Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro Discusses Team’s Future

Within the midst of a season that has been an unmitigated disappointment for Blue Jays followers the place the membership has fallen to final place within the AL East and bought off items on the commerce deadline, membership president and CEO Mark Shapiro spoke to reporters together with Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson concerning the membership’s plans for 2025 and past.

Shapiro didn’t mince phrases whereas describing the group’s failures this season and acknowledged that the workforce’s efficiency this 12 months has represented the “greatest disconnect from expectations” he’s overseen throughout his tenure on the helm of the membership, which started in August of 2015. Whilst he known as this season the “greatest disappointment” of his time in Toronto, nonetheless, Shapiro appeared disinclined to entertain parting methods with GM Ross Atkins. Whereas he prefaced his feedback by emphasizing that he doesn’t touch upon his staff’ job statuses whereas the season is ongoing, he additionally made a normal case for continuity throughout the group:

“I’m an enormous believer in stability and continuity and people are aggressive benefits in skilled sports activities,” Shapiro mentioned, as relayed by Matheson. “Reacting and altering don’t essentially imply enchancment. We have to be higher. We have now to be higher. Stability, continuity and making changes are the place I’m targeted proper now.”

Parting methods with Atkins, who has been the membership’s GM in every of Shapiro’s 9 seasons on the helm in Toronto, will surely be thought of a transfer away from that message of continuity and stability. The Jays have seen some success with the duo of Shapiro and Atkins making selections, as they’ve has made the playoffs in 4 of their 9 seasons with the membership. The workforce solely superior past the Wild Card spherical of the postseason as soon as, nonetheless, and that got here all the best way again in 2016 throughout their first season with the membership.

Since then, the Blue Jays rebuilt and constructed a younger core centered round stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette earlier than supplementing that group with veterans equivalent to George Springer and Kevin Gausman. Stable as that technique could have appeared on paper, nonetheless, the outcomes on the sector have left one thing to be desired for a membership that has didn’t win the aggressive AL East even as soon as whereas going 423-338 for the reason that 2019 season the place Guerrero made his MLB debut. Now, each Guerrero and Bichette are coming into their closing seasons of arbitration eligibility, and the opportunity of shedding one or each in free company subsequent winter looms as a definite risk.

After all, it’s doable that Toronto might ink one or each of their stars to an extension earlier than they go away city. Shapiro declined to touch upon the opportunity of extending particular gamers, although he did acknowledge that it’s “definitely simpler” to construct a championship-level roster with gamers of Guerrero’s and Bichette’s caliber roster within the fold “for prolonged durations of time.”

An extension for both participant would certainly require a substantial monetary funding, nonetheless. Guerrero particularly has re-established himself as one of many league’s premiere offensive abilities this 12 months with a implausible .317/.391/.537 slash line, 29 doubles, and 22 homers in 112 video games this 12 months. With the slugging celebrity set to hit free company following his age-26 season subsequent 12 months, he seems to be in good place to money in on a major payday in free company.

However, Bichette has handled accidents and under-performance this 12 months as he’s been restricted to 79 video games whereas slashing simply .223/.276/.321. With that being mentioned, he’ll be coming off his age-27 marketing campaign when he’s anticipated to succeed in free company subsequent winter and that mixture of youth, a powerful offensive observe report (he was a profession 127 wRC+ hitter coming into the 2024 marketing campaign), and his skill to play a premium defensive place ought to enable the shortstop to do fairly nicely in free company so long as he rebounds to one thing nearer to his earlier profession ranges in 2025.

Thankfully, the membership figures to have loads of payroll flexibility this winter with which they will look to signal the pair long-term whereas retooling the remainder of the roster. The membership’s closing payroll is predicted to land (per RosterResource) simply over $218MM, with their estimated payroll for luxurious tax functions sitting simply over $241MM. That’s slightly greater than $4MM over the primary threshold of the aggressive steadiness tax, though it’s price noting that publicly obtainable payroll estimates are simply that. For his half, Shapiro instructed (per Matheson) that the Jays presently anticipate to come back in underneath that $237MM threshold although he did acknowledge that the state of affairs is “fluid.”

No matter the place the membership finally ends up when it comes to closing luxurious tax calculations this 12 months, they’ve loads of cash coming off the books this winter. RosterResource signifies that they’ve simply over $124MM dedicated for 2025, and whereas arbitration raises for gamers like Guerrero and Daulton Varsho determine to push that determine up considerably—the Jays’ 2024 arb class value the membership simply over $44MM—even that would depart the membership with a payroll within the $170MM vary, giving them round $50MM to work with this winter in the event that they match this 12 months’s payroll in 2025. Shapiro was obscure about Toronto’s actual plans when it comes to payroll for subsequent 12 months, nonetheless. Whereas he did say that he doesn’t anticipate there to be a “large-scale pullback” in payroll, he additionally notes that the troublesome season has impacted the membership on the enterprise aspect of issues.

After all, long-term offers for Bichette and Guerrero wouldn’t essentially influence 2025’s payroll on condition that Bichette is already underneath contract for $17.5MM subsequent 12 months whereas Guerrero is already anticipated to command a hefty wage in his closing journey by way of arbitration. That being mentioned, if the Jays have their sights set on retaining both or each of their homegrown duo long-term, it’s straightforward to see that impacted the membership’s willingness to signal different top-of-the-market abilities to long-term offers this winter. That might create an advanced puzzle for the membership as they try and return to competition subsequent 12 months whereas balancing an obvious need to retain Guerrero and Bichette long-term towards the necessity for vital upgrades to the present roster.