2023/24 Blue Jays Off Season Thread

[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

POS "person" upset he got released for being a POS "person"
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/m...eaks-1.6992717

I remember the social media crowd who gets behind anyone who is anti-trans loudly proclaiming that Bass would make the Blue Jays regret cancelling him. I guess that didn't happen since no other team picked him up and the Blue Jays had the best bullpen in baseball.

[KelVarnsen]

Has Atkins been fired yet?

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Has Atkins been fired yet?

They are waiting until Arizona wins the World Series

[bluejays]

Today’s Shapiro presser in 45 minutes will probably be to smooth over things. Truth be told, I know Shapiro is a politician, but I don’t get the sense he’s lying much (or telling half truths). He just doesn’t show up often unless it’s a positive message to be delivered. But I now don’t dislike him. This presser will be different because he has to talk about the terrible season they had. So I really wanna see how he handles it because he seems to only show up to pressers where he can deliver a good message.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Has Atkins been fired yet?

Nope, but Shapiro is atleast taking responsibility unlike that coward Atkins.

[KelVarnsen]

Sigh

[Inferno]

I'm already seeing fans say they won't be renewing season tickets. But actions speak louder than words.

[bluejays]

I missed the first 20 mins of the presser but looks like payroll will be more or less what it was this past season dependent on revenue (which I believe was down). Headline says Atkins confirmed to be back for 2024 so I guess the presser started off with that news. While I don’t like it, I’ve said before the positive from that is he knows the players and what needs to be addressed and there’s no better person to do it than someone familiar.

Also reading between the lines on the question posed to Shapiro about Bo and Guerrero heading into the last year of their contract, Shapiro worded it carefully to say he wants a long compete window and the team needs to find ways of increasing the compete window. It wasn’t about the players per se, between the lines. Could be a look at dealing Vlad. With the payroll being more or less what it is, and less prospects available to deal, somethings gotta give. Vlad could rein in assets so who knows. This offseason will be decided by smart trades it seems, and that worries me because Atkins hasn’t been the best at those.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Has Atkins been fired yet?

Gonna have to wait a while, unfortunately.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1712485403159126417

[KelVarnsen]

Looks like I will have a bunch of free time next year then.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

With the whole Berrios debacle, it seems like everybody (Shapiro, Atkins, Schneider) either isn't on the same page, or someone isn't telling the whole truth. Atkins before made it sound like he didn't know about Berrios eventually getting pulled for Kikuchi, but today Shapiro said he did know about the plan, just wasn't sure when it was going to happen.

These guys need to get on the same page, or at least all get their stories straight. Looks like the communication between everyone is lacking, which is just unacceptable. Figure it out boys, talk to each other and get it together. No wonder fans are losing interest in this team. They can't even communicate with each other properly.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by bluejays

Today’s Shapiro presser in 45 minutes will probably be to smooth over things. Truth be told, I know Shapiro is a politician, but I don’t get the sense he’s lying much (or telling half truths). He just doesn’t show up often unless it’s a positive message to be delivered. But I now don’t dislike him. This presser will be different because he has to talk about the terrible season they had. So I really wanna see how he handles it because he seems to only show up to pressers where he can deliver a good message.

They hyperbole around this team makes me laugh a little bit.

The Chicago White Sox had a terrible season. The New York Mets had a terrible season.

The Blue Jays had 89 wins (9th best record in the MLB) and made the playoffs. In no way is that a "terrible season".

Was it a frustrating season. 100%. Was it disappointing. Sure. But in no way was it terrible.

Atkins is being given all the blame for the bats this season (some of that deserving, some of that has to be on guys like Vlad and Springer too). But he's getting none of the credit for the improved pitching, bullpen, and defense which were elite.

[Skaloper]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

They hyperbole around this team makes me laugh a little bit.

The Chicago White Sox had a terrible season. The New York Mets had a terrible season.

The Blue Jays had 89 wins (9th best record in the MLB) and made the playoffs. In no way is that a "terrible season".

Was it a frustrating season. 100%. Was it disappointing. Sure. But in no way was it terrible.

Atkins is being given all the blame for the bats this season (some of that deserving, some of that has to be on guys like Vlad and Springer too). But he's getting none of the credit for the improved pitching, bullpen, and defense which were elite.

This exactly, your best players need to show up when given the chance in the playoffs. The top of the order other than Bo were ghosts and have been in recent playoffs. How do you change this I'm not sure but when up against good pitching we need difference makers. It's one thing to crush weaker pitching but come playoff time you get the best and need to be able to hit against the best. I feel we need to strike a balance between clutch hitters and solid defensive players.

[KelVarnsen]

Yes the players need to be better but management/coaching failed them.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

They hyperbole around this team makes me laugh a little bit.

The Chicago White Sox had a terrible season. The New York Mets had a terrible season.

The Blue Jays had 89 wins (9th best record in the MLB) and made the playoffs. In no way is that a "terrible season".

Was it a frustrating season. 100%. Was it disappointing. Sure. But in no way was it terrible.

Atkins is being given all the blame for the bats this season (some of that deserving, some of that has to be on guys like Vlad and Springer too). But he's getting none of the credit for the improved pitching, bullpen, and defense which were elite.

You’re definitely right and my bad on the hyperbole. I do think their year was inflated a bit with getting to the post season based on the other big players having bad years too. I really think they underperformed on the bat side and I think it was heavy. If the normal players in their division were better like they normally were you’d likely see the Jays in a worse position. So not only looking at wins and losses, this team on the batting side largely underperformed. I’m not sure there was even one bat that played to their potential and that’s bad.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

Gonna have to wait a while, unfortunately.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1712485403159126417

In 2022, early in the season it was clear that the team needed big time arms in the bullpen. Atkins didn’t address that. He brought in Pop, Bass, and White. Bass blew up in the playoffs and was a ####show this year. Pop hasn’t amount to much due largely to injuries and that he has options. White has been a disaster but is hopefully trending positively (assuming that he is added to the roster to keep him from Rule 5).

In 2023, early in the season it was clear that the team needed some power in the lineup to put somewhere in the middle of the order. Instead we got the great arm that we needed in 2022 and Paul DeJong.

His body of work is undeniable. He’s left gaping holes in the team and didn’t address them. If we had good bullpen arms in 2022 and a power bat in 2023, this team wouldn’t have scratched and clawed to make a wild card spot and end up at 0-4 in the playoffs.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

In 2022, early in the season it was clear that the team needed big time arms in the bullpen. Atkins didn’t address that. He brought in Pop, Bass, and White. Bass blew up in the playoffs and was a ####show this year. Pop hasn’t amount to much due largely to injuries and that he has options. White has been a disaster but is hopefully trending positively (assuming that he is added to the roster to keep him from Rule 5).

In 2023, early in the season it was clear that the team needed some power in the lineup to put somewhere in the middle of the order. Instead we got the great arm that we needed in 2022 and Paul DeJong.

His body of work is undeniable. He’s left gaping holes in the team and didn’t address them. If we had good bullpen arms in 2022 and a power bat in 2023, this team wouldn’t have scratched and clawed to make a wild card spot and end up at 0-4 in the playoffs.

Yeah. Shapiro’s comment of it being undeniable was dumb. It’s debatable. He’s had a nice talent for plucking out a few bounce back players and building up the pitching but his batting philosophy was off the mark and it’s loomed large. Also his trades with prospects seemed to be awfully generous. They just haven’t won any series and that’s definitely a concern. Post Bautista, early Vlad era, motivation seems to be an issue into September. This year being the worst. I really want to see some big names take the team on their shoulder. You can’t expect role players to be leaders. It’s going to be a very very hard offseason for Atkins to address all this with the resources at hand so it’ll be very interesting as a fan to see it play out.

[Roof-Daddy]

lol the Jays have been in the post season 3 of 4 seasons now, they were never going to fire Atkins because of the ridiculously small sample size that is the post season.

The team he built was good enough to win 89 games in the toughest division in baseball, despite Manoah, Vladdy and Kirk completely ####ting the bed in what should be prime years for them. 162 games is a massive sample size, a best of 3 wiild card series is not. If the players don't execute in those games it's on the players, not the GM. Or even sometimes you just have to tip your ca to the other team. All 100+ win teams look like they are gonna be done in round 1. It's a crap shoot.

Atkins also built one of the best and most durable rotations (despite Manoah), as well as an excellent bullpen with tons of depth, and all the big players are under control for at least one more season except for Hicks.

He was never getting fired haha

[Jason14h]

The toughest division in baseball won zero playoff games this year

[mrkajz44]

Agreed the overreaction is quite large here. The Jays are a good team:

wRc+: 8th
wOBA: 10th
ERA: 4th
FIP: 7th

Pick whatever stat you want, Jays were top 10 in both hitting and pitching this year. They were projected to win 88 games and they won 89. Better hitting teams and better pitching teams have also been bounced in the postseason already, usually without putting up much of a fight. That's just post-season baseball.

If you are that upset with the team after the season it was probably because you expectations were too high. Going into the year it was likely their path to the post-season was via wildcard and they did just that. They unfortunately didn't hit for power in the two post-season games so they got knocked out. There wasn't some major deficiency here - winning post season baseball is just as much luck as anything.