Red Sox fire chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, do the Blue Jays follow suit with Ross Atkins?

On Thursday, the Boston Red Sox ended the tenure of Chaim Bloom as chief baseball officer for the ballclub. Bloom was hired back in October 2019, succeeding Dave Dombrowski in the position. However, after mediocre seasons by the Red Sox in three of the past four years, they finally decided it was time to move on from him.

With that taking place in the heart of the stretch run and seeing how Toronto Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins has run the team and their results so far, should they follow suit? To be honest, has it really gotten that bad that the ballclub should try a different leader at the helm?

Looking back, ever since Atkins joined the Blue Jays as general manager back in December of 2015, we have certainly seen all the ups and downs of the ballclub throughout his tenure. They went from being a contending team back in 2016, right into a rebuilding stretch spanning 2017-2019, and then back to contending status since 2000.

During that time, Atkins did help the Jays get big time free agents such as George Springer and Kevin Gausman, along with smart trades in obtaining the likes of Robbie Ray, Matt Chapman and others. In addition, he was instrumental in adding some top prospects such as Bo Bichette, Ricky Tiedemann, and Orelvis Martinez through the MLB Draft and international signings.

However, has he done enough in recent years to make the current team competitive? In the past couple of years, many of the Jays’ faithful have gotten frustrated with the team’s inability to perform up to expectations. In particular, as prolific as their offence may be, something just seems to be lacking, whether it was the heart, the fight, the intensity, or even the desire to win.

Atkins had tried to make the appropriate adjustments to the roster this past year, changing the group from an offensively-focused one into a more defensively-minded group, while removing the playful fun and celebrations taking place within the clubhouse at the same time. That apparently has both worked somewhat and backfired somewhat at the same time, as the team is now a lot more competent defensively, but has often struggled to produce runs offensively when it mattered most.

More importantly, Atkins has failed to help address the teams’ needs in the past couple trade deadlines. The Jays needed pitching the most last season, but ended up just getting Whit Merrifield and Mitch White as their key acquisitions. The Jays severely needed a power, clutch bat and starting pitching depth this season, but would end up with just mainly relief help and a positional fill-in that totally went up in smoke.

Consequently, what it may come down to now is how the Jays perform in these final 15 games of the season. If they manage to do what seems now improbable, yet still possible, in making the playoffs, Atkins will probably live for another day in the organization. However, if the Jays continue their free fall and end up missing the postseason, the team will certainly be due for a huge shakeup in the offseason to get them going again.

In doing so, things would probably start from higher up, as Atkins will most likely be in the hot seat, along with possibly even manager John Schneider as well. Their inability to get the team to the next level for the past few seasons would be their main undoing. So ultimately Atkin's fate will be in the hands of the team’s upcoming performance. Hopefully, the Jays can give us some hope and at the same time, give their GM one as well.