If the Blue Jays sell at the deadline, James Click needs full autonomy over baseball operations

Blue Jays dilemma

But for Ed Rogers and team ownership, the dilemma also includes whether or not to allow the current front office baseball operations leadership under general manager Ross Atkins, now in his ninth season as GM, to conduct that sell-off. Done effectively, a good trade deadline could help the team retool quickly if the Blue Jays are able to acquire good, young MLB-ready talent for those players above.

Remember the Yankees acquired the Cubs top prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 24 ranked prospect Gleyber Torres at the 2016 deadline as part of a prospect-laden deal for closer Aroldis Chapman. After that 2016 retooling, the 2017 Yankees would re-sign Chapman as a free agent and go on to finish 2nd in the AL East, and bow out to the eventual 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros in the ALCS that year. Torres was an All-Star and finished third in the AL Rookie of the Year vote in 2018.

Or, it could be handled badly, like when 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson was sold for a player to be named later, J.A. Happ only returned Brandon Drury and Billy McKinney, and 1.5 years of control of Marcus Stroman only netted Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods-Richardson for Toronto. Value was destroyed, and the lack of good, MLB-ready talent coming back in those deals set back the Blue Jays rebuild in 2018-2019.

That bungled 2018-2019 rebuild was handled by none other than Ross Atkins. Current team president Mark Shapiro was also involved in a collaborative effort on baseball operations in those years. As Anthopoulos alluded to after he turned down Ed Rogers’ personal contract extension offer to stay on as GM after the 2015 season, "… you can have the greatest organization in the world, if you’re working for people you don’t enjoy, you don’t believe in them, they don’t believe in you, what environment is that going to be? How rewarding is that going to be?"

An appeal to Ed Rogers and the Blue Jays ownership

So here is an open appeal to Ed Rogers and the Blue Jays ownership: please, for the sake of the future of this franchise and the quality of the product on the field, do not let Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins lead your baseball operations team as they retool the roster at the trade deadline this year.

Those decisions should be handled by GM-in-waiting and current Vice President of Baseball Strategy James Click, who was general manager of the 2022 World Series champion Houston Astros. Give him full autonomy over baseball-related decisions, and limit Shapiro’s influence to the marketing and business side only.

Click was the GM who promoted 2022 World Series MVP Jeremy Peña as a rookie to replace shortstop Carlos Correa. He re-signed 2022 AL Cy Young award winner Justin Verlander, who was coming off another Tommy John surgery ahead of that season, and added Trey Mancini and Christian Vázquez, as well as reliever Will Smith in trade deadline deals that year.

That team went 106-56 under manager Dusty Baker, and won the World Series 4-2 over the Phillies. The Astros went 230-154 (.599) with Click as their GM from 2020-2022 after Jeff Luhnow was suspended and then fired for his role in the Astros’ electronic sign stealing scandal.

Toronto hired the wrong guys from Cleveland after 2015

Shapiro relinquished his position as GM of the Cleveland Guardians after the 2010 season to become their team president, but he focused on the Progressive Field renovations, while the baseball operations decisions were handled by his replacement Chris Antonetti and assistant GMs Mike Chernoff, Derek Falvey and David Stearns.

While Ross Atkins served as farm director for Cleveland from 2009-2014, it was the baseball operations brain trust of Antonetti, Chernoff, Falvey and Stearns who built the core of the Cleveland teams that would finish 1st in the AL Central four times and go to the postseason six times in the following twelve seasons after taking over from Shapiro.

Unsurprisingly, Antonetti is now president of baseball operations and Chernoff is GM of the 1st place Guardians, Falvey is now the executive vice president and chief baseball officer for the Minnesota Twins who are currently in a wild card slot in the standings, while Stearns is in his first season as president of baseball operations for the New York Mets after a successful stint with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Two months that will be crucial for the next competitive window

So while it may be too late to right the ship of the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays, the decisions made at the trade deadline this year and beyond — as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Chris Bassitt and most of the back end of the bullpen can elect free agency after the 2025 season — will have long term implications for the competitive future of this franchise.

After nine seasons with Shapiro and Atkins collaborating on baseball-related decisions, the Blue Jays have seen their farm system ranked bottom third for three consecutive years, with very little MLB-ready talent apart from a few top prospects like Orelvis Martinez and Ricky Tiedemann. The roster is one of the five oldest in MLB, and the payroll has become bloated, with too much owed to older players in decline like George Springer, Justin Turner and Kevin Kiermaier, while younger, homegrown stars like Bichette, Jansen and Guerrero have not been extended.

The baseball operations decisions made in the next 12 months will set the course for the Blue Jays’ next competitive window. Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are not the right baseball people to make those decisions on trades, free agent signings, contract extensions, draft picks and player development. Former World Series champion GM James Click needs to be given autonomy over baseball operations decisions, and quickly.