The Toronto Blue Jays Are An Underachieving Mess

Mark Blinch. Getty Images.

The Blue Jays are exactly the same as the L.A. Chargers. So much talent and disappointing results. It's a different kind of wasted season than what the Mets or Padres encountered. Those teams were just absolute shitshows. The Blue Jays are good enough to make the playoffs. The problem is they are almost instantly exposed and sent home. It happened in 2020, last year and again just today. At some point winning 89-92 games and getting knocked out in the AL Wild Card round can't be enough.

There is so much blame to go around. John Schneider is a bad manager. Whether it's pulling Jose Berrios far too early today to the team sleepwalking through much of the season, I think they need to make a change. He's not the biggest issue but the easiest one to get rid of. Honestly, Buck Showalter would be an idea manager for this team even if only for 2024. He works best with veteran teams and I could see him having the same impact that he had on the Mets in 2022. I just don't know if that Buck magic can last more than a season. Veteran guys will always resort to laziness because Buck gives his guys so much rope.

Mark Blinch. Getty Images.

The Alek Manoah disaster certainly set this team back. Imagine if he just had the same year he has last year in 2023? The Blue Jays likely would have challenged the Rays and Orioles for the division. Then again, the Blue Jays have been very lucky from an injury standpoint this year. How many other teams have 4 starting pitchers getting 31 starts or more? Next year all 4 (Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt and Yesui Kekuchi) will be 30 years old or older. Can they all stay healthy again all season? I doubt it.

How did Vladimir Guerrero Jr go from one of the best young power hitters in all of baseball to the second coming of Josh Bell overnight? Vladdy Jr is only 24! He should be getting better and better each year, not worse.

Matt Chapman is a free agent at the end of the year. His bat went south last season but still played pretty good difference was a 4 WAR player. He's also going to be 31 and the last thing you want to do is sign a defense first player because that's usually the first skillset to go. 

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Could the Blue Jays make a big move and try to sign a Shohei Ohtani or a Blake Snell? Not only is Chapman a free agent ($12 million) but so is Hyun Jin Ryu ($20 million), Brandon Belt ($9.3 million) and Kevin Kiermaier($9 million). That would free up enough money to go get a major player.

Maybe the best option for Toronto is to rip it all down? With all this talent, do you want to be the American Hustle of the MLB? Solid movie that looks great with big stars but has no real substance.

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On second thought, maybe that's unfair to American Hustle.

The Blue Jays just can't keep running back this core year and after year. It's more than clear than ever that there's just enough here. They did have the 2nd best ERA in the AL but maybe we can't look at Kevin Gausman as a true ace anymore. It doesn't help he'll be 32 next year. The offense certainly needs something. No Blue Jay hit 27 home runs this season. The team was 8th in the AL in runs scored.

The disappointment has to end eventually. I just can't look at this team who scored 1 run in 18 innings against the Twins and expect it to happen soon.