The Toronto Blue Jays are in a difficult position as they start the 2024 season. The franchise hasn’t won a postseason game since 2016, when it was defeated by the Minnesota Twins, a squad that former general manager Alex Anthopoulos constructed. The team is coming off a heartbreaking season-ending loss to them.
Since then, the team’s current front office, under by general manager Ross Atkins and president/CEO Mark Shapiro, has endured a difficult rebuilding phase, signed some of the biggest free agents in franchise history, and kept up its competitiveness in the AL East division. Fans are nervous going into a new season because there have been no wins in the playoffs.
The front office followed the most recent trend, which has seen Atkins and Co. bring a higher-tiered free agent north of the border every winter since 2020, and made no significant additions this winter in terms of free agents. The team’s roster from the previous season features numerous obvious voids in addition to the acquisitions made by the club, most notably the ones left by Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt, Whit Merrifield, and Hyun Jin Ryu.
In hindsight, the Blue Jays brought back Kevin Kiermaier and Chad Green with new contracts, and added Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Justin Turner, and Yariel Rodriguez. These moves were helpful defensively, but adding Turner as the lone upgrade to a lineup that finished in the middle of the pack offensively in many categories last year seemed mediocre at best, especially in light of all the free agents the Jays were reportedly interested in this past winter.
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