Blue Jays Rumors

11:00am: Atkins revealed during his own media availability that bench coach and offensive coordinator Don Mattingly will no longer oversee the team’s offense; he’ll fill a “more traditional” bench coach role. Between the change in Mattingly’s role and the reported firing of hitting coach Guillermo Martinez — which Atkins confirmed — the team will conduct an external search to bring in new voice to oversee the team’s offense.

10:15am: Blue Jays team president Mark Shapiro is currently meeting with the media on the heels of a season he described as a “bitter disappointment” and announced that Ross Atkins will return as the team’s general manager for the 2025 season. “There won’t be a change with Ross,” said Shapiro. (Readers can watch the live press conference via Sportsnet.) The 2024 season was Atkins’ ninth season as Toronto’s general manager after spending 14 seasons as an integral part of Cleveland’s player development department. He signed a five-year contract extension covering the 2022-26 seasons back in April of 2021.

This past season was indeed a disaster for the Jays, who finished out the season at 74-88 — last place in the American League East. The Blue Jays made a spirited run at Shohei Ohtani in free agency last offseason but added primarily complementary pieces after he signed a ten-year deal with the Dodgers. The Toronto front office inked Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Yariel Rodriguez to multi-year contracts, also adding veterans Justin Turner and Kevin Kiermaier on one-year deals (Kiermaier’s second one-year pact with the Jays).

Depth proved to be an Achilles heel for the Jays as injuries mounted. Bo Bichette endured multiple IL stints and was limited to half a season’s worth of uncharacteristically feeble production at the plate. Alek Manoah underwent UCL surgery. Closer Jordan Romano pitched just 13 2/3 rough innings before undergoing arthroscopic elbow surgery. Top prospects Orelvis Martinez (PED suspension) and Ricky Tiedemann (Tommy John surgery) had lost seasons. Meanwhile, key veterans like Kiermaier, George Springer, Danny Jansen, Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza and others turned in performances that were not commensurate with their prior standards. The Jays turned to a host of in-house stopgaps but, particularly in the bullpen, were unable to piece together a serviceable performance.

The end result saw Jansen, Kiner-Falefa, Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi Garcia and Nate Pearson all traded away in deadline swaps for younger talent. The Jays were universally praised for a strong return on Kikuchi, an impending free agent. However, that’s at best a silver lining when considering the team entered the 2024 campaign looking to build on last year’s Wild Card berth into the playoffs and was viewed as a legitimate contender in a deep AL East division.

Heading into the 2025 season, it’ll be incumbent upon Shapiro and Atkins to engineer an immediate turnaround, lest the calls for changes in leadership grow even louder. Asked about the club’s payroll outlook for the ’25 campaign, Shapiro demurred, calling it “early” to ask such a question and suggesting that next month’s GM Meetings or even December’s Winter Meetings would be a time at which he could offer a clearer answer. For now, the club’s president merely suggested he didn’t anticipate player payroll rising or decreasing in a significant manner.

If that’s indeed the case, Atkins will have his work cut out for him. The Jays entered the 2024 season with a club-record $225MM Opening Day payroll. RosterResource currently pegs them for just shy of $125MM in 2025 commitments, not including an arbitration class projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to cost more than $61MM in total. Add in a slate of league-minimum players to round out the roster, and the Jays are at just over $194MM. There are some likely non-tenders in this offseason’s class of arbitration-eligible players, but the group is headlined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his projected $29.6MM salary, with notable paydays projected for Romano ($7.75MM), Daulton Varsho ($7.7MM) and Alejandro Kirk ($4.1MM) as well.

Asked multiple times about Guerrero’s future, Shapiro generally sidestepped the question. The slugger is entering his final season of club control before potentially becoming one of the most coveted free agents in recent memory. Manager John Schneider recently touted Guerrero as a generational talent. Asked today whether he agreed with that assessment, Shapiro questioned the definition of what constitutes a generational player and suggested that it’s tough to say right now, noting that Guerrero has the “potential” to become such a player but implying that such a label can’t be placed on him this early in his career.

Atkins spoke more directly on the matter of Guerrero’s future, suggesting that ownership will provide the support to make long-term commitments to both Guerrero and Bichette. That doesn’t guarantee an extension for either player will happen, of course, and Atkins noted that it’s “difficult” to construct a contract of such magnitude for even one player — let alone two players. Still, he voiced confidence that the Jays can support long-term deals for both and still have the resources needed to build a competitive roster around what would presumably be a pair of substantial contracts.

With regard to the forthcoming offseason, Atkins spoke generally about the need to be “more aggressive” with external additions to the roster than the Blue Jays were this past offseason, specifically in the bullpen. He also called adding a power bat “low-hanging fruit” but also noted that it’s not as simple as adding a pure slugger, citing a need to look at contact ability, on-base skills, and strengths against specific pitch types.

Asked whether the aforementioned Rodriguez and Bowden Francis have pitched well enough to solidify their spots in the rotation next season, Atkins praised both pitchers for the job they did in the season’s second half. The Jays will be in the market for both depth and “impact” starting pitching, per Atkins, but with Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Rodriguez and Francis all in the fold, the GM said he feels fortunate to not feel a dire need to be in the market for a top free-agent starter.

The manner in which the Jays will pursue upgrades was left fairly open-ended. Both Atkins and Shapiro spoke favorably of the 13 young players Toronto acquired at this season’s trade deadline. Atkins acknowledged that while many of those players are viewed as potential near-term contributors, that influx of talent into the system also opens the door for potential trades involving some of those same prospects. The Blue Jays will explore both the free agent and trade markets as they look to revamp the roster, but it’s clear from both men’s comments today that the club does not plan to take any kind of step back and will endeavor to put a playoff contender on the field next year. That much has been reported at various points since the deadline, but today’s on-record commitment to such an approach from the team’s top two decision-makers is nevertheless notable.