SIMMONS SAYS: Blue Jays must sack Shapiro and Atkins before franchise becomes irrelevant

Isn’t this it for Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, champions of lost chases in the free-agent world of baseball?

Isn’t this it, after last season’s disaster, after the previous season’s playoff blunder, after two off-seasons of embarrassment, and too many years of developing next to no players who matter?

Where is the Blue Jays owner, Edward Rogers, soon to be the majority owner of the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC and Argos, and the most powerful man in the history of Canadian sport? Where is he on this as Shapiro and Atkins, his boys, bumble and stumble their way to spring training opening a month from now?

How can Mr. Rogers look any Blue Jays fan in the eye and tell him they are the best people to run his baseball team?
How can Shapiro and Atkins justify their own existence as the least popular, most ostracised sporting executives Toronto has ever known.

John Ferguson Jr., had an embarrassing run as GM of the Maple Leafs. But he was never as disliked in the way Shapiro, the Jays president, and Atkins, his general manager, are today.

The late Rob Babcock made the disastrous Vince Carter trade, setting the Raptors back an entire decade, and he was never thought of the way Shapiro and Atkins currently are.

Masai Ujiri has the Raptors among the worst teams in the NBA today, but fans aren’t craving his dismissal and don’t even seem angry at a 10-31 team.

Even Brendan Shanahan, 11 years on the job as Leafs president, might be disliked big picture for all the playoff ambivalence, but with nowhere near the vitriol Blue Jays fans speak of when it comes to Shapiro and Atkins.

Now another season is about to begin. The Blue Jays chased hard after Roki Sasaki, the Japanese free agent pitcher, and superstar Juan Soto, just as they chased hard after the unicorn, Shohei Ohtani, a year ago. Chasing hard is a wonderful trait. Baseball, and all sports, though, are forever about winning.

Do you believe the Jays can win with Shapiro and Atkins in charge? Does anyone?

It’s time once again for the invisible owner to act on the state of his beloved Blue Jays. Before they become nobody’s beloved Jays.

It’s true that Shapiro and Atkins used to work for the Cleveland Guardians. But are they still helping the Guardians along? Sure looks like it. The Jays have become the place where the Guardians go to dump bad contracts. First, they needed to find a place for the overpaid second baseman, Andres Gimenez. Then they found a place for the Jays to acquire light-hitting salary bust Myles Straw, primarily in exchange for international spending money. The international money — acquired to pay Sasaki — is good for only this season and the quality international players have already been signed elsewhere, which means the Jays have nothing of value to go after. There is only one way any of this makes sense now: And that is if the player to be named in the Straw deal returning to Cleveland is in fact Straw … The Jays did sign reliever Jeff Hoffman, their one-time draft pick, coming off a great season in Philadelphia. But here’s what we know: The 89-win Atlanta Braves gave Hoffman an MRI in November as they agreed to terms on a deal. They walked away from him after the MRI. The 91-win Baltimore Orioles then did the same thing. The 74-win Blue Jays MRI machine must work differently than those of other big league clubs. The Jays signed Hoffman for $33 million and three seasons … It’s a month until spring training and the Jays still need a starting left fielder, a starting third baseman, a leadoff man, a backup catcher, a depth starting pitcher or two, some bullpen depth and with all that, they might be able to win more than 74 games. Most betting houses have the Blue Jays at 76.5 wins for the coming season … If you were Bo Bichette or Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and you could be a free agent one year from now, wouldn’t you do that rather than sign long-term with the Jays? The money will be there in free agency either way, assuming Bichette returns close to form and Guerrero doesn’t follow a great 2024 season with an average one. But on a team where Kevin Gausman is 34, George Springer and Chris Bassitt are both 35, what’s to convince you or anyone else that this team has any kind of future? … The passion of Blue Jays fans is second to none. The Jays are now toying with that passion, which runs across the country. This franchise can’t afford anger and disinterest.

The list of career goal-scoring leaders in the NHL has transformed from Joe Malone to Cy Denneny to Howie Morenz to Nels Stewart in the earliest years, before he was passed by Rocket Richard in 1952. And then it was Gordie Howe, who had a 30-year run as leader before being lapped by Wayne Gretzky, who is in his 31st year as goal-scoring champion. Each one of these scoring leaders, heading towards the eventual coronation of Alexander Ovechkin, have been Canadian. When Ovechkin hits the all-time mark at the end of this season or the beginning of next, he will become the first non-Canadian, the first Russian, to ever lead in all-time scoring … No active players, except Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl and David Pastrnak, none of whom are Canadian, have any chance of getting close to 800 goals. Who knows how many years it will be — if ever — that a Canadian leads the NHL in career goals again … Gretzky scored 894. Howe had 801. If you can believe this, Howe was 52 years old in his final season in the NHL and still managed 15 goals. His last season was Gretzky’s first … Matthews, who scored two all-world, how-did-those-go-in goals this week against Dallas and New Jersey, is scoring at 0.65 goals per game in his career. Ovechkin was at 0.63 over his first nine years in Washington and is 0.60, career. Matthews leads all NHL scorers in goals since the day he entered the NHL nine years ago, which is rather unusual for centres. In that time, he is first in goals, but 46th in assists. At the same time, linemate Mitch Marner is 40th in goals but sixth in assists … Do we talk enough about Nikita Kucherov? This is his 12th NHL season in Tampa. In his time in the NHL, only Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon have more points. In the past three seasons, Kucherov is one point behind MacKinnon, and 27 behind McDavid … The Winnipeg Jets are having a remarkable season but I still wonder: In a playoff series, can they beat Colorado or Vegas, Edmonton or Dallas? The West is as top-heavy as it’s ever been … Somehow this got missed last week: The entertainer Sweet Daddy Siki has passed away. He was one of those special professional wrestlers who understood what it was to play a character and be morphed from popular to unpopular depending on which territory he was wrestling in. He had a lot of Muhammad Ali in him, a touch of Gorgeous George, a lot of just himself calling himself “the women’s pet and the men’s regret.” Sweet Daddy, a Toronto fixture in the ring and on the Danforth with his guitar, was 91 … This is when social media works: When Bob Uecker passed away, you didn’t have to look far to find his appearances on The Tonight Show — many of them hysterical — or on other talk shows of significance. Uecker was a giant figure of baseball, comedy and life.

Spencer Carbery, the likely coach of the year in the NHL in Washington, spent two seasons on Sheldon Keefe’s staff with the Leafs. He coached the power play which finished first in the league one year and second in the other. This season, the Leafs are 18th with the man advantage. Carbery’s power play was 20% more efficient than Marc Savard’s has been this season with ostensibly the same players … Good luck to the Edmonton Oilers if they expect much from free agent John Klingberg, who has signed for the rest of the season. Klingberg hasn’t been an effective NHL defenceman in more than four years. A better choice, but more complicated, expensive and delicate, would have been the addition of right shot defenceman, Tony DeAngelo. If the Maple Leafs don’t want Conor Timmins among their six defencemen, DeAngelo is a gamble but he can run a power play … Two years ago in the playoffs, Morgan Rielly played the best hockey of his life — 12 points in 11 games. He was a dominant figure against Tampa and Florida. Last year, his play dropped a little. This year, a lot. The Leafs need Rielly being Rielly, which is better than anything they could pick up in a trade or free-agent signing … A good idea that missed the mark: The NHL naming quarter-century teams for each franchise. It got almost no buzz at all … The future of junior hockey may be confusing with players now available to play U.S. college hockey, but that hasn’t hurt franchise value in the Ontario Hockey League. Last year, the Guelph Storm apparently sold for more than $20 million. Recently, the Hyman family, by led by Zach Hyman, bought the Brantford Bulldogs for what is said to be $17 million.

If Hockey Canada needs a quality hockey person in charge, and they’re serious about it, why not Hayley Wickenheiser? … When Vegas was trying to pick up Max Pacioretty from Montreal in 2018, the deal hit a snag. The Golden Knights wouldn’t trade away Cody Glass, whom the Habs were insistent upon receiving. Instead, Vegas agreed to include Nick Suzuki in the deal. Amazing how things work out. Suzuki, with 331 points in Montreal, is one of the better young players in hockey. Glass, on his third NHL team, has 82 career points in parts of six seasons … Saturday night, Hockey Night in Canada, Leafs versus Habs. A game of actual meaning. This is what Saturday nights are supposed to be … Winning Super Bowls are wonderful notches on the belt, but don’t tell me it’s the only way to judge quarterbacks. Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen are already all-time greats without a championship season, just as Dan Marino, Fran Tarkenton and Warren Moon were before them. If they win championships in their careers, fantastic. Peyton Manning was pretty much done when he won his second Super Bowl, as was John Elway, when he won both of his in his final two seasons in Denver. Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls with the dynastic Pittsburgh Steelers, very possibly the best team in NFL history. Was he better than Marino? Not a chance … All you have to do is watch Jackson and Allen play to see quarterbacks doing things that have never been done by anyone before … Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is doing something he’s never done before. He is leading the NBA in scoring. The Oklahoma City Thunder has a 34-7 record at the halfway mark. Can you say MVP? … Wouldn’t it be great to have a Canadian athlete of prominence, working in America, speak out against the incoming president Donald Trump and his dangerous threats of tariffs and our sovereignty … The defending-champion Argos have their schedule out for next season, and it’s probably their best in years. Mostly weekend games. Mostly afternoon games. Nothing to complain about here … The behemoth that is the NFL donated all of $5 million to fighting the fires in Los Angeles. Which is rather embarrassing, isn’t it? Five million for a league that colossal is like you or me taking a loonie out of our pocket and donating it … Under the Department of Dumb: Scheduling a Buffalo Bills home playoff game at night in mid-January. The Bills-Ravens epic — and it could be that — should have been a 1 p.m. start … Happy birthday to Mark Messier (64), Alex Pietrangelo (35), Tee Higgins (26), Jeff Van Gundy (63), Max Fried (31), Ottis Anderson (68), Mike Komisarek (43), Gary Trent Jr. (26), Brett Lawrie (35), Ted DiBiase (71) and Cutter Gauthier (21) … And hey, whatever became of Akili Smith?

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