Blue Jays GM Atkins apologizes to fans for "unacceptable" season

To say the Toronto Blue Jays 2024 season has been a disappointment would be an understatement.

And to the man perhaps most directly responsible for the team’s lack of success, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins offered an apology following this year’s trade deadline.

“I’m disappointed that we’re here, it’s unacceptable that we’re here and I’m sorry to our fans for that,” said Atkins.

The Blue Jays currently sit 50-58, last in the American League East and some 14 games off the division lead and nine points out of the final wildcard spot before August.

The Jays made three moves on Tuesday, trading away Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Kevin Kiermaier, and Trevor Richards to close out a busy couple of weeks for the team.

“We did not want to be at this point where we are, trading players away,” Atkins added. “It’s a disappointing time in my career and where we are as an organization, but we switched to getting better and switched to focusing on reshaping the group that is here, an already very talented group that we want to build around. We feel that we’ve done so, adding players who are close to the Major League or in the Major Leagues who can help us win more baseball games in the coming years.”

Toronto also traded away Justin Turner, Yimi Garcia, Nate Pearson, Danny Jansen, and Yusei Kikuchi in the past month. While losing close friends via trade is one of the toughest parts of pro sports, the face of Toronto’s franchise seemed to be taking Turner’s departure a little hard.

“I learned everything [from him],” Vladimir Guerrero said of Turner in an interview with Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae earlier this week. “He gave me a lot of advice. He always told me, ‘It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.’ One other thing is that he was always positive with me and everybody in the cage. I feel very happy that I got to play with him.”

The Jays head into the final matchup of a four-game series against the Baltimore Orioles this afternoon, with first pitch set for 12:35 pm ET/9:35 am PT. They then travel to New York to take on the Yankees for a three-game set, before returning back to Toronto to take on the Orioles beginning Tuesday, August 6.

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