Ranking the 5 biggest culprits that deserve the most blame for Blue Jays’ awful start

The bullpen

The Jays’ bullpen surprisingly has been reeling since the start of the season. After ranking near the top third of the league in 2023, Toronto’s bullpen has fallen all the way down to near the bottom echelon this year with respect to the major pitching categories, including ERA, WHIP, wins, strikeouts and home runs allowed.

Other than the great work that has been put together by Yimi García, Chad Green and Trevor Richards, practically everyone else in the Jays’ relief corps have had their struggles at one point or another this season, with some being quite more extensive than others. In particular, the supposedly unbreakable pitching stalwart Jordan Romano is currently enduring his worst season of his career, sporting an abysmal 6.59 ERA and 1.46 WHIP with opposing batters hitting at a .286 clip off of him. To make matters worse, he is currently on the IL now with elbow inflammation. In addition, the usually dependable Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza and Genésis Cabrera from last season are all having an off-year at the same time in 2024. It had been so rough for Swanson that he was even recently optioned down to Triple-A Buffalo to get his game back on track.

But if we actually took a look at the statistics a little more carefully, it was not that the Jays were blowing a lot of their games, as they have recorded only 6 blown saves all season. Instead, it was more the fact that the bullpen was incapable of holding the opposition from tacking on add-on runs, thus making their leads insurmountable for the anemic Jays’ offense to come back from. As a result, the Jays have only registered 10 come-from-behind wins this season, ranking them third last in the league just ahead of the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox. 

Overall, the fact that the bullpen hasn’t been costing the Jays losses directly by blowing leads has helped limit the blame somewhat on them. But not giving the team better chances at winning by keeping the score close could still negatively impact the club in the long run.

Blame score: 3

Manager John Schneider 

When it comes to manager John Schneider, he has been infamously known to make the wrong calls and moves during the course of a game that would end in a Jays’ defeat. Of course, the most notable one in recent memory was the premature pulling of starter José Berríos during Game 2 of the AL Wild Card Series against the Minnesota Twins last year that paved the way for the Twins’ sweep of the Jays.

Now with close to 300 games as manager under his belt with the team, one has to admit that some of the strategies and decision-making by Schneider has been quite daring and perplexing. Unfortunately for the bulk of the time, they tended to backfire on the Jays.

However, for the 2024 season, he has been a lot more conservative on his moves to date as there haven’t been as much dramatic calls that he had made this year that the Jays’ faithful have extensively loathed him for. Moreover, he actually agreed to bring back the Home Run Jacket in the clubhouse recently. In doing so, the move seemed to have given the team somewhat of a spark as they have now gone 8-6 in their past 14 games since its resurrection.

As a result, as much as how recent news have speculated about the potential firing of Schneider due to the Jays’ struggles, he actually has been doing a solid job this season given the circumstances that almost two-thirds of his players have been underperforming. But to say Schneider had totally nothing to do with the Jays’ bad start is false because he has failed in at least one aspect, which was providing the proper motivation and adequate game plan to get the players in the right focus and winning mentality every day.

Blame score: 4

The hitters

Following the departures of legitimate run producers this offseason in Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt and Whit Merrifield, the Jays were relying heavily on the dynamic trio of George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette to step up this year to help make up for some of the lost offense. However, the worst possible scenario came to be when all three of them fell flat coming out of the gate.  Not only were they struggling to drive in runs, they were all uncharacteristically hitting way below their career averages by almost 80-100 points.

To make matters worse, other than Danny Jansen, almost every other Jays’ hitter have had their struggles at some point in time during 2024. For instance, Cavan Biggio has lost his magic from the latter half of last season and looks lost at the plate at times this year. Alejandro Kirk’s All-Star season from two years ago seems like a distant memory now as his hitting regression has continued into 2024. Daulton Varsho appeared to be putting together a strong bounce-back campaign with a blazing start, but has also recently fallen back down to earth despite still maintaining his home run power.

As for the newcomers to the team this season, let’s just say they haven’t been able to make the impact that was expected of them thus far other than Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who has been steady both offensively and defensively. The list could actually go on and on, but we will just stop at those few as it presents a clearer picture on how the Jays’ offense had been holding up. As a result, they have inadvertently put the burden on their pitchers to help carry the load in order to give the team the opportunity to win.

On the bright side, with a recent run in the soft part of their schedule the past couple of weeks, a few of the hitters have started to heat up. In particular, both Springer and Guerrero have turned things around and have been leading the Jays to some important victories. In addition, the team collectively have scored 5 or more runs in nine of their past 15 games. Therefore, the Blame Score on the hitters would have been closer to 8 near the start of the season, but has now been lowered with their recent surge.

Blame score: 5

The hitting coaches

With hitting coach Guillermo Martínez at the helm, he had once led the Jays’ offense to the upper echelon of the league at the turn of this decade. In doing so, the Jays never really had a problem with hitting and scoring runs until the past couple of seasons.

In 2023, the Jays’ offense had no issues as they ranked sixth in the league in hits with 1423 and eighth in batting average at .256. What they had trouble with was hitting with runners in scoring position and coming up clutch to cash in important runs at critical junctions in the game.

This season, on the other hand, every aspect of their hitting has hit another despicable level. The Jays as a team rank in the bottom third of the league in most of the major offensive categories, together with struggling once again with RISP, hitting just .227 in such situations. 

So what has happened to the dominant offensive force they once were just over a couple of years ago? After all, Martínez is still running the show. On top of that, he also has Hunter Mense and Matt Hague as his competent assistant hitting coaches in addition to having Don Mattingly as the offensive coordinator overseeing all the operations. Considering the amazing work that Hague has done with a plethora of the Jays’ top prospects, along with Mattingly being one of the most prolific hitters in the game during his time, you'd think they should be able to guide the Jays’ offense properly.

However, that has not been the case as we approach the one-third mark of the season. Have their hitting strategies and implemented plate approaches become obsolete and no longer effective? Or have the players been not responding and executing in the proper way? Regardless of what may be the case, they will need to come up with some concrete solutions soon before it’s too late. So to have hitting success, part of the onus is on the coach to provide the players with the right mentality, plate approach and proper swinging technique, and part of it comes from the player to take what they learned and implement it in game situations.

Blame score: 6

GM Ross Atkins

Perhaps the one that has played the most significant part in the Jays’ mediocre start to 2024 is the GM himself in Ross Atkins. As the head honcho of the Jays’ organization, it is his goal to help build a solid foundation for the team and put a legitimate winning product on the field. In addition, it is his duty to address any of the team’s deficiencies to ensure that they are rectified going into the new season.

When Atkins wanted to go big and pursue perhaps the biggest free agent in the history of MLB in Shohei Ohtani, he came up empty-handed as the Japanese sensation ultimately landed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Consequently, Atkins pivoted to other mid-tiered free agents to fill the roster. That rash move has resulted in the Jays paying for it dearly right now. Kiner-Falefa has been a decent addition, but the same can’t be said for some of the others. After strong starts to the season, both veteran Justin Turner and Cuban sensation Yariel Rodríguez have quickly fizzled out since, with Turner battling through a major slump and Rodríguez subsequently landing on the IL following a couple of subpar outings. On top of that, the re-signing of Kevin Kiermaier has been a disaster. Despite still maintaining solid defense in the field, this year’s version of Kiermaier has fallen off a cliff at the plate, hitting close to the Mendoza line with just one home run and 8 RBI in 42 games played.

Not only has some of the offseason moves by Atkins began to backfire, but moves that he didn’t make has also hindered the team as well. Likewise, with the departure of elite reliever Jordan Hicks, along with the likes of Adam Cimber and Jay Jackson, Atkins never considered bolstering the bullpen during the offseason at all. Instead, he settled with what the Jays already had and figured that the internal options they already had was sufficient to fill out the rest of the relief corps.

So as much as Atkins had worked to retool the Jays roster for 2024, it appears as though they are now even worse off than they were last season. The resulting step back by the team is in large part due to his failure to properly address the team’s main issues and needs. Therefore, he will have his work cut out for him if he wants to turn this team around in time.

Blame score: 9