Watching this autumn’s quality playoff baseball provided a moment of clarity for me yesterday: the Blue Jays are not remotely playing at this level. They have Guerrero, and maybe Bowden Francis as of late – that’s about it. Their bullpen is almost non-existent (they blew about 25 late-inning leads this year), and their bats are inconsistent at best. The lineup is now mostly triple-A players, almost completely unrecognizable from two years ago.
I love the game of baseball, but what’s happening in Toronto isn’t baseball – it’s a business. Ever since Alex Anthopoulos was forced out of the organization at the end of the 2015 season, the Toronto Blue Jays have morphed into a corporate entity under Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. It is painfully obvious that these American businessmen in the front office have zero desire to create a winning team in Toronto, because the current status quo is profitable enough. There’s little to distinguish them from the Maple Leafs now in this respect.
The moment when it all clicked for me? Of all people, Manny Machado took on the leadership role in the Padres’ dugout last night to keep his team’s heads in the game as Dodger fans were throwing things onto the field. It was truly a beautiful moment of camaraderie. But it also carried an element of symbolism, that even a notoriously dirty player like him is redeemable if there is upper management that is willing to produce a winning team. And it was accompanied by a sinking feeling that it was the kind of scene a major Toronto sports franchise may never witness again. If the current office mentality continues unabated, 2016 will be the last time the Blue Jays ever make a serious run for the AL pennant.
The biggest highlight of the Blue Jays’ 2024 season was the renovations on their ballpark, the costs of which are largely being downloaded onto season ticket holders. The price tag for some seats has risen to over $100K now, which is absolutely bananas. Decent seats have become unaffordable for most, and the tabs will mostly be picked up by corporations. Just like the Leafs and Raptors, most loyal fans will be either in the 500 level or stuck at home watching the games on TV where they will soon see a lot of empty seats on that screen, because worker bees who are offered free tickets by their bosses by and large do not want to go see a perpetually losing team. The “ride or die” types have been priced out.
Let’s not forget that in 2022, it was upper management that pulled Ryan Gausman during the second wild card game, not manager John Schneider, which is what led to the spectacular collapse of the Jays’ season in a span of three innings. The same thing happened a year later with Jose Berrios, after which play-by-play man Dan Shulman openly stated that pitchers walked into Schneider’s office saying how they knew it wasn’t his decision.
Can we go so far to declare that Shatkins' mandate seems to be ensuring Canada never produces a winning baseball team again? All the signs seem to point in that direction.
One thing's clear – in the last decade, Toronto has become little more than a soulless playground for the rich, and the current state of the Blue Jays is a perfect example to illustrate this.
