Will Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro Ever Be as Well-liked as Masai Ujiri?

However…

Ujiri is an awfully high bar for Shapiro and Atkins to reach – it’s like asking if Lyle Overbay could ever be as beloved as Carlos Delgado in Blue Jays lore. But perhaps a more achievable bar is the afore-mentioned homegrown executive who’s currently in charge of the Atlanta Braves.

People forget just how willing many fans were to show Anthopoulous the door after 2014 – and five years of failing to reach expectations, while also being very adept at saying a whole lot at media conferences without really saying anything at all.

Those calls were only intensifying going into 2015 with a roster that had numerous rookies in key spots, a shortstop who could no longer field his position, and a parade of left fielders unable to catch the ball after Michael Saunders got injured during Spring Training. The entire AA narrative changed after he acquired Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, and the team went on its cartoonish run.

And if the Blue Jays somehow go on to achieve something similar in the next year or two, fans will have no problem forgetting the follies of the first decade of Shapatkins.