Chris Bassitt speaks out on Blue Jays' internal frustrations

Perhaps lost amongst the feel good, weekend sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals on a perfect late summer weekend — highlighted by two slump-busting Davis Schneider dingers and some outstanding starting pitching from Kevin Gausman, José Berríos and Yariel Rodríguez — were comments made by clubhouse leader Chris Bassitt to baseball columnist Mike Wilner of the Toronto Star.

Bassitt, who has been straightforward and honest with his frustrations this season said, “You have a lot of so-called ‘pissed-off veterans’ in there [in the clubhouse]” and that “It’s been the worst year of my career” ahead of Saturday’s 7-2 win behind Berríos’ 16th win on a two-hitter over 7 innings.

But perhaps most illuminating were his comments that this dumpster fire of a season is on the players, not the front office or the manager. “I don’t blame Ross. I sure as heck don’t blame [team president Mark Shapiro] or Schneids [manager John Schneider]. Player accountability is massive, and I think we have that here. It’s just for whatever reason [Jays] fans don’t want to yell at players; they want to yell at Ross. I don’t know why.”

Those thoughts were echoed by George Springer, owner of a career-low .680 OPS, who said, “At the end of the day, the [front office are] not playing the game. It’s my job to get a hit with a guy on second base, not Ross’ ... I don’t think there’s anybody as frustrated as the guys in this locker room. I think we all expected to be better. We owe that to the fans.”

Apart from Berríos and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. among Blue Jay veterans, Springer said, “If you don’t think that you didn’t perform this year, then I don’t know what to tell you.” And former Met Bassitt basically urged the fans to let the veterans have it: “[If this was New York, fans] would be yelling at players a lot more than, say, yelling at [GM Ross Atkins].”

Is this season’s disappointment really only on the players?

To offer the counterfactual here, it wasn’t the players who assembled MLB’s worst bullpen, who replaced Matt Chapman and Brandon Belt with Isiah-Kiner Falefa and Justin Turner last offseason, or who blocked rookie Spencer Horwitz early in the season with an ineffective Daniel Vogelbach.

It wasn’t the players who weren’t able to come to contract extensions with Danny Jansen, Guerrero or Bo Bichette, and, it wasn’t the veterans who built one of MLB’s worst farm systems, with multiple years of poor scouting, drafting and player development. The lack of MLB-ready pitching depth isn’t on Bassitt.

Bassitt and Springer aren’t to blame for a bullpen that has a 4.78 ERA (28th in MLB) and has served up a league leading 85 home runs this season. The relievers’ 4.94 FIP ranks 30th in MLB, 0.3 runs higher than next worst team; their -2.8 fWAR is also dead last in MLB and almost 3 wins LESS than next worst team.

That’s been a long-standing roster construction problem: Blue Jays relievers have a combined fWAR of 5.6 since the 2021 season, which is the third-worst mark in MLB and a full 21 less Wins Above Replacement players than Dodgers relievers have combined for since then. That’s 5 more wins per season just from LA’s bullpen.

Sure, Jordan Romano’s injury and ineffectiveness from veterans Tim Mayza, Erik Swanson and Trevor Richards didn’t help, but as Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith wrote recently, “Injuries, underperformance & lack of organizational pitching have all contributed. A significant problem.” He went on to say, “[The Blue Jays] need better pitchers… their recent [waiver] claims haven't asserted themselves [and the] farm system doesn't have clear answers so trades [and free agent spending will be required].”

Chapman and Belt combined for a 6.4 bWAR last season with Toronto, a full 3+ more wins than the 3.0 bWAR that IKF, Turner and Vogelbach contributed this year. And the power outage we’ve seen since the Blue Jays had the third-most home runs in MLB combined over the 2021 and 2022 seasons continues: the Blue Jays only have 150 round-trippers this year, which ranks 25th.

Are the players solely to blame for the three less Wins Above Replacement than the next worst team thanks to a train wreck of a bullpen? Are the players to blame for the three wins less than replacement players from the offseason free agent signings by Atkins to replace Chapman and Belt? That’s six wins, and the difference between a 78-72 record and the current 72-78 record.

Surely there is lots of blame to go around, and fans should be booing the veteran players for their underperformance with Bassitt’s approval. But the front office owns this roster construction with its lack of power, as well as the ongoing multi-year bullpen woes. The manager owns the record on the field.

It’s great to see veteran leaders taking responsibility for the underperformance. But it also comes in stark contrast to a front office that has appeared unwilling to accept much blame, if any at all. And that’s a problem as the franchise goes into their most important offseason in the current competitive window.