4 changes the Blue Jays must make immediately to avoid tumbling down the standings

We’ve reached the dumpster fire stage. The Toronto Blue Jays are now tied with Oakland — yes, the very recently sad sack Athletics — in the Wild Card standings. After a disheartening 10-1 loss against the NL East leading Philadelphia Phillies, with their best starter on the bump Tuesday, the Jays fell 7.5 games back of the Orioles and Yankees in the the AL East, in last place. They’ve lost 10 of their last 14.

Despite salvaging a series split in Philadelphia on Thursday, the Blue Jays remain 4.5 games back in the Wild Card chase, with a -44 run differential, only better than other last place teams like the Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies.

Manager John Schneider seems like he’s at his wit’s end, getting thrown out of Tuesday night’s game for arguing called strikes. The offence has been mostly listless, as evidenced by a league worst .566 OPS with runners in scoring position.

It’s gotten so bad, MLB insiders are starting to suggest Toronto may be a seller at the July 30th trade deadline. General manager Ross Atkins has been dumpster diving à la May 2021, leaving no stone unturned in the search for pitching help.

The team ERA is 4.64, sixth-highest in MLB, and opposing teams are batting .260 against Jays pitchers, the 4th highest average in the league. The bullpen has allowed a league high 22 home runs, so news that the team’s best reliever this season, Yimi García, has been unavailable to pitch due to a lower back issue only adds to the hurt.

But apart from a July trade deadline fire sale, what other moves should the Blue Jays organization make before it’s too late for this season? Below, we suggest four changes the organization needs to make immediately to avoid tumbling down the standings.

It looks like manager John Schneider has lost the room

Along with Atkins, it’s time to relieve manager John Schneider and much of his coaching staff of their duties. Promote associate manager DeMarlo Hale to the interim manager’s job. Fire bench coach and offensive coordinator Don Mattingly and hitting coach Guillermo Martinez, and promote assistant hitting coach Matt Hague to be the hitting coach based on his succcess with the Buffalo Bisons hitters last year, including Davis Schneider, Ernie Clement, Spencer Horwitz, Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger.

A team-only meeting that was described as “productive” was held after the loss Tuesday, and the team did respond with a 5-3 win Wednesday, led by Guerrero’s 3-for-5 day with an RBI, and an outstanding start for Chris Bassitt, who went 6.1 strong innings, allowing only three hits and two runs with six strikeouts against two walks.

While that rebound was encouraging, as Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet notes above, “To match last season's 89 wins, Jays need to go 73-53 over remainder of season — a .579 winning percentage.”

Can this team pull that off? Never say, “never”, but that seems like a tall order for a team only averaging 3.62 runs scored per game, lower than the 3.76 average runs per game when they were an expansion franchise in 1977.

Either trade or DFA the dead wood

This MLB roster is clogged with a bunch of washed up bums like Kevin Kiermaier, Daniel Vogelbach, Cavan Biggio and George Springer. The new front office under James Click should see if anyone will accept a trade for them, with the Blue Jays obviously eating most of their salary. If no one wants these guys, then release them and eat their salaries.

It’s time to call up younger talent in Martinez, Horwitz and Barger. Start Ernie Clement at 3B and give Schneider and Horwitz/Barger the outfield corners — they need to be in the everyday lineup — along with Martinez at 2B and Daulton Varsho playing full-time in center field.

Other role players with value in the trade market who can be moved by the deadline include pending free agents Justin Turner, who’s 39-years old, as well as relievers Yimi García and Trevor Richards. Perhaps they can return some younger prospects who can help to improve the farm system depth.

While just designating the dead wood for assignment is a bold move, these players are clogging up the MLB roster and preventing the younger players from gaining valuable experience at the big league level. Horwitz for one has nothing left to prove at Triple-A, and Martinez will bring some much needed swagger to the clubhouse that the Jays probably haven’t had since Hernandez was traded for Swanson, and Gurriel was included with top prospect Gabriel Moreno in the Varsho trade.

Extend some of the homegrown talent, plus Kikuchi

The Blue Jays need some continuity on the roster, and an extension for catcher Danny Jansen and starter Yusei Kikuchi, who is thriving in Toronto, both make a lot of sense. Jansen was moved up to 5th in the order Wednesday for only the fourth time this season, and the team is now 1-0 with him hitting higher in the lineup since their team meeting.

Sure, Jansen has a long list of nagging injuries over his 7 MLB seasons and only averaged 76 games played per season from 2021-2023. He’s already missed significant time again this year, playing only 15 games so far after suffering a right wrist fracture in spring training.

However, after Atkins traded Moreno — at one point the top prospect overall on the Baseball America prospect rankings — to the Diamondbacks, the organization effectively bet on the catching tandem of Jansen and Kirk. It’s time they committed to that with a contract extension for pending free agent Jansen.

Kikuchi is also another player worth extending. After signing a three-year, $36M contract with Toronto ahead of the 2022 season, he’s compiled a 19-15 record with a 4.15 ERA over 308 innings with Toronto, including 348 strikeouts. Since a tough 2022 when he had a 5.19 ERA, he’s been worth every penny, and is in his prime at 32-years old. The team is 37-34 in his 71 appearances, and given the dearth of starting pitching depth across the Blue Jays farm system, he could help to stabilize the rotation depth for the next few seasons.

The revamped front office under James Click will also have to figure out what to do with Bichette and Guerrero, in addition to Bassitt and closer Jordan Romano before they can all just walk as free agents after the 2025 season. If ownership wants to extend the current competitive window, they should all be extended. However, payroll constraints might limit them to a big, long term deal with only one of their two core hitters, plus shorter term deals for Jansen, Kikuchi and Bassitt.

This organisation is at a crossroads: over 60% of the current 26-man roster is eligible for free agency in the next two years. None of the homegrown core has been extended beyond their arbitration years, unlike the industry trend to extend talent even in their pre-arb windows. Respected third-party, outside evaluations of the Blue Jays' farm system don’t suggest there’s much in the pipeline to replace those players should they walk, with no waves of talent like we’re now seeing in Baltimore and Detroit, as well as Tampa, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and New York; and, the team is in last place in their division with an old roster and bloated payroll. This is not what fans were promised when Shapiro and Atkins were hired following the 2015 ALCS run.