Blue Jays fans can blame Ross Atkins for plenty, but not this 2026 collapse

Ross Atkins has received a lot of justified heat during his time as the Toronto Blue Jays’ general manager, but the team’s failures in 2026 aren’t his fault.  While it’s easy to point fingers at the front office when things go south as they have this season, the players deserve the bulk of the blame for how nearly all of them have underperformed relative to expectations. 

It’s not Atkins’ fault the Blue Jays can’t hit. It’s not his fault they keep making mistakes on defence. This team only has itself to blame for how poorly it has performed.

Why shouldn’t Atkins get blamed for the Blue Jays’ struggles?

Atkins’ tenure in Toronto has been tumultuous to say the least. He was hired after Alex Anthopoulous—the beloved architect of the 2015 Blue Jays—resigned due to a reported personality clash with team president Mark Shapiro. He then oversaw the departure of franchise icons José Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion in free agency.

Several more unpopular trades further soured his reputation. His decision to move Teoscar Hernández for now-retired reliever Erik Swanson was universally panned, and the pitchforks came out again he shipped Gabriel Moreno and Loudres Gurriel Jr. to Arizona for Daulton Varsho. 

Then there was the José Berríos fiasco in the 2023 postseason, when the Atkins-led front office practically forced manager John Schneider to pull the right-hander early in Game 2 of the Wild Card series against the Minnesota Twins despite the fact he was pitching well. The move backfired, the Blue Jays were eliminated, and the rest is history. 

Yet, for all these missteps, Atkins also built the 2025 World Series team. His team came within two outs of winning a championship, and he appropriately augmented that squad with several signings this past offseason in hopes of completing the job in 2026. 

That brings us to the present, where it seems increasingly unlikely that the Blue Jays will make it back to the playoffs, let alone win a World Series title. Yet new additions Dylan Cease, Kazuma Okamoto, and Tyler Rogers have all come exactly as advertised.

Atkins failing to re-sign Bo Bichette deserves some discussion, but the three-year, $126 million contract he inked with the New York Mets was a ridiculous overpay that already looks like an albatross. Okamoto has been much better for a fraction of the price.

It's the players who are to blame. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Daulton Varsho, and Alejandro Kirk have all been terrible offensively. Atkins operated with the expectation that those four would be above-average hitters, yet all of them have been below replacement level. 

Cody Ponce blowing out his knee during his first start as a Blue Jay also isn’t Atkins’ fault. Neither is Berríos suffering a stress fracture in his elbow or Shane Bieber spending several months on the injured list. Injuries eroded what appeared to be an enviable amount of pitching depth. 

Ultimately, while Atkins has earned his fair share of criticism over the years, he shouldn’t be blamed for how bad the Blue Jays have been in 2026. Their players simply haven’t played well—there’s nothing any general manager can do about that. 

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