Blue Jays gamers fume at entrance workplace in aftermath of embarrassing playoff exit

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In his days as Maple Leafs common supervisor, it used to drive Brian Burke loopy when followers and media would pile on the entrance workplace and coach when issues would go awry.

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What concerning the gamers, Burke would grouse?

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Effectively, typically one shoe suits all and, within the case of the Blue Jays, the savagery aimed toward common supervisor Ross Atkins and group president Mark Shapiro is as pointed because it has ever been.

That narrative goes with the territory, in fact, and most of it’s justified. However when the inmates begin driving the commentary, the criticisms begin to bend in direction of disaster.

That’s exactly what occurred at Goal Discipline within the aftermath of one of many worst playoff exits by a Toronto skilled sports activities group — which is saying one thing.

A number of gamers made their displeasure clear within the post-game wake that, in baseball, serves as locker cleanup.

The frustration was punctuated by thinly veiled criticism of a entrance workplace that has change into more and more tough to embrace.

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“We obtained beat up two years in a row within the playoffs,” Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette advised reporters in Minneapolis, selecting his phrases rigorously however clearly intent on making some extent. “I feel there’s a lot or reflection wanted … from gamers, however from the group from the highest down. All people must mirror to see what we will do higher.”

I feel we all know the place Bichette was going right here with “all people.”

There was a lot extra of that discourse to go round. Whit Merrifield mentioned he “hated” the decision to finish a superb outing by starter Jose Berrios within the fourth inning, solely to see it blow up within the Jays face as his bizarrely chosen successor, Yusei Kikuchi, allowed a pair of runs.

Vlad Guerrero Jr. mentioned he was stunned, although he was in no place to be casting stones.

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Supervisor John Schneider was pressured to symbolize the group in a post-game press convention and defend the analytical name, one thing he did solely half-heartedly.

And on it went.

Warmth-of-the-moment stuff, to make sure, and let it’s recognized that to various levels every of these gamers had been a part of a group that scored only one run in 18 innings of playoff baseball.

Additionally, it needs to be acknowledged that analytics aren’t a flat-out curse. Data is a crucial instrument — how it’s employed is the difficulty.

In order we abruptly start an low season that little doubt will likely be punctuated with extra guarantees of massive issues forward, let’s mirror on the genius technique concocted after final 12 months’s model of the two-game playoff sweep.

In his knowledge, Atkins determined sacrificing offence to bolster the pitching workers could be the golden technique to stay as much as the group’s hole ‘Subsequent Stage’ hashtag.

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How did that doomed little bit of genius work out? It failed spectacularly for a group that by no means had a real cleanup hitter, couldn’t carry out adequately with runners in scoring place and was embarrassingly inept within the post-season.

By any measure — even entering into the playoffs with 89 wins — these haven’t been a banner 12 months for Atkins, whose management has been questioned inside his personal dugout and past.

His dealing with of the Anthony Bass affair was each weird, elusive and didn’t go unnoticed by his group. The ensuing distraction created mistrust from multiple nook within the clubhouse — as multiple particular person shared with us.

Atkins’ evasiveness in being up entrance about what was occurring with Alek Manoah was symptomatic of the paranoia that marks the management model of this entrance workplace. The shortcoming to ship even essentially the most routine of updates is mind-boggling.

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The Jays entrance workplace is getting a fame, one cemented on a big stage on Wednesday evening, and you may guess the baseball world took discover.

How will probably be seen by future free brokers stays to be seen and cash in the end talks, even when it usually requires a premium to get gamers to come back north of the border. The Jays are removed from the one entrance workplace to be enslaved be analytics, however there received’t be a beginning pitcher within the main leagues not feeling for Berrios in the present day.

Zooming out, we’re now left to ponder what Edward Rogers — the deep-pocketed enabler of all issues Blue Jays via his position as Rogers CEO — does about it.

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Does Rogers (the person, not the corporate) really feel duped at shopping for into the front-office pitch and shelling out a franchise-record payroll?

Is he in any respect anxious about how a certainly jilted fan base will react to the most recent on-field meekness? With the largest part of stadium renovations in a position to begin any day now, the sustained pitch to promote tickets at in inflated worth will change into nauseating. And this from a fan base that contributed to attendance topping three million this season for the primary time since 2017.

You possibly can idiot a number of the folks a number of the time, however …

The anger is contemporary however the actuality is evident: A flawed roster put collectively by a flawed entrance workplace contributed to a different feeble first-round exit.

The gamers understand it. The followers understand it. And now what’s the entrance workplace — and maybe the person who indicators the cheques to allow it — going to do about it?

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