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A fan base boned cares for no Ross.
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On a Friday afternoon way back in late August, long before the Jays’ second straight gruesome playoff exit and the painful Ross Atkins press conference that followed it, the Blue Jays’ GM met with reporters in the home dugout at Rogers Centre to ostensibly give an update on the then-swirling Alek Manoah rumours. It happened to come at a moment that also may have been the low point of the regular season. The team had just come off of the road having lost yet another series in Baltimore, and later that night would drop the first game of what would become a home series loss to Cleveland. That loss would be their ninth in 15 games and, more importantly, would drop them to 2.5 games back of the third AL wild card spot.
Obviously the stretch didn’t prove as catastrophic as many were certain it would, but after a summer of utterly demoralizing offensive struggles with runners in scoring position—not to mention the Anthony Bass debacle, another lost year from Vlad, lingering disappointment from 2021 and '22, and fans’ exasperatingly unshakable belief that whatever a team has done over its most recent stretch is Who They Really Are—people were out for blood.
In teeing up my Atkins Speaks! post on the scrum I warned that “while Ross's answers [weren’t] going to be satisfactory to the vast majority of fans—he did not, after all, commit seppuku at Shi Davidi's feet and bleed out on the concrete—he sure did say them.”
Outside of that one afternoon in December when he was briefly one of the greatest executives in the history of Canadian sports, little of that sentiment seems to have abated. And based on the comments I received on my previous post, and the reaction I saw on Twitter, this week’s media session changed nothing.
I’m sure Ross would say that he “feels really good about the reputation that is in place, as he looks to improve upon it, and sees opportunities for it moving forward.” But I want to know what you say—not only about him, but the offseason so far, what should come next, and all things Blue Jays.
You know the drill, it’s a mail bag! And I’ll be putting this one out sometime next week—hopefully giving Ross enough time to do something that might actually excite someone, though I’m not exactly holding my breath on that.
So leave me your best thoughts and questions in the comments on this post!
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Thanks for your amazing writing. I've been a dedicated reader since your early start. Wishing you the best here in 2024.
Reflecting on this ‘23 Blue Jays team and then looking at the Philadelphia Phillies, I am struck by their similarities and differences. They’re big-market teams. Teams in the middle of their competitive “windows”. Similar payrolls. They profile with star-power players, both with the bats and pitching. Strong catching, SSs, talented rosters - and owners committed to their rosters with similar payrolls. And yet, their past two seasons have played out so different. The Blue Jays have, in a way, shrunk in the big moments, with core players that have regressed and left postseasons very disappointingly. The Phillies, quite the opposite. I am struck by the the boldness - the willingness to make moves based on best player available (evidenced by Phillies' willingness to get the bats) vs best fit to the team (Jays being too cute by half).
These teams - these organizations seem to be polar philosophical opposites. Shapiro and the front office are a calculated bunch trying to avoid the bad contract and balance for long-term success. Dombrowski’s always been seen as hitting - and making it big for his owners. These two execs are at similar points in their career and yet very different arcs (Dombrowski with five orgs and two rings, Shapiro with two orgs and no rings). Common perceptions may be that Dombrowski has played the scouting game and gambled on FAs harder, Shapiro has honed player development orgs, is/has been the smart one. Yet the results over and over have shown that Dombrowski’s blueprint for success has worked. Teams with deep or celebratory playoff runs. Is there a lesson here, an antidote to this Shapiro/Atkins way of building?
Months later question to a mailbag post that’s already written by why the hell not.
On Yariel Rodriguez, is it unique that he pitched abroad then was able to return to the Cuban national team for the WBC? Or are things less dicatatorial than they once were?