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

As former Toronto Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said last week in an interview on Sportsnet FAN590 on whether or not to add players for a potential playoff run: “Run differential is probably the sole driver; it’s huge, telling you where you are, and where you should be. The 2015 Blue Jays were destroying everyone on run differential, same with the 2021 Atlanta Braves. If you’re minus on run differential, it’s not good… that’s probably the No. 1 thing I look at.”

Sometime soon, the brain trust that runs the baseball operations side in Toronto’s front office will have to make a decision on whether to be buyers or sellers at the July 30 trade deadline. If they also look at run differential as a metric to help guide that decision, they'll know that over one-third of the way through the season, the 2024 edition of the Toronto Blue Jays have a run differential of -34, only better than the White Sox, Angels, Athletics and Rays in the American League.

Sure, they’re only 5.0 games back of the final Wild Card spot in the standings. The 2015 Blue Jays team that came oh-so-close in the ALCS that year stood at 53-51 as of the July 31 trade deadline, just one game back in the Wild Card standings; but they also had a run differential of +104 at the time, which as Anthopoulos noted, helped in making the decision to go “all in” on trades for David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Revere, LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe.

Toronto was six games back of the Yankees in the AL East at that 2015 trade deadline. New York had a run differential of +57, while the second place Orioles were +48. But after tightening up the middle infield defence with Tulo and left field with Revere, that Blue Jays team would go on to win the AL East and suffer a heartbreaking 4-2 series loss to Kansas City in the ALCS.

As Anthopoulos noted, the 2021 Atlanta Braves also had the best run differential in the NL East at the 2021 trade deadline at +49. Even though they were five games back of the Mets and eight games back in the Wild Card standings at the trade deadline, he would trade for Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario and Adam Duvall by July 30 that year. The rest, as they say, is history as Atlanta went on to win the World Series, with Rosario winning NLCS MVP honours and Soler WS MVP.

So as we approach the 2024 trade deadline, Toronto’s -34 run differential is instructive. Teams like the Mets (-24) and White Sox (-120) are already rumoured to be sellers. A number of Blue Jays have value for deadline trades this year, including pending free agents Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi Garcia, Danny Jansen, Kevin Kiermaier, Justin Turner and Trevor Richards.

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.