Shapiro Speaks!: Twenty twenty-f*%&

Screengrab via Sportsnet

The 2024 Toronto Blue Jays were projected to be a Wild Card contender. The team’s leadership expected better than that. Fans expected worse, and—for a variety of reasons—were all but proven correct. So, with the season now finally, mercifully in the rearview, on Wednesday it was time for those leaders to face the music.

No! Not, in the form of summary dismissal! Ho ho ho, just what kind of operation do you think they’re running here, pal?

They did so in the form of a twin pair of press conferences. Ritualistic media… availability. The quasi-traditional end-of-a-disappointing-season post-mortem.

Fun stuff, huh? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Shapiro was up first, and below is a transcript in full of what he said, interspersed with my own set of pithy comments and half-concocted thoughts. I suspect you all now the drill. It’s time for Shapiro Speaks!…

You can watch both pressers here via Sportsnet.

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Opening remarks

Good morning, thank you for joining me today. Obviously had way more time than I want, or would hope for, to reflect upon the season over the past few weeks. A lot of things we'd rather be doing today. I'm sure all of you, as well. Watching other teams play in the playoffs, competing. You know, watching those games yesterday, not an easy thing to do. But, really, over the past few weeks, combined with the losses, was the stark reality that the past four seasons we've played meaningful games all the way through September, and playing September baseball games without playoff implications is painful. It's tough, it's not where we want to be, not what we want for our fans—and certainly not enjoyable for us, either.

This past season was a bitter disappointment. Incredibly disappointing. And as the leader of the organization, the accountability, and the responsibility for that clearly rests with me, and lies with me. I get woken up each night, have trouble falling asleep, thinking about the fact that we're letting down fans, that we're not creating the opportunity for fans to build memories around October baseball. That parents and kids are not having more opportunity to celebrate the special aspects of what October baseball and playoff baseball can mean.

Our fans clearly deserve better. But the time now is to move forward. We need to learn from the setbacks this past year, from the challenges. We need to find a way to get better. That work has already begun. Over the next month we'll work to formulate a plan and articulate that more clearly as we move into the Winter Meetings and GM meetings to you and to our fans. I'm confident that next year will be a much better year.

Seeing his words written out like this, it feels a bit like an apology letter you'd write from detention. Complete with manipulative flourishes—the lack of sleep thing really humanizes the plight of the handsomely paid Major League Baseball executive, doesn’t it?—and empty promises. (Like hell they’re ever going to articulate their plan to us.) But it’s not like he’s failed the assignment. It’s fine enough.

And yeah, October baseball is special. I've said many times how amazing it was in 2015, to be in the line for coffee and everyone's talking about the game, or to get into a cab and not even have to ask the guy to put the game on. The buzz in the city in those years was incredible, and we deserve more of it. But it feels a long way from there now.

Is it, though?

I mean, the Royals and Tigers are both a win away from getting to play for a chance to go to the ALCS. The bar is not especially high these days. And while obviously the Jays should be sailing over that bar, they've been closer over the last four years than a lot of fans would care to admit.

That, I think, is where the major disconnect between front office and fans lies. It’s why I’m pointing it out straight from the jump. Shapiro is going to point a lot to the successes his club has had since their upward trajectory began with the signing of Hyun Jin Ryu ahead of 2020, and a lot of fans are going to wonder what on earth he’s talking about. Both ways of looking at it are valid, but I do think it’s worth remembering that not a lot would have had to break differently for things to have felt a whole lot different here.

Yes, this year was clearly a bad one, especially since nobody thought they did enough last winter to avoid that—even as someone who can be maybe overly understanding of the difficulty of the job these guys have, I wrote when Justin Turner signed back in late January that it was “either a good start or a terrible finish to their offseason work” (guess which it turned out to be!)—but the big one for me with respect to this disconnect was 2023.

That team, with better mid-season RISP luck, or with a better year from Springer, or Kirk, or Varsho, or with the Orioles not playing over their heads—with, like, even just one of those things—would have felt so, so, so different. And I think that feeling would have carried on into this year more—the way the negative feelings about that group ultimately have.

It should have worked better than it did. They could have used a little more offence, yes. But the process was pretty good. People forget, they had elite pitching and defence. That's not easy to do. But because it felt so bad—so much worse than it was or should have been—and because this year is bad, you get people—cheered on by the biggest hacks in the media and the unthinking mob like always—acting as though it's been nine years of nothing.

The results have been lacking, but the process has been better than people give credit for. I get it, you’re not paying to watch process. The farm system is not in great shape either, frankly. But there's a bunch of talent here, a bunch of payroll available here, and I don't think it's so hard to believe in the people driving the process if you're willing to be at least a little bit fair about it. That's a lot to ask sports fans, I know. But I'm not sure the change-for-the-sake-of-change—or change-for-the-sake-of-results-minus-context—crowd has it entirely right either.

A massive overhaul could work, and maybe it would be better to get that underway now rather than waiting another year. But it won’t necessarily work—hey, the last one didn’t!—and letting the current crew have another teachable moment won’t necessarily fail, either.

Can you feel the excitement?

How do you evaluate the front office and what they could have done better to avoid this?

I think the evaluation is always looking at the year, for sure, and then looking at the years prior as well. Some of what happened this year was injuries. Injuries are tough to forecast and tough to overcome. Usually, if you don't overcome them it's two things: One, it's lack of having quality depth and quality alternatives. In some cases it's almost impossible to overcome, if it's to a player you expect to contribute in an extremely meaningful way. You know, to be a core part of what contributes. But I think that's probably the key thing, is that we need to have better depth. It wasn't just injuries, and clearly we need to be more thoughtful about the way we're producing runs, and our bullpen in particular this past year.

Pretty tough to put it down to injuries, my man, when Bo Bichette was fourth on the team in plate appearances in the first half—especially when you're talking to fans who didn't think you had enough talent to make a real go of it from the jump. The offence was bad with Bo in it. Bo wasn’t even on the injured list yet when Kevin Kiermaier was placed on waivers, essentially waving the white flag on the year. And yeah, Jordan Romano made only 15 appearances this season, but the bullpen wasn't exactly wrecked by injuries either. Mayza and Swanson simply fell apart, and there wasn't nearly enough talent behind those three to make it work.

There were other injuries, sure—Manoah, Ricky Tiedemann could have helped, Chad Green missed time early, etc.—and I know executives are going to try their best to avoid full-on blaming the roster they constructed. But I don’t know about this one.

Will there be front office changes?

Well, I mean, my responsibility is not the entire front office. Obviously that Ross is my main concern. There won't be a change with Ross. The reason for that is—the process that I went through to consider whether or not there would be a change with his role was one of both considering alternatives and looking at the work that's been done.

Not going to avoid that this year was a disappointment. This year was a significant setback. It's not work that we're proud of—not work that he's proud of, not work that I'm proud of. Ross needs to be better, I need to be better. Our entire baseball operations need to be better.

But I also think about the fact that we played in the playoffs three of the past five years, that four of the past five we played meaningful games through September, that each of the past four we left spring training objectively with a chance to be a contending team, and playoff team. And to me, that's not grounds to make a change. If I felt there was a better alternative to run our baseball operations, I'd make that change.

To paraphrase Al Davis, just win 54%, baby!

Why are coaches being let go or reassigned each year while the front office is held to a different standard?

Actually, I think we're among the most stable organizations, if you read that comment in context with the other moves that organizations are making. Even some that are playing in the postseason, Gregor, I would imagine our player development changes are among the smallest in all of baseball. So, I think you need to ask that with a little more context. We're working to get better. We're working to address the challenges we've had. We've had almost no changes on our major league coaching staff over the past five years. And that decision was made by Ross, I support the decision, and it's one he'll comment more on when he meets with you today.

Shapiro tries to elide this one, but it’s a very good question. He’s just said that if he felt there was a better alternative to run baseball operations he’d make that change, but that standard doesn’t appear to apply to the hitting coach. It certainly didn’t when it came to Dave Hudgens, who was let go last year.

“At the end of the season, (Schneider) called me and told me he was going to let (Hudgens) go,” explained Don Mattingly when speaking with Mike Wilner of the Star way back in November. “I was a little surprised by that. I thought Hudgy, to me, does a great job at what he does. But they wanted to change that voice a little bit and so he asked for different guys to talk to and different names (to consider for the job), things like that.”

Clearly there wasn’t a better alternative in mind, they just “wanted to change that voice a little bit.”

I understand the jobs are different, and I’m not saying that this means Ross should definitely be fired or anything, but chiding Gregor for asking this very much does not work for me.

Also: If you’re one of the most stable organizations in the game, and yet you’re in the position you’re in, could all that stability not be part of the problem? Since you clearly believe you need changes on the development side and on the coaching side, why is it being presented as a positive that those will be—or have been—among the smallest in baseball?

You are making those changes this year though. Why that and not looking more at the front office itself?

Yeah, each year we go through a process of reflecting. Again, I'm not evaluating the player development system and the major league coaching staff. That's not directly my responsibility. I know those changes were made with an effort to improve areas we felt we need to get better. On the player development side, specifically our pitching development—and our pitching acquisition at the amateur level. And on the major league coaching staff. Obviously the changes directly correlate with the two biggest challenges we had on the team this year. So, I don't view those to be out of the ordinary for any year, and I think again those questions would be better answered by Ross.

He makes an important point here by mentioning the drafting aspect of pitching development, which has also had more than its fair share of whiffs. Not sure that's selling what he wants to be selling here, but he’s not wrong that not enough has been coming out of the draft or the development pipeline.

What specifically are you not proud of and what do you want to see change going forward?

Win. You know, I mean, Ben, it's not like a mystery. We objectively thought we had a team that was good enough to win the American League East and play in the postseason. I can't think of a bigger disconnect from expectations in the time that I've been here. The expectations going into this season—which are not just anecdotal and gut-based expectations, they're based on some real information and real track records of players. To have that underperform so resoundingly, collectively as a group, is extremely tough to accept and to swallow.

OK, so there's no fucking way they thought this team was really going to be able to win the AL East this year, right? They projected to like 85 wins or thereabouts. So this is spin in service of last spring's spin, which... I know that's the job, but it's still kind of annoying.

In a similar vein, while I completely get why Shapiro wouldn't want to bring up 2017 here, I know that I, personally, have a pretty easy time thinking of years when there have been as big or bigger disconnects between expectations and results. Which happens! That's just a fact of baseball. It's just... these guys know there are error bars on every projection. They absolutely understood this was possible. Fans do too, which is why it feels to them as though its imperative to have a team that doesn't just project to be on the fringes of contending if you're serious about winning. That’s where they feel let down by this season and this front office, when you get right down to it. (Well, the fans worth taking seriously at least.)

Sometimes there's only so much you can do about that, of course. I don't know that there was a path for this roster, post-Ohtani. to project much better than it did, given what they had to work with and what was out there on the market. But the job is to find that path. (Harder, I know, given the lack of development internally, but that’s not much of an excuse when you’re in charge of that too.)

Are you proud of the process? Or is it just the results you have an issue with?

Well, the process is what contributes to the result, so it's got to get better. It's got to change, and we've got to learn from it.

Speaking of disconnects, and of process, as I said above, I do think that the process in 2023 was a lot better than most fans believe—meaning just roster-building, not the development stuff—and that the difficulty fans are having with there being no change at the top really lies there. Especially since Shapiro and Atkins said similar things about needing to learn and grow a year ago—wary, I suspect, of appearing too easy on themselves after the frustrations of that season.

Ultimately I think that means that we’re often really talking about a disconnect between what the front office says and what they really believe. I see that a lot from fans who act like Shapiro’s haughty talk about building a championship pipeline as though that was a promise that’s been broken and not just… what you say when you’re selling yourself to a doubting public. That's natural in their business, but I don't think it helps consumer confidence to obfuscate the difference the way that they do—both in terms of tone and of content. Not just because people hate that the people in charge of their leisure activity sound so much like their bosses, but because you have to actually give people something if you want them to not be so cognizant of how you always seem to be moving the goalposts.

(Acting like it’s somehow a gotcha that they haven’t been able to create the best minor league pipeline in the sport, as though it should have been easy, is pretty stupid though.)

How do you fix the offence and does the need to speak to mistakes in approach over the past couple years?

Yeah, I think it warrants some real reflection on the way we're putting the team together, and combining talent. Again, that's not my direct responsibility and I think Ross can probably comment more specifically on that. But throughout my conversations, and certainly I'm watching the same games as he is and you are, and it's just as frustrating for me, knowing the amount of talent we have, and thinking we should be scoring more. So we've got to take a long look at that. That's a process of doing a few things: One, evaluating this year. Two, evaluating our alternatives internally and our alternatives externally—and that's part of the process of putting an offseason plan together. But certainly learning from the past few seasons, and some of our offensive disappointment, is one of the things we're seeking to do now. That work's already underway.

I genuinely do think that these guys were right about the RISP thing getting better last year, though that still didn't produce the level of offence anybody would have liked. Internal improvements last winter? There was logic to it, especially in the face of a thin market. But going after Kiermaier, IKF, Justin Turner? It just spoke to a belief in guys like Springer, Kirk, and Varsho to a level that always seemed unfounded and simply cannot happen again.

Those guys have a place on this roster, for sure. Kirk and Varsho, in particular, are elite defensive players (or at least Kirk will be for as long as the robot umpires are kept at bay). But complementing this group with guys that don't hit the ball out of the ballpark a second time would be malpractice. I'd be taking up a pitchfork and a torch myself alongside everybody else if that's how this winter went.

But I really don't think this front office is under any illusions about any of this. People have convinced themselves that these guys are stupid and therefore likely to screw it all up again, but I see no evidence to suggest that’s reality.

Do you still view Vlad as the cornerstone of this franchise and how do you go about continuing to have him be that?

Yeah, I think Vladdy is a guy—we certainly appreciate both the performance, what he brings to this team. What he brings in the clubhouse as well, his energy and his positivity. Certainly our core offensive player, without a doubt. Looking forward to him being a big part of us turning around the offence next year, and being a better team—a championship calibre team—next year. No short of gratitude and appreciation for that.

OK, a little lukewarm there. But I can fully understand not giving any sort of fodder to Vlad's representatives, considering how absolutely crucial it will be to get him extended this winter. Hard to low-ball a guy if you're too effusive in your praise for him, right?

How can change happen without adding people with different perspectives?

Yeah, I think it isn't necessarily not valuing different perspectives. We're going to certainly get those, whether it's potentially adding people to the front office, whether it's elevating and asking other people to give opinions who may not have voiced their opinions in the past. But I think it's not necessarily just who the people are, Shi, and how they contribute and how their information is—and then the process that we go through, putting the information together, to make a decision. So, I think the framework we use to make decisions, how we weight information—both internally and externally—all those things, we can learn from the way we've done that in the past.

Not the clearest answer here, necessarily, but I really don't think this is an organization that's appeared especially rigid. Maybe I'm wrong there—maybe the stability stuff in terms of staff suggests that I am—but from Tony LaCava staying on way back in 2015, to Ben Cherington coming over after years in Boston, or James Click from Tampa via Houston, I think there are different perspectives that have come through. Obviously you're not going to hire someone without some kind of alignment, who you're going to disagree with all the time, which I would think is what Shi was getting at. And it's a fair question. But I'm not sure that's the issue. I mean, a whole lot of how we got here is that two years ago they chose to move toward pitching, defence, and red-assery, right? They’re hardly unbending.

So then how does meaningful change happen? What's the process?

That's a good question. It starts with—we've got to be open-minded. I really do believe the group of people we have down there are not entrenched in their beliefs. We are reconsidering everything, we're being thoughtful about where the shortcomings have been. There has been a lot of success here over the past five years. It doesn't feel like that in this moment, because it was so tough to watch what we watched both this year and certainly in the last few weeks as it got even worse. But those same people built a very good baseball team over the past four years prior to this.

So, we need to be open-minded, we need to completely reconsider the things we're doing, and I think that aspect of our organization is in place. There's no one here that thinks the have it all figured out, there's no one here that's not open-minded enough to reconsider the way we go about building a team and putting a team together. That starts with Ross. He models that open-mindedness, and it really is pervasive throughout the organization. So I don't have any worry about that.

Fans certainly do worry about that, but I think this is a pretty reasonable answer. Like I say, there's certainly evidence of this front office changing gears—and doing so thoughtfully, and in a way that mostly worked, even if it should have certainly worked better.

I also think that something that gets overlooked in some of the criticism these guys receive is the fact that even when you know full well what your shortcomings are it's not always possible to do everything you want to about them. 

Do you believe that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a generational player? And he's said that his door is open for contract extension talks, do you plan on walking through the door?

I don't know, generational player? Like, what's your definition of that? He's one of the better offensive players in the game today, and certainly has the opportunity to be a generational player because of how young he is. But to make that decree is not—he has the opportunity to be a generational player. It's tough. You know, when you go to the Hall of Fame, what separates those players on those plaques is that they played the bulk. They stayed healthy and they just contributed for 15 years, 18 years. You think about Pete Rose and him passing away—200 hits, how hard that is to do. Vladdy knows how hard that is to do. That guy did it 22 times. I mean, that's beyond belief, right? So, he's a great talent and emerging into a great player, and certainly has a chance to be that type of player.

As far as contractually, and what happens here. Listen, we believe in the same thing, and we're going to stick with that—that we don't talk about ongoing or active conversations or negotiations. It just doesn't serve any positive purpose. Doesn't mean we appreciate him any less. Hopefully we'll have—be able to talk about that and clarify that in the year to follow. But we're just not going to comment on that while we're talking.

I don't want to pretend this is any different or more meaningful than anything else that's been said on this subject over the years, except... I actually do want to pretend that. I'm squinting at the tea leaves pretty hard here, but “while we're talking” seems to suggest they're talking. Which obviously they ought to be! But hopefully they'll “have-- be able to talk about and clarify that” sooner than just within the year to follow. *COUGH*

This is the second straight year you've said Ross needs to be better, his eighth and ninth seasons in charge. How many times are you going to be able to say that?

Well, I'm never not going to say “We need to be better.” You know? I think if you ever think you're done getting better it's time to leave the job. We, collectively, I wake up every day thinking about how to learn, grow, and develop, and get better. I don't have it all figured out. I think anybody in any job that thinks they've got it perfected and are done learning and are done growing, they have to reconsider that. You have to be open-minded, you have to be humble, and recognize you have to get better. Again, I would say that we've been good. This year was a bitter disappointment, this year was not good, but four of the past five the work's been good. Still needs to be better, but the work's been good.

I mean, I think plenty of fans would be OK with these guys leaving the job. HEYO! Which, whatever you think about the work Shapiro has done on the baseball side, would be a shame in the very narrow sense that we'd no longer get to see him turn a question on its head like he did here. Sliding straight into “get better every day” stuff is such a deft manoeuvre that you barely notice how funny and alien the idea of someone getting up everyday and immediately thinking “How do I learn, grow, develop, and get better?” is.

Now that Rogers has bought Bell out of MLSE, do you think you'd be the leading contender to run that entire operation?

Not something I've given any thought or time to. That's the first time I've actually thought about it, is you asking that question. Obviously I've got my hands full running the organization here, Cathal. I'm excited for—knowing the commitment and the support that we've received here, and you've seen the investment that we've received here, from Rogers—I'm excited for what it will mean for sports fans in Toronto on every level. But beyond that I'm just focussed on the Jays.

Shapiro chuckled through the start of his answer here, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was maybe less because of the question and more because that was the direction Cathal went, instead of unloading some inane negativity on him. Because there's no way he's actually never thought of this. It was literally my first thought. 

How much does the fans' bond with Vlad factor into how you approach the situation re: his contract soon expiring?

Respect that completely. I love to see the fans appreciate the players. They tend to do that more when you win. You know, the players in place—there's appreciation for them. You can see that in all different levels of types of players, that there's a special bond that fans develop with special teams. But we never overlook any individual player, and certainly Vladdy's one of those, and that appreciation, that's always a factor in the decisions we're making.

Hmm. Lukewarm again here, huh? I'd very much like to believe this is about negotiating, and that Shapiro simply doesn't want to overstate the importance of a guy who is about to be—or currently is—trying to squeeze the organization for every dollar possible. A bit of a high wire act, though, isn't it? Or maybe he really doesn't think it has to be Vlad necessarily. I have a hard time with that, because I think it would be very difficult to win in this situation without him. But I can't say he's absolutely not paving the way for an exit, I suppose. They did just fire his hitting coach after all.

Can you comment on the unconfirmed changes to your big league coaching staff?

Just to confirm that we made some changes and that Ross will detail those in just a half hour.

Ross indeed did do that, which you'll read about in my Atkins Speaks piece, which will follow this one (once I've, you know, transcribed everything and written it—i.e. probably not until Thursday).

How do you feel about the risk of Vlad and Bo leaving for nothing but draft picks should you not deal them or extend them within the next year?

That's a reality when you're thinking beyond next year. That's probably one of our biggest overarching challenges, is losing two players of that level of talent and capability and upside at this point in their careers. So that will be among out biggest challenges after next year. But, again, you know, we've talked before, those aren't things we're just thinking of—(or that) we'll wait until the end of next year to think about. We'll continue to try to address that as we're also building next year's team.

Yes, please do!

Has there been any change to your contractual situation?

That's not something that, A) I'm thinking about, or, B) would I comment on. It's not my place to comment on that.

I mean, I kind of think it is exactly your place to comment on your own contract, should you want to. But whatever.

We'll just go with the full exchange for this next one...

The Rosie Bit…

QUESTION: “Rosie Dimanno, Toronto Star. You'll understand why I can't identify the player, but one of your players told me recently that this place, this club, is ‘A fucking shitshow.’ Excuse the language.”

SHAPIRO: “It's what I would expect from you, Rosie.”

QUESTION: “You're such a charmer. What would your response be to something like that, when that is coming from somebody in your own clubhouse?”

SHAPIRO: “I was actually really proud of our clubhouse all year long. Both player, and coaching staff. You know, I think that in situations like we had this year those cracks tend to get revealed, and I thought our clubhouse remained—for anybody that was here frequently enough to actually observe or be around the team—our clubhouse remained unified, remained positive, solution-focussed. Listen, no one ever enjoys or is celebrating disappointing years and tough seasons—this year was painful for all of us, the players included—but the environment was incredibly constructive and positive in light of the challenges.”

LMAOOOOOOO. I'm not sure what I prefer here, “It's what I'd expect from you, Rosie,” the clear dig at the fact that she's not around the clubhouse enough to really knows what goes on in there, or the fact that she doesn't recognize that she's an even less sympathetic character than the guy she's going after. Acting like a beacon of journalistic integrity when protecting the identity of baseball player but not when infiltrating a homeless encampment really says it all, doesn't it? Terrible person. Terrible attempt at a “gotcha” question. Zero stars.

(Also, I'm sure you can find discontentment in any MLB clubhouse, just as you would in any workplace. You could probably figure out where to start digging for dirt fairly easily, too. With this team I'd probably start with anyone who seemed particularly close with Anthony Bass, personally. You know, if I had some sort of bizarre agenda about that sort of thing.

But hey, teams obviously work hard to make sure to keep a lid on any fissures within the room, so it's hardly impossible there's something to this. If someone credible was reporting it I'd certainly be willing to listen.)

How do you sell free agents and Vlad or Bo on the long-term vision of the organization when your contract status is unclear and you're reportedly not on a long-term deal?

Yeah, it's interesting. I've been asked that question in the past, Gregor. I guess I feel so strongly about this city, the opportunity to play for this organization, this team, the infrastructure that's been provided for our players both in Dunedin and here, that it's easy for me to talk about how great it is to play here. I've never really had a player ask, even, in a negotiation, 'What's your situation?' They tend to look at all the other variables that exist in place. I think what we need to be sure we can explain is more focussed on what the plan is to be a championship calibre team next year, not necessarily mine or anybody else's contractual situation.

I believe him if he's just talking about executives here, but I do tend to think that Vlad's contract situation matters. I do think Bo's does, too. I mean, we know from the José Berríos extension, which includes an opt-out after 2026 that is partly in place because he wanted to ensure he wouldn't be stuck on a rebuilding team. (Or that's how the story goes, at least.)

What's your expectation for payroll for 2025?

That is not complete yet. You know, again, this is an early time to ask that question. A more appropriate time for us to have the answer is probably the next time we get together, around the Winter Meetings, or the GM Meetings. But we never announce exactly what the payroll is. I did say to you mid-season, and I still feel pretty strongly, that—what we'll go through is working through a team, working through alternatives and a plan, then I will sit down with ownership and kind of walk through what the parameters are. It's not going to limit anybody Ross pursues in the offseason—anybody. So there's always some flexibility within that number. I don't see it dramatically different next year. I know that's not a precise number—not that I would ever give you one anyway—but I don't see it either growing or decreasing in a big way. 

Italics mine. But, let’s be real here: italics Juan Soto’s.

Do you have an evaluation of the job John Schneider did this year?

Yeah, I thought Schneids had a good year from a standpoint of kind of what I said earlier: we stayed solution-focussed in the light of a lot of headwinds and a lot of challenges and ongoing setbacks and injuries. He was just focussed on how to lead his staff to find a way to get better. That is not always easy to do. It's easy to feel sorry for yourself, it's easy to point fingers and place blame. That's usually what does happen when things are really disappointing and adversity hits in a big way, and that never happened on his staff. So, he's the leader of that staff, and that's a credit to him. I think he keeps getting better, and will continue to get better.

Sure.

How much has your lack of depth, and the farm system's role in that, contributed to what happened this year?

Yeah, I think that was a big part of this year, particularly on the pitching side in the bullpen. We didn't have the depth that we needed, or it didn't respond the way we needed. I think we've spent a lot of time—I've had some conversations with Ben a little bit about it from an article he wrote earlier—looking very objectively. And, obviously, when you pick later, when you win—I know we're not talking about winning, but we did win four of the last five years, so we did pick later in the draft.

We picked 20th last year. When you lose picks for free agents, and when you trade young players, it takes a hit.

We need to continue to be better as an organization in identifying and acquiring talent, but we did a pretty good job in light of that context and those situations. We also took advantage of, given the misfortune of this year, to add 13 players to our system, which dramatically improved our system.

So both the steps that guys like Roden and Kasevich took this year, along with the 13 players we added—and a good draft—I think this system is in a lot better place now than it was a year ago today.

Not something we can take our foot of the gas on. We need to continue to pursue a better system with a sense of urgency. But in light of the context, the expected outcomes of where we're picking and acquiring players, it hasn't been disastrous. But this year was a gap for us, particularly on the pitching side. Not on the position player side as much, but particularly on the pitching side.

One of the good stories this year for me was getting a chance to see some of those players in September, and longer for guys like Spencer Horwitz, and seeing in Leo Jiménez and Spencer, at least two guys that can contribute meaningfully next year. And others that certainly demonstrate the upside and tools to be a part of a championship team.

I'll be a little more glib about this than I probably should be here, because this is the last question and I'm ready to move on to the Atkins stuff, but: 1) The Dodgers and the Yankees pick late every year, sign top free agents, and move young players in trades, yet they nevertheless seem to always move from strength to strength in their system. That's setting the bar high, of course. But I don't think this organization should settle for less, and I certainly don't think the people who put in Rogers' portion of the money it cost to build out the Player Development Complex in Dunedin would think so either. 2) While I think most of what he's saying his is very reasonable, the most concise explanation of his argument here for me was when he said “it hasn't been disastrous.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement when you strip away all the “context” and good stories, is it?

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