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Blue Jays brass looks to make amends for disappointing 2026, but won't name scapegoats

Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins spoke about tough 2026 season, but avoided pointing fingers.

Published Sep 30, 2026  •  Last updated 18 hours ago  •  5 minute read

Ross Atkins, general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, addresses media during a year-end press conference. Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun

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Coming off what is arguably one of the more disappointing seasons in Blue Jays history, the concept of a scapegoat — or someone paying the price for such a disappointment — was completely foreign to any of the team’s decision- makers.

General manager Ross Atkins and team president and CEO Mark Shapiro acknowledged the massive under-performing season at various times in their respective sit-downs with the local media on Wednesday, but at no time was it made to feel like anyone would pay a price with their jobs.

Certainly, no one wanted to point the finger at the year-long struggles of slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Neither Shapiro nor Atkins was about to come down on their $500-milllion investment, who is under contract for 13 more years. But it’s fair to say that if the finger was going to get pointed in one direction, it would catch a large portion of Guerrero.

Nine home runs over a 162-game schedule isn’t exactly value for approximately $35-million a year, but then, what purpose would it serve coming down on a guy you are hopefully going to be counting on for well beyond the next decade?

Instead, Atkins blamed himself while Shapiro waxed poetic about a fanbase that showed up in droves despite not seeing the product on the field they believed they’d paid to see.

“As much as we talk about whether it’s run scoring or run prevention or defence, base-running (to blame for the poor year) there is one person to look at for the reasons for that and it’s me and I’m sorry we’re here today,” Atkins said.

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The coaching staff hasn’t received confirmation that they will all be back, but Atkins indicated that changes there were unlikely.

“In large part, we feel good about the group that is here,” he said.

But perhaps the single biggest reason no individuals were thrown under the proverbial bus in the aftermath of a last-place finish was the sheer number of injuries that ravaged this team from spring training throughout the entire season.

Atkins talked about building depth to cover injuries — which he and the organization believed they did — but that depth barely even got the team into the start of the regular schedule if you look only at starting pitching.

Hurt or out completely before spring training ended — and we’re talking starting pitchers here — were the likes of Jose Berrios, Bowden Francis, Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage, and Max Scherzer. Less than a week into the season, the team lost Cody Ponce for the year.

Yesavage, Bieber and Scherzer would return, but none surpassed 16 starts as all three made multiple trips to the injured list.

Short of scapegoating the medical staff — and the Jays were adamant they weren’t doing that — it’s hard to lay blame there.

Beyond Guerrero’s struggles, there was plenty of talk about the Jays pop-gun offence that seemed to make contact well enough but was devoid of any consistent power to turn that contact into useful run production.

Fixing Vladdy answers a lot of that, , and the Jays’ brass is fully confident that will be done in conjunction with the player and the staff.
Atkins broke down what he thought went wrong with the slugger.

“He’s such a dynamic athlete and hitter, that it’s a really complex problem,” Atkins began. “Everyone in (this room) can probably emulate his rhythm and tempo — that toe-tap and how he creates that momentum and rhythm — and it’s a really impressive thing to watch.

“But as he lost a little bit of that rhythm and timing, actually pretty early in the season, it started to impact his confidence and once it impacted his confidence the in-game and in-season adjustments became very difficult.”
Atkins is confident that a focused off-season where the pressures of executing and living up to his contract aren’t there, will see Guerrero reclaim his timing.

“Our goal is for him to feel our support and our commitment to correcting that with him,” Atkins said.

Hovering over the coming off-season for all 32 Major League Baseball teams will be the threat of a lockout or strike disrupting all or some of next season.

The owners have a salary cap on their wish list, which the players want nothing to do with. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess. Atkins and Shapiro said the Jays will conduct business as usual until it isn’t.

That would include identifying and courting would-be free agents, though none of that can begin until a World Series champion is crowned.

Ownership in Toronto has, in the past, been amenable to spending and both Atkins and Shapiro said there is no indication that will change this year.

“I do believe some portion of our correction (of the offence) can come from within, but we need to be sure that we are elite on the acquisition front as well,” Atkins said.

“We will be prepared right from the start and are operating business as usual and ready to go from Day 1.”

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Beyond fixing Vladdy and the offence, Atkins believes the team can boost its competitiveness by better utilizing some of the speed it has in the lineup.

While it’s true there are as many base-cloggers as speedsters in the Jays lineup, Atkins believes they can take better advantage of faster players such as Brett Bateman, Andres Gimenez or Ernie Clement in taking the extra base or stealing one outright.

As for the defence, Atkins said the metrics show Toronto to be an above average team although the GM admitted those numbers might be somewhat inflated by what was some particularly fine defence from behind the plate by the Jays catching duo.

Either way, the goal is to leave no opportunity for improvement left unstudied.

Mganter@postmedia.com

X: @mike_ganter

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