Vladimir Guerrero Jr. plays for the Toronto Blue Jays; Licensed by CC 2.0
The day was Sunday, August 22, 2021. The Toronto Blue Jays were leading the Detroit Tigers 2-1 in the top of the ninth inning. There were two outs and a routine ground ball to second baseman Marcus Semien. And the pitching just took off, later leading the Tigers to a ninth-inning comeback and a 5-3 victory in 11 innings.
A late-inning leadoff hit is a common occurrence in the sport of baseball, and while it was Semien who made the costly error, he wasn’t the only one to blame. Teams win and lose together as a whole. However, this game in particular hurts Blue Jays fans much more than just your average loss.
The 2021 Toronto Blue Jays looked like an absolute wagon and a team that opponents would be extremely afraid of if they were lucky enough to make it to the postseason. Collections such as Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., George Springer, Bo Bichette and Major Vladimir Guerrero Jr. form Steven Matz and a young, budding ace (or so we thought) in Alec Manoa. However, that infamous loss against Detroit is often looked back on as the reason the Blue Jays missed the 2021 postseason, as they were eliminated on the final day of the regular season, just one game shy of the wild card.
On an even darker note, 2021 The Blue Jays felt like it was the last time a team was truly scared. Of course, the odd “World Series Favorite” pick was given to the team in later years; but with each subsequent season, the decline in what should have been a dynasty has gotten bigger and bigger, leading to lackluster production this season on the field.
As of this writing, the Jays sit in last place in the AL East and are significantly out of the wild card conversation. The front office did the right thing in the deadline, selling the right pieces, but the question is how did we get here? How did a team with such high hopes fall flat after just a few years?
It starts with offense. Since the seemingly inception of 2023, the pop and threat of the Jays offense has simply vanished into thin air. In 2022, the team ranked 7th in HRs, 3rd in RBIs, 4th in Runs Scored, and 1st (!) in hits. In 2023, they finished just below average in all of those categories. Many will point to the new contact-oriented approach implemented by their new offensive hire for Don Mattingly’s downgrade. Fortunately, the pitching staff was otherworldly and single-handedly dragged this team into the playoffs, only for that same offensive weakness to be their undoing as they went 5-1 in two wild card games against the Twins.
It got a lot worse this season. The Jays are 26th in HRs, 23rd in RBIs, 18th in hits, and 22nd in runs scored. Not particularly good. The blame for those struggles is directed in every way, be it leadership, coaching, or the players themselves.
Many pointed to general manager Ross Atkins as the individual behind key forwards such as Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., as well as the players on the team. #1: prospect on time, the attractive Gabriel Moreno, trying to find players that are more focused on defense and contact ability. Granted, the gains from these deals theoretically paid off in management’s eyes in 2023, as Eric Swanson shored up 2022’s major weakness in the bullpen and Dalton Warshaw and Kevin Kiermaier played excellent defense in the outfield; a masterful upgrade to what Gurriel and Hernandez had provided. The problem. Neither of those acquisitions hit well, if even average, that season. Kiermaier had a shocking service as he hit a .741 OPS, 32 points above his career average. However, to put it into perspective, Kiermaier had the 5th best OPS on the entire team behind only Bichette, Guerrero, Matt Chapman (all of whom had below-average years by their standards), and Brandon Belt (who currently does not have an MLB contract). That was a higher OPS than the $125 million outfielder George Springer put up in 2023 to put things in dire perspective.
Meanwhile, Hernandez, Gurriel and Moreno all had equal, if not higher, value than Kiermaier. All were key contributors to help a declining offense, and to make matters worse, Gurriel and Moreno were able to showcase their success on the big stage as the Diamondbacks made an improbable run to the World Series.
Atkins could be forgiven for making these mistakes, as no one could have seen such a significant decline in offensive production from 2022 to 2023. The rest of the core of Bichette, Guerrero and Springer wasn’t as dominant in 2022 as it was in 2021, but logically, it’s pretty unreasonable to expect the 23-year-old Guerrero to be a consistent 1.000 OPS player, despite how talented he’s shown to be. can be. Bichette could be trusted to be money in the bank with a .290 average and 20 HR, and Springer’s slow decline was expected as he got older. However, Springer and Guerrero’s respective OPS drops of at least 175 points each were not intended, and they won’t be the first players to struggle past their career bests, and they won’t be the last either. . Everything will be fine next year, right?
Wrong. 2024 proved that these offensive battles weren’t just a blip on the radar. Bichette has had an absolute nightmare season. After three straight seasons of hitting at least .290, 20 HRs and 135 games played, Bichette has had three separate games on the injured list this year alone with just 4 HRs for a .223 average in just 79 games. To put that into perspective, after posting a combined 14.4 WAR from 2021-2023, Bichet has posted a -0.2 WAR this season. Never mind the off-field talk that he’s open to a deal out of Toronto, because I can’t think of anyone who could use a fresh start to the season more than Bo Bichette.
George Springer, however, would be a close second. At the time of this article, Springer is slashing .228/.311/.382 on the season, which was miles better than the first part of his season suggested. Before June 25, Springer was hitting .188/.278/.281 on the birdie year. When Springer was originally signed in 2021, the Blue Jays were always ready to see some regression from him in his prime. I doubt they expected the shell of a player like him and thankfully he turned it around as well as he did.
The cherry on top is that Atkins had a way to prepare for it. Options like Jorge Soler, Yoc Pederson and Teoscar Hernandez were available deep into the offseason, but Atkins opted for more contact bats in Isiah Keener-Falefa and Justin Turner. Not to say those signings were complete failures by any stretch of the imagination, but for a Jays team looking at Shohei Ohtani, combined with seeing how Pederson and Hernandez perform for their respective teams, Jays fans have every reason to be disappointed. .
Another major reason for the disappointing season has been the bullpen, or even the pitching as a whole. The Jays’ bullpen has the 2nd worst bullpen ERA at 5.03, behind only the Rockies. That’s a worse mark than the 2021 bullpen, which had a 4.08 ERA, and many Jays fans blame that bullpen for costing them a playoff spot that year. Lead acquisition Eric Swanson was demoted to Triple-A at some point this offseason. Pivotal lefty Tim Maiza went DFA the hard way. Closer Jordan Romano has been injured most of the season. The options to fix the holes hardly ever get to the point by an inning where getting a position player would be a more effective option. The most productive weapons like Yimi Garcia, Trevor Richards (sometimes) and Nate Pearson were shipped immediately at the deadline. Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi (despite his trade baggage) all have seasons beyond 2023, and replacements like Alec Manoa, Bowden Francis and Yariel Rodriguez haven’t found permanent spots as replacements. , whether due to injury, inconsistency, or both. The pitch has felt like a revolving door all season, and it didn’t stop until the end of September.
So where do the Blue Jays go from here? Management has been quoted as saying they want to compete in 2025, and with the moves they’ve made at the deadline, that seems like a realistic possibility. The prospects they picked up are closer to the major league level than what you’ll see in your typical sale, and trading some pieces will allow some young players to gain valuable experience and playing time. If all goes well, brighter days are ahead for Toronto, but they’ll likely have to wait until next season for those days to happen.
