NEW YORK — This is what it looks like when a plan comes together, and it starts at the top.
The Blue Jays are off to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2016, finally shaking off all the failed attempts to launch. The rebuild coming out of those ‘15 and ‘16 runs hasn’t been linear and hasn’t always been easy, but we’re finally seeing the roster — and style of baseball — that the Blue Jays’ front office has been chasing.
It takes trial and error. It takes good timing. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t take a little luck, too, but finally, the stars have aligned for a season where it’s felt like everything has gone right. What a breath of fresh air after 2024, the 74-win season that never felt like it was going anywhere. This turnaround wasn’t obvious, even in the early days of ‘25, but it’s here. For all the criticisms the front office and general manager Ross Atkins have worn over the years, it’s time to sing their praises.
“Excellent job from our front office acquiring players with a lot of experience already in the big leagues and players that have been helping us a lot,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said through a club interpreter. “A great job from the front office.”
Even some perceived misses have been hits. Remember when the Blue Jays took on Myles Straw to get some extra international bonus pool money but lost out on Roki Sasaki to the Dodgers? It felt like a complete mess at the time, but Straw played in 137 games for Toronto and has been singled out by countless teammates as a key clubhouse piece.
Here’s how the Blue Jays have done it.
For all the money the Blue Jays are spending — and it’s been a lot — they haven’t whiffed and haven’t been stuck with an albatross contract. That’s more rare than you might think, even if some of these deals, like George Springer’s six-year, $150 million contract, have taken a while to truly show their value on the postseason stage.
Kevin Gausman, José Berríos and Chris Bassitt have all been money very well spent in the rotation, too, and while mid-range contracts have more margin for error, Toronto’s top-end spending has a great hit rate. The biggest swing of all, of course, is Guerrero.
Imagine if the Blue Jays hadn’t extended Guerrero in April. Imagine that it was still hanging over this team. It’s fair to ask if they’d even be here right now, the scariest team in the American League with Vladdy fully ablaze. If the Blue Jays win the World Series, Guerrero’s $500 million deal will have already paid for itself.
The small strokes of genius
Two springs ago, Ernie Clement was cast off by the A’s in mid-March and signed a Minor League deal with the Blue Jays. It felt like any other Minor League deal. Two years later, here’s Clement, going 9-for-14 in the AL Division Series against the Yankees, one of the most important players on this roster and beloved by everyone who gets within 500 feet of him.
Look at Braydon Fisher. When the Blue Jays acquired him from the Dodgers for Cavan Biggio a year and a half ago, frankly, it barely registered as news, a non-prospect for a player who’d just been DFA’d. In Game 4, Fisher struck out Aaron Judge on the biggest stage of his career.
Eric Lauer, who ended last year pitching in Korea, has been one of this team’s most valuable pitchers.
When an organization can spend big on superstars like Vladdy, but still find nuggets of gold on the other end of the market, that’s when the magic happens.
Everyone raise a glass to the Blue Jays’ player development department.
That group, led by Joe Sclafani, has helped the MLB roster both directly and indirectly with an excellent year, especially on the pitching front. Don’t forget that Louis Varland, Seranthony Domínguez and Shane Bieber were all acquired for top-10 prospects in the organization, each of them a pitcher in the middle of a breakout season.
Trey Yesavage is the headliner, though, a development dream after he shot through every level of the system in 2025. Slowly, his shot at the big leagues this season grew from impossible to a pipe dream to … maybe this could happen.
The Blue Jays paced their No. 1 prospect perfectly, pushing him up to 98 innings in the Minor Leagues with a combination of starting and, eventually, relieving. The end result? A historic postseason debut, and it feels like the rookie sensation is just getting started.
