rarefind wrote:Mehar wrote:DelAbbot wrote:
You remember when Shapiro said the goal (owners gave them) is to build that team that can consistently get into the playoffs (without mention of how deep into the playoffs). They are aiming for that and to expect some 2015 magic is just foolishness.
This is a 227M wild-card team.
People need to be less critical of Rogers Ownership. The owners have given the front office the 7th highest payroll in MLB (247 million luxury tax payroll). That is two million shy of the world champs Texas. The front office then spends 18 million of that money in the off-season on KK and IKF. They sign Chad Green for two years and 21 million based on his Shaky appearances the last month of the 2023 season, when the logical move would have been to exercise the 1 year 6.5 million option on him instead.
To maximize Varsho's value, he needed to be in CF with another solid bat to complement him in LF for 2024. Gurriel was the guy I wanted back in LF in free agency (making the same 10 million in 2024 as KK). With the offense struggles from last year, KK and Varsho together in the lineup was not the right course of action for 2024. IKF for 2 years and 15 million was laughable, given how the Yankees had no desire to bring him back even for one year since he was a below average hitter. The farm system is one of the worst in MLB. People mentioning how Soto would have been great in a Jays uniform, but what farm assets did this team really have? Not much compared to what the Yankees could offer.
Still only 5 games in. If the Jays are 4th or 5th in the AL East like I think they will be come trade deadline in July- Schneider should not be the fall guy, but the man who threw him under the bus foolishly which is Ross Atkins. Replace him internally with James Click who actually has built teams in Houston that have won the World Series with multiple AL Pennants also, instead of embarrassing Wild Card losses under Atkins. Shapiro is not going anywhere. Have that guy focus strictly on the stadium renovations and keep his hands out of the personnel decisions. Shapiro and Atkins have worked together since 2001. Zero Championship Rings is their legacy together since Cleveland. Year 9 of their tenure in Toronto, and their promise of having one of the best farm systems year in and year out is yet to be fulfilled. Funny how Shapiro criticized Alex Anthopoulos for a weak farm system in 2015. Alex is having the last laugh in Atlanta, with multiple Pennants and a World Series banner.
You're not wrong however I would say it ALWAYS comes back down to ownership. The time to pull the plug on our FO was come and gone. As much as Rogers has invested significant capital into our payroll, they have allowed this mess to unfold directly under their nose.
Our major league team is severely flawed, our coaching staff seems incompetent and our minor league system is mediocre at best. Failing to make changes is virtually as bad as being the FO who authored this nonsense.
The Jays from 2020-23 have the 6th best record in MLB, one win behind the Yankees, and they just had 3 million people in attendance. Ownership probably doesn't see an issue with how the Jays have been run, as they are not going to dig deep into whether the organization is ahead of the curve or behind on player development, analytics, minor league system, etc. Ownership also doesn't have a hand in how the money is spent, so they would have had no way of knowing that Atkins' idea of fixing the team's issues was spending over $50M in 2024 payroll on IKF, Kiermaier, Turner, Green, Vogelbach, and Rodriguez.
I personally don't think Shapiro is an issue, and I think he has a job for life with Rogers as long as he wants it, but if anyone is to blame here it's likely him because keeping Atkins (and by extension the coaching staff) after the 2023 **** was all him. If he wanted to fire Atkins, I'm sure Rogers would have been fine with it. The interesting thing to me is that Shapiro's contract ends after 2025 and he gave Atkins a contract that ends after 2026. It seems like they are a package deal, for better or worse.
