The Blue Jays have fired hitting coach Guillermo Martinez

In a clear shot across the bow ahead of a joint press conference with team President Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins on Wednesday morning, Scott Mitchell of TSN and others are citing industry sources saying that the Toronto Blue Jays have fired hitting coach Guillermo Martinez.

While that may not come as a shock to Blue Jays fans frustrated with the sputtering offensive output of this team over the past two seasons, the fact the Martinez was here for six seasons may surprise some in the industry.

As per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, “Martinez was hired as the club’s hitting coach ahead of the 2019 season, promoted after a year as the minor-league hitting co-ordinator during which he helped groom Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, among many others.”

That means he was here when the Blue Jays led MLB with 262 home runs and had the 3rd most runs scored in 2021 behind two MVP finalists and Silver Sluggers, Marcus Semien and Guerrero Jr., as well as repeat Silver Slugger winner Teoscar Hernández. Alejandro Kirk would go on to win a Silver Slugger award at catcher in 2022.

Bo Bichette led the American League with 195 hits in 2021, trailing only Trea Turner for the MLB lead. He led the AL in hits again in 2022, and trailed only Turner and Freddie Freeman overall. The Blue Jays also slugged 200 home runs to rank 7th in baseball in 2022, while scoring the 4th most runs overall.

But the wheels started coming off last season, when they had a flawed and mediocre offence: in 2023 they ranked 16th in baseball on home runs and RBI, 14th on runs scored, and 11th on OPS. Their regular season run differential of +75 was the lowest of any AL postseason team, only better than Arizona of the 12 MLB playoff teams. 

This year, things went from bad to worse. In a year when Blue Jays fans were told that the front office and coaching staff would do a better job of sharing the analytics derived information with players, Martinez was part of a coaching staff that included offensive co-ordinator Don Mattingly, and assistant hitting coaches Hunter Mense and Matt Hague.

After last season’s premature playoff exit, Shapiro said, “There needs to be a higher level of transparency and communication with our players, in our preparation and game-planning process, which we’ll talk about, I’m sure, as we get into the decision and those areas.”

But that communication didn’t help the offence this season, which was dismal. The Blue Jays ranked 26th on home runs, 23rd on runs scored and RBI, and 17th on OPS. Only three qualified players had an above league average OPS: Guerrero, rookie Spencer Horwitz and Justin Turner, who was traded at the deadline.

The team’s 2024 run differential of -72 was the 4th worst mark in the AL and 7th worst in MLB overall. Fans have been frustrated by an inability to drive in runners in scoring position (RISP), with a 20th ranked OPS in those situations both in 2023 and 2024, plus a maddening 126 double plays grounded into this year, tied for the 4th most in baseball for the 2nd straight season after 129 GIDPs last year.

Some fans may point to the fact that Martinez worked closely with Guerrero, who had an MVP-calibre season and one of the best years of his career, slashing .323/.396/.544 for a .940 OPS with 30 homers and 103 RBI. He just missed out on reaching 200 hits.

And to be fair, since the 2019 season — including three trips to the AL Wild Card series — the Blue Jays posted a 445-431 (.508) record with Martinez as hitting coach, and slugged the 6th most home runs in MLB with the 8th most RBI, while scoring the 9th most runs.

They also posted the 6th highest weighted runs created plus (wRC+) of 106, or 6% better than the MLB average over that six year stretch. Those numbers will certainly keep Martinez employed in the game if he wants to keep coaching.

Others still may point to the joint press conference with Shapiro and Atkins scheduled for Wednesday morning, and think they needed a scapegoat to blame to take some of the glare off of their failures to construct an effective major league bullpen, surround Guerrero with more power hitting, or develop MLB-ready waves of talent from the farm system.

They’ve already fired five coaches from their minor league player development staff, with two others apparently deciding not to return next year. Other potential rumoured changes include the possibility of Mattingly moving into a front office role next year.