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Originally Posted by KC_Connection (Post 17489421) Neither one is likely to win a playoff series, but only one is actually likely to play a playoff series. I think you know which one that is.

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Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro Discusses Team’s Future In the midst of a season that has been an unmitigated disappointment for Blue Jays fans where the club has fallen to last place in the AL East and sold off pieces at the trade deadline, club president and CEO Mark Shapiro spoke to reporters including Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson about the club’s plans for 2025 and beyond. Shapiro did not mince words while describing the organization’s failures this season and acknowledged that the team’s performance this year has represented the “biggest disconnect from expectations” he’s overseen during his tenure at the helm of the club, which began in August of 2015. Even as he called this season the “biggest disappointment” of his time in Toronto, however, Shapiro seemed disinclined to entertain parting ways with GM Ross Atkins. While he prefaced his comments by emphasizing that he does not comment on his employees’ job statuses while the season is ongoing, he also made a general case for continuity within the organization: “I’m a huge believer in stability and continuity and those are competitive advantages in professional sports,” Shapiro said, as relayed by Matheson. “Reacting and changing don’t necessarily mean improvement. We need to be better. We have to be better. Stability, continuity and making adjustments are where I’m focused right now.” Parting ways with Atkins, who has been the club’s GM in each of Shapiro’s nine seasons at the helm in Toronto, would certainly be considered a move away from that message of continuity and stability. The Jays have seen some success with the duo of Shapiro and Atkins making decisions, as they’ve made the playoffs in four of their nine seasons with the club. The team only advanced beyond the Wild Card round of the postseason once, however, and that came all the way back in 2016 during their first season with the club. Since then, the Blue Jays rebuilt and constructed a young core centered around stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette before supplementing that group with veterans such as George Springer and Kevin Gausman. Solid as that strategy may have seemed on paper, however, the results on the field have left something to be desired for a club that has failed to win the competitive AL East even once while going 423-338 since the 2019 season where Guerrero made his MLB debut. Now, both Guerrero and Bichette are entering their final seasons of arbitration eligibility, and the possibility of losing one or both in free agency next winter looms as a distinct possibility. Of course, it’s possible that Toronto could ink one or both of their stars to an extension before they leave town. Shapiro declined to comment on the possibility of extending specific players, though he did acknowledge that it’s “certainly easier” to build a championship-level roster with players of Guerrero’s and Bichette’s caliber in the fold “for extended periods of time.” An extension for either player would surely require a considerable financial investment, however. Guerrero in particular has re-established himself as one of the league’s premiere offensive talents this year with a fantastic .317/.391/.537 slash line, 29 doubles, and 22 homers in 112 games this year. With the slugging superstar set to hit free agency following his age-26 season next year, he appears to be in good position to cash in on a significant payday in free agency. On the other hand, Bichette has dealt with injuries and under-performance this year as he’s been limited to 79 games while slashing just .223/.276/.321. With that being said, he’ll be coming off his age-27 campaign when he’s expected to reach free agency next winter and that combination of youth, a strong offensive track record (he was a career 127 wRC+ hitter entering the 2024 campaign), and his ability to play a premium defensive position should allow the shortstop to do quite well in free agency as long as he rebounds to something closer to his previous career levels in 2025. Fortunately, the club figures to have plenty of payroll flexibility this winter with which they can look to sign the pair long-term while retooling the rest of the roster. The club’s final payroll is expected to land (per RosterResource) just over $218MM, with their estimated payroll for luxury tax purposes sitting just over $241MM. That’s a little more than $4MM over the first threshold of the competitive balance tax, although it’s worth noting that publicly available payroll estimates are just that. For his part, Shapiro suggested (per Matheson) that the Jays currently expect to come in under that $237MM threshold though he did acknowledge that the situation is “fluid.” Regardless of where the club ends up in terms of final luxury tax calculations this year, they have plenty of money coming off the books this winter. RosterResource indicates that they have just over $124MM committed for 2025, and while arbitration raises for players like Guerrero and Daulton Varsho figure to push that figure up significantly—the Jays’ 2024 arb class cost the club just over $44MM—even that would leave the club with a payroll in the $170MM range, giving them around $50MM to work with this winter if they match this year’s payroll in 2025. Shapiro was vague about Toronto’s exact plans in terms of payroll for next year, however. While he did say that he doesn’t expect there to be a “large-scale pullback” in payroll, he also notes that the difficult season has impacted the club on the business side of things. Of course, long-term deals for Bichette and Guerrero wouldn’t necessarily impact 2025’s payroll given that Bichette is already under contract for $17.5MM next year while Guerrero is already expected to command a hefty salary in his final trip through arbitration. That being said, if the Jays have their sights set on retaining either or both of their homegrown duo long-term, it’s easy to see that impacting the club’s willingness to sign other top-of-the-market talents to long-term deals this winter. That could create a complicated puzzle for the club as they attempt to return to contention next year while balancing an apparent desire to retain Guerrero and Bichette long-term against the need for significant upgrades to the current roster.