Some fairly safe big picture predictions for the Blue Jays' offseason

Prediction season is nearly upon us, so it's time for some predictions!

The Blue Jays’ season is quickly coming to a close, which of course means that an incredibly important offseason with some very big questions to answer is fast-approaching. Will there be a change at the top? What about the manager or the coaching staff? Will Vlad sign an extension? What will they do with Bo? How will they remake the roster?

We’ll be starting to get answers to some of those questions quite soon. There will be no hastily arranged post-mortem press conference after another playoff washout this year. They’ll finish up against the Marlins around five o’clock next Sunday. Players and coaches will clean out their lockers and go their separate ways, front office staff will buckle down in the background, and the top brass will prepare for their media obligations in the following week or two. Obligations that will, undoubtedly, include questions on the fate of Ross Atkins and John Schneider—and may even provide us with answers right then.

In other words, if anybody’s going to try to predict what happens on those fronts—and, as you could possibly guess, I am—they’re running out of time to do so.

I think you see where I’m going with this.

Prediction season is upon us! And while it’s never been my thing to predict specific trades or signings, which requires far too much effort only to produce a bunch of guesses that are wrong, I certainly don’t mind taking a crack at some bigger picture ones—which take far less effort to get wrong.

So let’s dive in, shall we?

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Prediction One: Ross Atkins stays on as GM

This one might have been more difficult to call earlier on in the season, but at this point it sort of feels like an inevitability that Atkins will return, doesn’t it? I mean, obviously any of this could be way off. But the trade deadline was a win for him, other than the bullpen’s performance the last two months have been better, he’s been given a strong vote of confidence¹ by Chris Bassitt, and it seems like the whole organization is basically on the same page.

I mean, obviously not everything is quite that peachy. For example, Erik Treuden reported earlier this month that the club has let go of pitching coordinator² Corey Popham. D.M. Fox noted in his latest Future Blue Jays newsletter that several others on the pitching development side have also not had their contracts renewed. And Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling tweets that this is “part of a larger, ongoing restructuring within the club’s player development system.” There are going to be changes.

But, as far as Atkins’ status goes, the fact that such moves are being made already suggests he’s part of that process, and that would say to me that he’s probably going to continue to be.

It can’t just be about the last two months, of course. But if a larger body of work needs to be considered, I think Atkins ends up looking better than a lot of fans think. Especially in the eyes of Mark Shaprio, who is the only one who actually matters here. Yes, this season has been a setback, the whole house of cards may fall in on itself if they can’t get Vlad re-signed, and obviously there are player development issues they’re already trying to address. But at its core the GM’s job is to build a roster each year that puts the team in a position to win a championship, and as much as a lot of fans want to pretend this isn’t true, his track record of doing just that is pretty good. They projected well this season, the 2023 team would have looked and felt a lot better if not for their brutal RISP luck³, and in 2021 and 2022 they were poised to be very dangerous October teams before dumb fate stepped in.

To make a change that big at this stage? A new president might, but I don’t think Shapiro will. (And that’s fine.)

Prediction Two: Vlad will get his extension, but we’ll have to wait

Say what you will about Rogers—for example, “a real country would never allow a disgusting company like this to exist, let alone rely on them for day-to-day financial transactions and 911 calls—holy piss!,” or “fuck capitalism!”—but they see the value in sports and are willing to pay for the privilege of extracting it. That maybe wasn’t always the case. Or, actually, that certainly wasn’t always the case. But if the Jays’ pursuit of Shohei Ohtani last winter didn’t tell us as much—and, hoo boy, has his season not completely validated that?⁴—their recent $4.7 billion purchase of Bell’s 37.5% stake in MLSE surely did.

In another era we might have worried that the MLSE outlay would make the Rogers board uncomfortable with investing even more into sports, but I genuinely don’t think that’s where we’re at here. They’re all-in.

“For (Edward) Rogers, as an owner, he can look ahead for 20 years and see when the business will be worth $20 billion,” explained a “source close to the situation” to Sportsnet’s Michael Grange in his piece on the deal this past week. “(Edward) and Rogers will always play the long game.”

In the same piece MLSE is referred to as a “cash-generating asset,” and we’re told that Rogers sees winning as “good for their business.”

It feels unseemly to even think that Rogers would actually do incredibly right by their teams and the fans that follow them, considering how the first 20 or so years of their ownership of the Jays went, let alone to write it. But at this point, until they prove otherwise, I kinda do.

Of course, there’s a huge opportunity for them to prove otherwise this winter. But I think Vlad is just too dang important to this franchise to not find a way to reward him for that and keep him here forever. Especially now that he’s had a season that makes it clear 2021 wasn’t just a one-off, and made it a whole lot easier to put a value on him—even if that value has probably gone up by more than $100 million since the season started.

OK, but if it’s so important why am I saying Jays fans will have to wait? Why wouldn’t they get to work on this the minute the offseason starts? It’s simple, really. Though the contract their client signs will be for significantly less, if you’re Vlad’s camp you kind of want to see the benchmark that Juan Soto sets, no? And if you’re the Jays, maybe the money you have earmarked for Vlad could go to Soto instead—if you can actually land him.

Adding Soto to the Bo-Vlad mix for a year could reenergize the fan base, could bring in a bunch of playoff revenue, could move a whole lot of season tickets for 2026 and, if it works, could make keeping one—or even both—of Bo and Vlad long-term seem more viable. I don’t think any of that happens, but I’m not sure either side is going to be quick to rule out the possibility. And with Soto a Scott Boras client, movement on any of this could take some time.

Prediction Three: Don Mattingly’s job title changes

People are so so so so so so so so so so so so so so I think I’m having a stroke so so so so so so so so so so so stupid about Don Mattingly. So stupid!

I mean, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t sort of get why this is the case. The team has struggled offensively and he’s the “offensive coordinator.” He was a great hitter. He’s been a hitting coach. He’s been a manager. He has clout. He’s a mid-sized character in the game—maybe even bigger than that. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO CUT HIS SIDEBURNS! You can’t bring in a guy like that an not have him cut a tall figure. Of course his hands are all over the Jays’ hitting process, and clearly that started going awry the moment he got here, right? And didn’t he say all those things about not trying to be a team that hits home runs? Didn’t he downplay the importance of launch angle?

Here’s the thing. Or, actually, here are several things:

As a matter of fact, on those last two points, he didn’t. I wrote about the Mattingly discourse last winter and addressed those two notions specifically. The launch angle thing, which came about on an episode of the Dan Patrick Show, was about practicing for launch angle—which he felt would negatively impact a player’s swing length at game speed. And the aversion to home runs stuff came from people flying into a blind rage and misunderstanding a quote⁵ about how last season’s specific group needed to play in order to win ballgames, dumbly taking it to mean Mattingly was satisfied with what he was seeing because he pushed back on the idea that the team was underperforming.

As for the fact that the team’s offence seemed to dry up from the moment he arrived, I mean… it was the same winter that Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. were traded, and that George Springer got old. You really need another minute to figure this one out, Poirot?

And sure, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Matt Chapman saw their numbers dip after Mattingly arrived (when playing at home, at least), and Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho didn’t look like the guys we thought they were going to be, etc. etc. But pinning that entirely on hitting coaches is not only absurd, it fundamentally misunderstands what coaches do, how the dynamic between players, coaches, and the front office works,⁶ and immensely undersells how much agency players—experts at the craft in their own right—have when it comes to their careers.

You know what’s even more absurd, though? Pinning it on a guy who wasn’t even a hitting coach!

Mattingly was brought in to be the bench coach⁷—a sturdy hand, with managerial experience, to help guide John Schneider in his first full year as the skipper. One could infer from that that his contributions to the hitting side of things would be limited, but because weirdos want so badly for their invented narrative of Mattingly being the bad guy to be true, many choose not to. Fortunately, Mattingly himself has said as much.

“Schneids and I talked about offence a lot during the season,” he explained to the Star’s Mike Wilner on an episode of Deep Left Field last November. “But you have to be careful, in the role that I was in, of not overstepping into somebody else’s stuff and that’s not really what I was there for.”

The way Mattingly tells it, he wasn’t even going to get involved in the offence after hitting strategist Dave Hudgens was let go! And he didn’t think think a change there was necessary.

“At the end of the season, (Schneider) called me and told me he was going to let (Hudgens) go,” he told Wilner. “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.”

He would go on to explain to Wilner that, after some conversations about what Schneider and Atkins wanted for the role, it was decided that he’d be able to comfortably add it to his duties. And, in case you have any doubt about his version of events, he also made it clear that he certainly hadn’t implemented any sort of grand vision by that point.

“I think seeing them for a full season, I have some ideas what we can talk about in ways to approach and—how do we get better? And that's really what it would be for every guy,” he said. “How do we get the most—as I talk with Hunter and G and Slot and the front office—how do we put this puzzle together, and then how do we become the best offence that we can become? And that's what we'll be trying to do.”

In other words, if you think Mattingly broke the offence when he arrived in 2023, you must believe that he did so by sitting in proximity to it, such incredible power he has. Give me a fucking break.

And, sure, he ought to wear it for the team’s struggles here in 2024 some. But Vlad rebounding under his watch isn’t nothing, if we’re going to be silly enough to think we can evaluate coaches this way (we can’t). Plus, some of the call-ups have impressed, the second half has been better and, again, I think personnel has been the far, far bigger issue here.

Anyway, “offensive coordinator” is kind of a clunky title and has not helped people form a healthy understanding of what he does. So my prediction here is that they walk it back or something.

Quick hits…

• I’ve written about it before, but for the sake of completeness it’s worth saying here that I think Bo Bichette won’t be traded or have his contract extended. Putting a value on him that pleases both sides is going to be extremely tough, whether that’s with his camp on a contract extension or with another team in trade. It’s not ideal, but I have a very hard time believing a better option is going to be out there than treating him like any other guy on a one-year, pillow contract. And he’s exactly the type of guy you’d want the Jays to go out and land with one of those, isn’t he?

• I should also say, though I imagine it’s pretty clear from what I’ve already written, that I expect manager John Schneider will be back. And while none of these items are things that I necessarily want to happen, I do kinda want to see what this group would do if they actually had a couple more big bats in the lineup. I’ll admit that, at least partly, that’s because I want nothing but bad for the kinds of fans who cannot even attempt to be fair about literally anything to do with this team, and want everyone around them to be as miserable as they are. But I also haven’t seen anything to convince me these guys are as clueless as most seem to believe—or that most of what drives fans nuts about them aren’t well thought-out things that originate above their heads. The guy everyone was convinced was great⁸ a couple years ago hasn’t changed for the worse, the team has. Give ‘em all another chance to get this right.

• Easy one here, but I predict that we’ll see some prospects traded this winter. That’s a matter of simple math. They traded all their impending free agents, and just think about the 13 position players currently on the active roster: Luis De Los Santo, Steward Berroa, and Jonatan Clase should all end up back in Triple-A, but their roster spots will be quickly taken by the three guys on the IL (Bo Bichette, Daulton Varsho, Will Wagner). If the team adds a couple of bats, as it absolutely should, that means two of Wagner, Nathan Lukes, Addison Barger, Leo Jiménez, Joey Loperfido, Spencer Horwitz, or Davis Schneider will be back in Triple-A, where it really feels like they have little left to prove. Plus they've also got Orelvis Martinez (.310/.370/.524 since his return), Josh Kasevich (good defence and a .336/.393/.447 line since moving up to Buffalo), and Alan Roden (.314/.406/.510 in 71 games for the Bisons) all knocking at the door. Depth is good and all, but there are simply too many guys for two few spots, and improvement—and relief help—at the MLB level will surely have to take precedence. Consolidating some of those names into better-established big league pieces seems like a no-brainer.

• Here’s one: We’ll talk about a six-man rotation far more than we probably should. And I get it. The three guys at the top of the rotation aren’t getting any younger, Yariel Rodríguez still won’t be ready for a full starter’s workload, and it seems like the way they’ve deployed their pitchers to get them extra rest lately has been beneficial. Also, the biggest drawback to switching to a six-man rotation is that it means fewer starts for your very best starter, but who is that among this current Jays group? Kevin Gausman has the best chance of being a true ace, but are you as hurt by getting five or six fewer starts out of 2025 Gausman as you would have been in 2022? Probably not. And yet! For all the positives we’ve heard lately, Jays starters on four days of rest this season have produced a 3.61 ERA and limited opposing batters to a .681 OPS. On five days of rest those numbers jumps to 3.99 and .720. And on six-plus days it's 4.45 and .722. Those maybe aren't “case closed” numbers—walk rates have been oddly high on four days of rest, WHIP is a touch better on five than on four, and on average they've pitched 1/3 of an inning deeper into games when on extra rest—but I don't think the case to screw around here is as good as it possibly feels. Plus, Bowden Francis is going to be the ace you want to get six extra starts out of. Obviously!

• Lastly, and because I really don’t want to be as easy as I’ve been here on an organization that’s currently nine games back of a Wild Card spot with just six left to play, and that’s already squandered the cheap years of Vlad and Bo and the good years George Springer had left, I’ll say that no matter how well the offseason goes for them, these Jays will head into 2025 looking like they’re probably one piece short of where they need to be. Because… isn’t that what seems to always happen here? As good as it’s been—and it’s been better than a lot of people will give credit for—it’s never quite good enough. I can’t say I expect that to change either.

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1. “I don’t blame Ross,” the right-hander recently told the Star’s Mike Wilner. “I sure as heck don’t blame (president Mark Shapiro) or Schneids (manager John Schneider). Player accountability is massive, and I think we have that here. It’s just for whatever reason (Jays) fans don’t want to yell at players; they want to yell at Ross. I don’t know why.”

2. Pitching coordinator is a pretty important job in terms of developing minor leaguers. A job posting for the role made by the Cincinnati Reds back in 2020 is quite illuminating about what is otherwise a fairly nebulous title. But let’s be clear that it’s not—as some might assume—the other side of the “offensive coordinator” coin. Popham would likely have had big leaguers within his purview, but he isn’t necessarily paying for the problems with this year’s bullpen or anything like that. Or, at least, not directly. He’s much more likely paying for the fact that the Jays have struggled to create “waves of talent” being developed on the pitching side that the front office long ago promised (and is vital to being the kind of Yankees- or Dodgers-esque perennial contender).

I suspect that he’s also, at least partially, paying for the high number of injuries Jays farmhands have sustained this year.

Those things contributed to the issues the MLB bullpen has had this season, of course. But his wasn’t purely an MLB position the way that Don Mattingly’s is. (I do kinda wonder if the fact that Yusei Kikuchi has found even more success after moving to the Astros and upping his slider usage could also have been a factor here, but if that’s the case he’d likely be getting credit for Bowden Francis, too. So if I had to guess—and I suppose that’s what I’m doing here—I’d say the biggest thing was probably all the arm surgeries.)

3. From May 1st to the end of July ‘23 the Jays slashed .235/.306/.335 (82 wRC+) as a team with RISP—the second-worst mark in baseball over that span. From August 1st onward those numbers were .304/.393/.435 (131 wRC+), which ranked fourth.

4. And, yes, they were serious. They also weren’t simply used as leverage—a pervasive idea that’s maybe even dumber than anybody actually believing they can glean Mattingly’s negative influence through their TV screens. I mean, if Ohtani’s camp was going to string along a team for the sake of getting a better offer out of the Dodgers, why on earth would they choose the Blue Jays? Why would they make Ohtani fly to Dunedin as part of the ruse? Like, of all possible ways to play that—leaking that he was very comfortable with the Angels, or that he was really impressed by his meeting with the Giants, etc.—why would they do that? I get that people want to feel their gut-level hatred for the people who run the Jays is justifiable, but feel free to think about stuff like this for more than two seconds please!

5. Here’s the quote that mainly set people off, via the Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath.

“I’ve read a lot of our stuff and one thing I haven’t liked all year, it’s like, ‘Oh, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do, they’re not living up to what they are on paper.’ Sometimes you’re like, this is who we are. This is how we have to win. We got to be able to chip in runs here and chip in runs there. I don’t look at us as a club that’s just going to go out and have six, seven, eight guys hit 30 homers, that’s just not how we’re built.

“We have to play that kind of style, right? To be able to chip in those runs, so that’s why it really probably has been talked about so much, with men in scoring position, ’cause that’s how we score, right? We got a few guys hitting homers, but we’re not really a bunch of guys hitting 30. We really have to be able to go one run at a time, sometimes multiple, but really keep getting guys on base and then have to get our hits with men on base.”

He made a similar point in a November interview with Mike Wilner that I’ll reference later on in the post, in which he does a much better job of making it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with the state of things, just describing them.

“Offensively, I felt like, all year, that—I think it got a little overblown because of the team they had over the past couple years before, but the changes in the offseason—and I read a little bit about this; I don't read a lot, but I read a little to just stay in tune—that it was underperforming.

“Underperforming. I heard this all year long. I said, ‘Schneids, I don't know if we're underperforming or this is just who we are.’ Because, I mean, we went for defence. We went pitching and defence.

“Obviously, we just won the Gold Glove of the American League as a defensive team, right? So that part worked. But you did give up some things—where you say: ‘This guy's a pretty good offensive player. This other guy's a pretty good offensive player,’ right? And so you go a different route.

“That worked and kind of didn't work as well as you would have liked. Right? So now we've got to put that together and maybe a little better balance with all of that. Again, I'm talking as a member of the staff, I can't talk for John or Ross or Mark or anyone else. But I just look at things from this lens, that I watched for the first time last year, and that's kind of what I see.”

Who could possibly disagree with that?

6. In that same interview with Wilner, Mattingly explained his new role, and—I’ve gotta say—the hand of the front office in the whole process feels pretty big to me. Bigger, even, than Mattingly’s perhaps. (Which, is pretty much exactly what you’d expect of a modern baseball organization, but you know how people get sometimes!):

WILNER: Is it going to be like a three-headed beast with you and Guillermo Martinez and Hunter Mense, or are they going to be taking direction from you? Or how is that distribution of duties going to happen?

MATTINGLY: I think we all definitely work together. That's the main thing, is that we're all on the same page and working in the same direction. I would add Eric Slotter to that group, who's a guy that does a lot of video and puts things together behind the scenes. And also add in our front office, because they're doing work on what they see and what their metrics are telling them, and all the things that you have—swing plane, you know, all the things that go into hitting, right? So any kind of—if they're struggling in an area, if a guy's struggling, you know they're going to have a report coming down and trying to figure out why. He's doing this more, he's doing this less, whatever. And then it's basically the coach's job to take that information, try to work through it—how do I use that to help our guy? And so, I see this as a group thing. And along with still kind of continuing my other duties in a sense, or other role. And now with DeMarlo (Hale), how we work through that, but I still see it as both roles.

7. Look, I’d be the first to say that Hudgens was originally hired as a bench coach in name only, and that he was brought over from the Astros to mostly be a hitting coach from the start. But that’s not what happened with Mattingly! Read on!

8. I mean…