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At crossroads, Blue Jays brass faced with crucial off-season

7 9
03.10.2024

TORONTO — A touch of accountability and a whole lot of internal confusion.

That’s the sentence that sums up the latest attempt by this Toronto Blue Jays regime to explain what went wrong as another season wraps up in disappointing fashion.

This time around, that disappointment hit much differently than years past, as a season with very high expectations fell far short, with the writing on the wall earlier than ever.

Both club president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins, who will return for a 10th season at the helm in 2025, shouldered the blame at Wednesday’s season-ending press conference at Rogers Centre, saying they as executives — and their process of correctly evaluating talent — need to get better.

The answer to how that happens was, as usual, much more vague.

So vague, in fact, that it’s easy to believe they don’t yet have answers as to why things went so spectacularly sideways.

Everything they believed last year at this time did not work.

The offensive co-ordinator role that Don Mattingly was shifted into has already been ditched, while their faith in last year’s collection of talent was clearly misplaced.

It’s left the organization in an awkward place, and how much time they have to correct course is clearly running out.

Facing a critical off-season for the long-term health of the franchise in so many ways, Jays brass seems to be in soul-searching mode as they evaluate the philosophies they’ve put in place over the past decade.

Why has the offence sputtered for two seasons now? They don’t have a clear answer yet.

Why can’t the organization develop pitching and keep their arms healthy at the minor-league level? There’s no obvious answer to that, with........

© TSN


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