3 Blue Jays most to blame for epic failure in the Wild Card Series

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

This was meant to be the series that saw Vladimir Guerrero Jr. step up and reclaim his crown as the king of the Blue Jays. Heading into the 2023 season, he held that title but quickly lost it to fellow franchise cornerstone Bo Bichette, who had one hell of a regular season.

Simply put, Vladdy did not step up. At all. At the plate, he went just 1-for-7 with a double and walk. This performance puts his career postseason batting average at .136. Once again, the club's most fearsome power hitter failed to show up in big moments and was left with next to nothing memorable.

"Next to nothing" implies that the series wasn't quite un-newsworthy. The only real headlines Guerrero made in this series was when he made one of the most ridiculous baserunning blunders we've seen in recent memory. By now you've undoubtedly already seen it and laughed at Vladdy for a few minutes before the "okay, what in the world was that?" thoughts began to hit you.

That one stings. In a press conference after the game, Twins pitcher Sonny Gray said that the pickoff play was called because Blue Jays base runners could not hear their coaches telling them to "go back" because of the loud Twins crowd. Sure, that helps a little bit, but this is still inexcusable on Vladdy's end and is a 1,000+ IQ move by the Twins.

The 2023 season was one mired in boneheaded baserunning moves by Guerrero, but he remains a key cog of the Blue Jays' future. While he has not yet been locked up to a long-term deal, he is likely to remain the face of Toronto for quite some time, so let's hope he locks in and eliminates some of these mistakes.

John Schneider

All season long, John Schneider was the biggest scapegoat every single time the Blue Jays lost a game. This is obviously an over-exaggeration, but the fingers were pointed at him by Jays fans after nearly every loss.

During the course of this series, though, he has earned some of the finger-pointing. In the first game, he made some questionable calls, especially when it came to lifting Daulton Varsho for Whit Merrifield in a late-game scenario. Merrifield has struggled mightily at the plate lately and Varsho has been solid against left-handed pitching this year, so this decision was a head-scratcher for sure.

Game two was the one where Schneider really put himself into the crosshairs of Jays fans, and baseball fans in general, around the league. Heck, even a handful of players (including former Blue Jay John Axford) took to social media to share their thoughts.

José Berríos started the game and was absolutely dominant through three innings, as he held the Twins offense to three hits and struck out five along the way. He walked Royce Lewis to start the fourth inning and Schneider, who had both Tim Mayza and Yusei Kikuchi warming up on and off throughout the first few innings of the game, immediately came out of the dugout and pulled Berríos.

Of course, Blue Jays Twitter had a field day with this and the decision instantly led to the game trending downhill for the Jays. It never recovered.

It's worth noting that Schneider is not the only decision-maker in the clubhouse and likely is not 100 percent to blame for this move. However, managers in Major League Baseball will always be the first ones to earn the praise and scorn, whichever is applicable on that given day. This is not to say that he's good as gone and is for sure going to be fired, but the early exit for the Jays may lead to some conversations starting over the offseason.

...the rest of the offense

It's tough to say that a Blue Jays offense that out-hit the Twins in both games of the series was a disappointment, but there's no other way to go about it. We've already covered Vladdy and his non-existent bat, but he's far from the only one that needs to shoulder some of the blame.

For starters, Brandon Belt, who was participating in perhaps the final postseason of his storied career, was a combined 0-for-8 with six strikeouts.

Cavan Biggio was 1-for-8 with three strikeouts. Matt Chapman was 1-for-7, Daulton Varsho was 0-for-5, the list goes on and on.

There were certainly some players that stepped up with base hits, but random singles here and there without these runners being driven in went nowhere. Props to Santiago Espinal, Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk for putting together decent at-bats, but nearly every one of them were left stranded on the bases (which is of no fault of their own).

The Blue Jays had an extremely streaky offense all year long, and it's entirely possible that the Twins just caught them at a bad time. One can point to the slow finish in the regular season all they want, but the Jays should've turned it up a notch when the stakes were raised and they simply did not.

There are quite a few pending free agents on this roster as of right now, so there's a strong possibility that 2024's Blue Jays are going to look much different than 2023's. It was a nice season for this year's squad, but at the end of the day they fell short again and need to shake things up a bit if there's any hope for deep future playoff runs.