Blue Jays' general manager Ross Atkins, right, seated next to Kazuma Okamoto after his January signing, saw the team he constructed put together an incredible run to Game 7 of last year's World Series. On Monday he was extended through 2031.Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press
Pat Gillick was the Blue Jays’ second general manager. Considering the era, he was precociously young (40) and innovative.
This was long before expansion teams expected to be given a decent squad in return for their onboarding fee. Those early Jays teams were a mess – a combo of no-hopers, retreads and greenhorns.
Gillick turned the Jays from the worst team in baseball to viable franchise to perma-contender in less than a single baseballing generation. During an 11-year stretch, Gillick’s Jays never won less than 86 games. They won the AL East five times. They won two World Series.
Somewhere out there, there’s probably a greater example of one executive transforming a sports club from something abysmal into something amazing, but it doesn’t leap to mind.
If you were a kid when he was here, Gillick was a greater fixture in Toronto than any mayor. His time in charge lasted 17 seasons. By the end, even his admirers agreed it was time that he move on.
Toronto Blue Jays extend general manager Ross Atkins, manager John Schneider
On Monday, the Jays started giving out rewards for last year’s run to within five minutes of glory.
Manager John Schneider was extended. Good for him. Most modern baseball managers would be better suited working out of the comms department than baseball ops, and Schneider does that job well. He can almost convince you that Trey Yesavage isn’t pitching because they don’t want him to, rather than because his arm is in the process of falling off.
The Jays didn’t exactly roll a Brinks truck up to Schneider’s house. He gets a two-year extension beyond the year he had left. It’s the sort of deal that delivers a financial buffer, but not job security. If the Jays are to pooch it this year, you already know who’s being blamed.
The more notable extension hit my inbox one minute before Schneider’s – GM Ross Atkins.
Atkins came to terms with Jays' star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in April of last year, setting his team's turnaround season in motion.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
No Jays employee has had a better calendar year than Atkins. At this same point just before the 2025 season began, he was the guy most likely to. Most likely to fumble another free agent hunt. Most likely to say something memeable about it afterward. Most likely to be fired.
Unlike his boss, Atkins doesn’t do project management for Rogers Inc.’s construction division. As a result, his value as fish bait had outstripped his significance as captain of the ship.
Then everything broke right. Atkins caved to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s public demands and things started trending upward. Even the clumsy, season-long nonnegotiation with Bo Bichette went Atkins’s way (almost entirely because, unlike Guerrero, Bichette wouldn’t talk about it in front of microphones).
Goosed by their new reputation as the only team in baseball that can stand and slug with Shohei Ohtani, the Jays were a chad magnet this off-season. All Atkins had to do was slide cheques across the table.
From this vantage, the Jays haven’t been in as good a spot since just before Gillick left. It’s common sense that the crew who got you this far should be allowed to see if they can push it further.
One thing about it does strike you as off. Atkins’s new deal runs five years. Were they afraid he would leave or something? To go where? To whom?
The extension will take Atkins to the end of the 2031 season. At that point, he will have held the job for 16 years. That’s a Gillick-length tenure. Does it feel to you like that it’s come with Gillick-type accomplishments?
Nowhere close. Like, not even on the same map. This is not to say that it can’t still, but that it hasn’t. Extensions of this length for employees already this long serving are usually based on results, not potential.
This sets up two scenarios going forward.
One is lethargy and regression. You’ve given the city and the fan base its thrill. Time to settle back into vague promises and modest expectations. Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro are proven masters at this tactic. That’s how they lasted 10 years before October’s out-of-nowhere surge to the top.
(From left to right) George Springer, manager John Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. should feel the pressure to get back to the World Series and beat the L.A. Dodgers, Cathal Kelly writes.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
That run earned everyone on the team a lot of goodwill. But it cannot mean that everyone gets to coast for a season or three before they feel the pressure to get serious again.
That brings us to the second way things can go – success piled on top of success. That should be the bare minimum of expectation.
Can the Jays win the AL East again? Yes. Should they? Absolutely. Anything less ought to be treated as a disaster.
Think of it this way – the Jays almost beat the Dodgers. So whatever L.A. does, Toronto should be capable of doing as well or better. How else are you going to beat them the next time?
You think the Dodgers are going into the year saying, ‘If everything breaks right for us, we might be able to win the division again. Fingers crossed.’
The Dodgers already know they are winning. It’s a certainty. If they don’t, it’s a problem. Maybe not a firing problem after two straight championships, but if it happened two years in a row, then absolutely.
The Dodger Way – from this point on, that should be the Jays Way as well. It was when Gillick was in charge. After nearly a decade of dominance, he had one bad year in ’94, and then it was time to go.
By all means, give everyone who had a hand in putting on last year’s big party a parting gift.
But that means their rope gets shorter, not longer, and the expectations on them to deliver jump a level, not recede.
A great organization would think of it this way – you’ve just gotten a nice bonus rather than a guarantee of employment. The money’s yours either way. But if you want to keep your job, keep winning.