In the midst of a season that was an absolute disappointment for Blue Jays fans, with the club slipping to last place in the AL East and trading away players at the trade deadline, club president and CEO Mark Shapiro spoke with reporters, including Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith and MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson, about the club’s plans for 2025 and beyond.
Shapiro didn’t mince words when describing the organization’s failures this season, acknowledging that the team’s performance this year represented the “biggest deviation from expectations” he has seen during his tenure at the helm of the club, which began in August 2015. Despite calling this season the “biggest disappointment” of his time in Toronto, however, Shapiro seemed uninclined to consider parting ways with GM Ross Atkins. While he prefaced his comments by not commenting on the employment status of his staff during the current season, he also made a general case for continuity within the organization:
“I firmly believe in stability and continuity. These are the competitive advantages in professional sport,” Shapiro said, as relayed by Matheson. “Reacting and changing does not necessarily mean improvement. We need to get better. We need to get better. Stability, continuity and adjustments are what I’m focusing on right now.”
Parting ways with Atkins, who was the club’s GM for each of Shapiro’s nine seasons at the helm in Toronto, would certainly be seen as a departure from that message of continuity and stability. The Jays have had some success with the decision-making duo of Shapiro and Atkins, as they made the playoffs in four of their nine seasons with the club. However, the team only advanced past the Wild Card round of the postseason once, in 2016, during their first season with the club.
Since then, the Blue Jays have built a young core around stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And Bo Bichette before this group was supplemented by veterans, such as George Springer And Kevin Gausman. As solid as that strategy may have looked on paper, the results on the field left much to be desired for a club that has failed to win the competitive AL East once since the 2019 season in which Guerrero made his MLB debut, going 423-338 in the process. Now, both Guerrero and Bichette are entering their final season of arbitration eligibility, and the possibility of losing one or both in free agency next winter is a distinct possibility.
Of course, it’s possible Toronto could extend the contract of one or both of its stars before they leave town. Shapiro declined to comment on the possibility of extending the contracts of specific players, but acknowledged that it’s “certainly easier” to build a championship-caliber roster when you have players of the caliber of Guerrero and Bichette on the team “for a longer period of time.”
However, a contract extension for either player would certainly require a significant financial investment. Guerrero, in particular, has re-established himself as one of the league’s top offensive talents this year with a fantastic slash line of .317/.391/.537, 29 doubles and 22 home runs in 112 games this year. With the power-hitting superstar set to become a free agent next year after his 26th season, he seems to be in a good position to rake in a sizable payday as a free agent.
On the other hand, Bichette has struggled with injuries and poor performances this year, as he was limited to 79 games while hitting just .223/.276/.321. That being said, he’ll be finishing his 27th season when he’s expected to become a free agent next winter, and that combination of youth, a strong offensive record (he was a 127 wRC+ hitter entering the 2024 season), and his ability to play a top-notch 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 level in 2025.
Fortunately, the club expects to have plenty of salary cap space this winter, allowing it to try to sign the pair long-term while it reshuffles the rest of the roster. The club’s final salaries are expected to be just over $218 million (per RosterResource), with estimated salaries for luxury tax purposes just over $241 million. That’s just over $4 million over the first Competitive Balance Tax threshold, though it should be noted that publicly available salary estimates are just that. For his part, Shapiro indicated (per Matheson) that the Jays currently expect to stay under that $237 million threshold, but acknowledged that the situation is “fluid.”
Regardless of where the club lands this year in terms of the final luxury tax calculation, a lot of money will be coming off the books this winter. RosterResource says they have committed just over $124 million for 2025, and while arbitration increases for players like Guerrero and Daulton Varsho That number could increase significantly — the Jays’ 2024 arbitrage class cost the club just over $44 million — but even then the club would have a payroll in the $170 million range, giving it about $50 million to spend this winter if it reaches this year’s payroll in 2025. Shapiro was vague, however, about Toronto’s exact plans for next year’s payroll. While he said he doesn’t expect a “large-scale decline” in payroll, he also noted that the difficult season has affected the club on the business side.
Of course, long-term deals for Bichette and Guerrero wouldn’t necessarily impact the 2025 payroll, as Bichette already has a $17.5 million contract for next year, while Guerrero is already set to make a hefty salary for his final trip, according to arbitration. However, if the Jays are looking to keep one or both of their homegrown players long-term, it’s easy to see how that affected the club’s willingness to sign other top talent to long-term deals this winter. That could present a complicated puzzle for the club as it tries to get back into contention next year while balancing the obvious desire to keep Guerrero and Bichette long-term with the need to make significant improvements to the current roster.
