TORONTO — From the outside looking in, the situation the Toronto Blue Jays have played themselves into looks bleak.
Approaching the halfway point of the season, Toronto is 37-43 after Thursday’s 9-2 win over the visiting New York Yankees at the Rogers Centre. They are last in the American League East, six games back of a wild-card spot. Their playoff odds, courtesy of FanGraphs, are down to 4.6 percent.
It’s a state of affairs that prompted The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal to aptly label the Blue Jays “an underperforming mess” and suggest they look like sellers, “but almost certainly will wait as long as possible to choose a direction.”
On Thursday, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins met with the local media. When given a chance to state the club’s direction ahead of the fast-approaching July 30 trade deadline, he reiterated optimism that the club can still improve and win this season, a stance he held last month, even though things are arguably worse now. Still, he acknowledged that should things continue to trend poorly, the Blue Jays will need to pivot.
“We’re focused on winning. We’re focused on building the best possible team we can this year, supporting them the best possible way we can,” Atkins said. “If we get to a point where we need to adjust, we’ll be prepared to do so.”
During an availability that lasted about 20 minutes, Atkins’ main message was the team has dug itself a deep hole, something he said he was “accountable for,” but the club is intent on salvaging this season in the hopes a better second half can launch them back into contention. More broadly, the organization’s focus is on winning in 2025 and beyond, too. That means, for now, Atkins and his front office are looking to improve the club at the deadline, with upgrades to their offence at the forefront of their needs.
“We’re focused on improvement, we’re focused on getting better. The fact that we are in this position squarely lies with me, I’m accountable for that and all of our energy and focus is on just improvement and getting better with a group that’s here,” Atkins said.
The Blue Jays’ offence has been stuck in neutral most of the season. (John E. Sokolowski / USA Today)
Five weeks out from the deadline, unsurprisingly Atkins was not willing to give up in what’s been a disheartening season thus far. As Rosenthal said, it was always going to be the case that the Blue Jays would wait as long as possible to choose which door to walk through at the deadline, and in particular, Atkins is facing the most scrutiny he’s ever had as a GM. It’s reasonable to believe his job is on the line, though he said he still has the support of club president Mark Shapiro and ownership. Frustrated fans have every right to feel let down by the organization, given their 2024 performance thus far. But Atkins continues to try to wait it out as long as possible before dismantling the team he constructed.
In that regard, Atkins cited the roster’s track record of success, both individually and as a unit, as reasons to believe the team can turn things around, despite the fact they’ve been under .500 since late April. Asked if he needed to see his club reach a threshold before deciding they’re worth investing in — i.e., getting back to .500 or within a few games of a wild-card spot — Atkins said there’s no such “equation for that.”
“We need to go day-by-day and continue to be prepared to pivot in either direction,” the GM said. “Our pro scouting department, all of baseball operations spends a lot of time understanding the entire industry in any way that we need to move. Right now, all of our energy and focus is on the next several weeks. We put ourselves into a tough spot, but we’re going to try to correct it.”
The crux of their issue — what has led them to this dire point — is their underwhelming offence. As of Thursday, Toronto ranked 26th in runs scored and home runs and 19th in OPS. Of their qualified hitters, only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.816) has an OPS over .800. Bo Bichette and George Springer each have an OPS of .618, though Springer homered twice on Thursday and has six hits in his last two games, including three homers.
ANOTHER ONE 💥
George Springer has hit a three-run homer in back-to-back innings! pic.twitter.com/pHekYMjgHZ
— MLB (@MLB) June 27, 2024
This isn’t a new problem. The Blue Jays offence struggled last season, finishing 14th in runs scored. The organization spent the offseason overhauling their process, including naming Don Mattingly their offensive coordinator. Yet, three months in, the new process hasn’t translated into results.
“I just expected us to score more runs,” Atkins said. “I think everyone in the building did, and we need to figure out why that didn’t happen.”
Atkins said “all of our energy” has been directed at figuring out why their offence continues to underperform.
“We’ve seen some encouraging signs. There’s been some individuals that have performed really well at their projections and some even above, and we’ve had some decent contributions from our (farm) system and players coming up recently,” Atkins said. “We just haven’t been able to get it to all click to turn into run-scoring at a level that is where we need it to be. And that’s where all of our energy is focused on right now.”
And Atkins doubled down on his hitters when asked whether they were good enough to author a turnaround in the second half.
“We believe in these hitters. We believe in these players and they have proven track records,” he said.
The offence is the main culprit for the current predicament, but the bullpen has struggled, too, and is still without its best relievers, Jordan Romano and Yimi García, who are both on the 15-day IL. They have progressed to throwing from 120 feet, but it’s still not clear when either of them will get on a mound again.
If the Blue Jays do the improbable and buy at the deadline, they would need to address both their bullpen and lineup. And with a farm system last ranked 20th by The Athletic’s Keith Law, there is a question if they have the assets to make the deals they would need to, especially with the injury questions around No. 1 prospect Ricky Tiedemann and the 80-game PED suspension for No. 2 prospect Orelvis Martinez.
Atkins mentioned Leo Jimenez, who is hitting .283/.429/.451 in Triple A, as one of their standout prospects who could help the big-league team at some point this season. Perhaps, he could be an attractive trade chip, too.
Alternatively, if the Blue Jays do what many expect and sell, they’ll have to consider whether to move on solely from players set to become free agents — including Yusei Kikuchi, Justin Turner, Danny Jansen and García — or whether they’ll sell in a more significant way, and deal away franchise cornerstones Guerrero and Bichette, who are under team control through 2025. Atkins said the team hasn’t received “a significant” number of calls inquiring about their players, but clubs are “downloading where we are from a strategy standpoint.”
Given the recent $300-million-plus Rogers Centre renovations, the Blue Jays aren’t likely to want to punt on next season and sacrifice turning an already disgruntled fan base even further off the club, but the flip side is that the returns for both Guerrero and Bichette could accelerate a retooling for the club if they go down that route.
“Every decision that you make, regardless of a stadium renovation or the state of your organization, you have to be thinking of the future, as well,” Atkins said. “But as you’ve seen over the last four years, we’ve poured a lot into the current team, from a financial standpoint, from a trade standpoint, from a resource standpoint and we’ll continue to do that until it doesn’t make sense to do so anymore.”
Some teams got off to slow starts and have now turned things around, including the St. Louis Cardinals, who are in a playoff spot, and the New York Mets and Houston Astros, who have reached .500 and are within three games or fewer of a wild-card spot. The problem for the Blue Jays, however, is the American League’s playoff picture isn’t as tightly packed as the National League’s. And the AL East is tougher than the AL West.
Yet, the Blue Jays GM is keeping the faith — at least for now.
“We’ve dug ourselves a hole. We acknowledge that hole and I’m accountable for that,” Atkins said. “But also right now, we’re in the position to focus our energy on one day at a time. We understand that needs to turn into a streak for us to be back in. It doesn’t mean we have to win every game, but we do need to play a lot better and win a lot more games.”
(Top photo of Atkins: Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
