Vlad Guerrero Jr., the most constant source of Blue Jays hope for six years or more, says he wants to be a big part of the team’s future in a city he professes to love.
Kevin Gausman forcefully suggests that if the team truly wants to be taken seriously, the front office needs to bring in some big-performing veterans to make the team more complete. And he says it has to happen now before the much-hyped competitive window slams completely shut.
Then there’s the discombobulated Blue Jays bullpen, a steamy hot mess from Game 1 to Game 162 due to performance and injury issues, a situation that the Jays would be non-competitive throughout.
Yes, the needs are many while the answers, as we sit in the shadow of a rotten season now done, are few. So where do the Blue Jays go from here?
With basic affirmation that the braintrust that has overseen what has emerged as a chronically under-achieving franchise will return for another season, a stab at the answers will begin on Wednesday. That’s when general manager Ross Atkins and CEO Mark Shapiro go tag-team for their season-ending media availabilities at a press conference room in the Rogers Centre basement.
And given all that’s gone on in the 12 months since their previous attempts at such enlightenment, this should be a good one.
At various points, the embattled braintrust will be addressing talking points for which there won’t be viable answers. Worse, Shapiro and Atkins will be spinning it in the aftermath of a season that has to be classified as the worst of their nine here.
As an aside, it’s mildly interesting that Shapiro will talk first, an indicator of who is really in charge, perhaps. But also, expect him to emphatically set the tone of how the franchise feels both about the ridiculously poor 74-88 season just completed and how it plans to reboot yet again.
As a preview of what’s likely to come (remember this is an organization that often obsesses about messaging), manager John Schneider was candid through that embarrassing final home stand of the season in which the Jays were a shameful 1-5.
“Just looking at it broadly, we need to improve our bullpen in terms of stuff and consistency,” Schneider said on Sunday. “Offensively, we need to have a couple of guys that can be sandwiched around Vlad and Bo (Bichette), whether that’s internal or external, we’ll see.”
Schneider acknowledged what should be obvious from a team that scored just two runs or fewer in 51 games (let that sink in) and three or fewer in a whopping 78. The manager essentially added his two cents worth on how the team should spend the latest infusion of millions of dollars of Rogers moolah.
“(Power) kind of takes priority over position defensively,” the manager said. “We still have good hitters who are here that need to perform better and (adding) power and overall doing more damage on the fastball as a group.”
Schneider didn’t mention George Springer by name in that “perform better” group because he didn’t have to and there’s certainly hope that Bichette bounces back from a disastrous season that, as he told us on Sunday, he already has buried in the past tense.
How does the off-season unfold, then? Because the 2024 free fall was, in Schneider’s words, “a slow burn” — a flameout that began essentially at the July 31 trade deadline — and the preliminary planning for 2025 has been going on for weeks now.
After the Shapiro and Atkins state of the fractured union address, there will be GM meetings in November followed by the broader Winter Meetings in December, where the groundwork for potential acquisitions will formulate. That traditional agenda aside, it sure feels that it’s incumbent upon Shapiro and Atkins to get moving much sooner.
Running through the priority concerns noted previously, the Guerrero situation feels like a flashpoint for it all, not just from a fan perspective but a competitive one. If the team is serious about contending long-term (and also attracting viable free agents short term) it needs to push hard for a multi-year extension that Guerrero has said he wants to consummate.
Lame-duck seasons contract-wise from Guerrero and Bichette send a terrible message and certainly would emit the odour of a long-term rebuild on the horizon.
Meanwhile, thoughts shared by Gausman in our interview during the final series were powerful given that, as a clubhouse leader, they were reflective of those around him.
“Obviously, we’ll see what the front office does,” Gausman said. “We need some veteran players, no doubt about that.”
By veterans, Gausman is talking about guys with bats. Big bats. Bats that can hit balls out of stadiums on the regular — a presence that the Jays have deliberately ignored for the past two seasons.
Given the talent level, the bottom line is the team has bottomed out, finishing 14 games under .500 after a truly dispiriting 7-17 September.
On Wednesday, Shapiro and Atkins will be on the podium. After that, they’re on the clock for an off-season that could (should?) be their last crack at getting it right.