Who gets fired if the Blue Jays disappoint this season once again?

With 37 games to go in their 2023 season, the Toronto Blue Jays are currently sitting out of a playoff spot in the American League.

For a team that came into the year with expectations of winning the World Series, there’s still plenty of runway to finish the season strong.

Toronto is merely a game back of the Seattle Mariners for the American League final playoff spot, with FanGraphs giving Toronto a 64.3% chance of qualifying for the postseason.

But all season long, there’s been a lingering sense of frustration throughout the fan base, wondering why exactly the team isn’t performing just a little bit better.

For a team that’s been pitched as on the cusp of greatness for several seasons running, Toronto is about where they were last season, sitting with a 69-56 record through 125 games.

At 125 games last year, Toronto piled up a record of 68-57, finishing with 92 wins. In 2021, they were 66-59 at the same mark and finished with 91 wins.

Currently, they’re on pace for 89, but hoping to recreate a bit of the late-season push they’ve been known for over the last few campaigns.

The problem is Toronto’s seasons have had a recent history of always ending in heartbreak one way or another, despite how strong their August and September pushes may be.

An image shared earlier this month from popular baseball content creator Jay Cuda expresses a simple but accurate portrayal of the Blue Jays’ plight since their last postseason win in 2016, with Toronto one of just nine teams in baseball without a playoff victory over the last six years.

have u won a postseason game since 2017 pic.twitter.com/hIWKRfeUTD

— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) August 16, 2023

It’s a simple drawing likely done in MS Paint, but it’s a pretty good representation of why the Blue Jays remain one of the league’s most frustrating teams, having gone 1-8 in the MLB playoffs since the start of the 2016 ALCS.

Facing a three-game set against the division-leading Baltimore Orioles this week, Toronto remains a team fighting for their playoff lives.

But more so than just the players looking to keep their hopes alive, it might also be time to think about the job security of the team’s primary decision-makers.

It’s something the Blue Jays front office had to be thinking about this past offseason, when they revamped the team’s lineup.

But for the three big names —general manager Ross Atkins, president Mark Shapiro, and manager John Schneider — the pressure has to be on for their team to perform over the final stretch of the season, as it could spell the end for any (or all) of their jobs.

Let’s take a look at the case for each man getting the axe this offseason, should the year end in disappointment once again:

Could the Blue Jays fire Ross Atkins?

In 2021, Atkins signed a contract extension through 2026 to remain in charge of the Blue Jays, after initially coming on board prior to the 2016 season.

Atkins was active this offseason, sending away Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno in favour of Erik Swanson and Daulton Varsho, while also adding Kevin Kiermaier and Brandon Belt in free agency. It was quite the flurry of moves, with a clear shift in the team’s identity to prioritize a stronger fielding team in favour of hitting talent.

In some ways, it’s worked.

Varsho leads the MLB with 20 defensive runs saved this season, while Kiermaier is 11th in the league with 13. But at the plate, it’s been a different story for Varsho, who is putting up an OPS+ of 84, the lowest on the team and the 10th-worst mark in the majors. If there’s a trade that defines Atkins’ tenure so far, it might be the Varsho swap, with a stark contrast between the highs and lows of the first-year Jay.

One of Atkins’ main additions at the trade deadline — infielder Paul DeJong — was designated for assignment over the weekend, with the team mostly sticking to their guns without making major in-season changes.

If the Jays fail to have a successful end of the season, it’s hard to point the fingers at anywhere but Atkins for his roster construction — and relative lack of action at the trade deadline.

What about firing Mark Shapiro?

Since coming on board in October 2015, team president Mark Shapiro has had an immeasurable impact on the state of the Toronto Blue Jays that will last longer than his tenure.

Much of his tenure has involved overseeing literal renovation projects at three different venues: Toronto’s spring training complex in Dunedin, Florida, at Toronto’s temporary home in 2021 and 2022 in Buffalo at their AAA facility Sahlen Field, and most recently, a massive renovation at the Rogers Centre itself that will continue this winter.

But for all the off-field changes, Shapiro’s also overseen the growth of a generation of homegrown prospects, headlined by Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., each of whom has become two-and three-time All-Stars, respectively.

For an ownership group in Rogers that seems often adverse to change, firing Shapiro midway through a massive $300 million renovation might be quite the hassle. It might be strange to think that a stadium could save someone’s job, but it’s hard to see the president getting the boot this winter, no matter how the season ends.

Or how about John Schneider?

For all his faults that critics of John Schneider like to pull out, the second-year manager seems to be doing the job about as well as anyone else could be doing.

Schneider’s career-winning percentage of .578 is third among active managers, even if he’s still only halfway through year number two on the job. If there’s a scapegoat firing to be made this summer, Schneider would be an odd one.

Perhaps a shuffle of the team’s support staff would make a little more sense than axing the man at the top, with hitting strategist Dave Hudgens coming under fire in recent weeks for the team’s .249 batting average with runners in scoring position, ranking 20th in the major leagues.

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