. I need to be better. Our entire baseball operations need to be better. But I also think about the fact that we played in the playoffs three of the past five years … And to me, that’s not grounds to make a change. If I felt there was a better alternative to run our baseball operation, I’d make that change.”
This is where true, discriminating fans lose their minds, of course.
As anyone who follows this team is painfully aware, three out of five is correct, though one was in a pandemic-shortened season and all each ended in dreadful, winless wild-card exits and the most recent season saw them hit the basement of the division.
Aim low boys, aim low.
For the most part, the media conference was civil, though Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno and Shapiro sparred briefly. The performative side to the affair was thick with the buzzwords that have been used far too often since the team started getting good again around 2020.
You know the chorus — stick to the process, improve internally, etc.
Of note, both Shapiro and Atkins believe the basis of winning team still exists. Both men cited injuries as a factor in the cursed bottom line and both believed that six months ago they had the basis of a championship team.
“It’s not like a mystery,” Shapiro said. “We objectively thought that we had a team that was good enough to win the American League East and play in the post-season. I can’t think of a bigger disconnect from expectations in the time that I’ve been here.
“The expectations going into the season were not anecdotal and gut-based expectations, they’re based on some real information and track records of players. To have that underperform so resoundingly collectively as a group is extremely tough to accept and to swallow.”
Atkins, meanwhile, feels management has done a fine job getting the right people in place.
“Talent acquisition, in our view, has been strong,” Atkins said. “The identification of talent has been strong for our group. Our pro scouting and research and development group has been strong in that area.”
It’s all just words, of course, but by now Jays fans are used to it. And those same fans are well aware that Atkins’ most recent talent acquisition included Justin Turner, Kevin Kiermaier and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, players of such limited impact (particularly the first two) that they where shuffled out the clubhouse door prior to the trade deadline.
Because Atkins and Shapiro aren’t to be blamed — they run the show, after all — others were left to pay the price. So it was goodbye to assistant hitting coach Guillermo Martinez (who took the fall for the hitters), assistant pitching coach Jeff Ware (the bullpen blame guy) and field coordinator, Gil Kim.
As well, that impressive-sounding “offensive coordinator” title has been removed from Don Mattingly, who returns to his bench coach role.
Perhaps there will be meaningful change in the off-season. Maybe some legit bats will be brought on board to complement Guerrero. And maybe this team will once again be a sneak-in-the-post-season bunch.
It’s an all-too-familiar refrain and one that frankly is getting tedious. But consider this: The on-field play is an echo of management.
Big or small, how the front office goes, so do those in a Blue Jays uniform.