As Blue Jays face major issues, impressive Orioles reach for elite status

They’re 26-13 and on pace for 108 wins, so Lord knows the Baltimore Orioles don’t need to listen to anyone. But if they’d be so inclined as to lend an ear to a friend for 2,000 or so words, I’d suggest they take a good, long, contemplative look at the Toronto Blue Jays the next three days.

The teams open a three-game series Monday at Camden Yards and the Orioles are what the Blue Jays once fancied themselves as being. It wasn’t that long ago that everybody loved the Blue Jays, too. Everybody. National prognosticators were picking them to win the World Series; Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. was finishing second in American League MVP voting at the age of 22. Bo Bichette was leading the league in hits in consecutive years at the ages of 23 and 24; Alek Manoah was finishing third in Cy Young voting at the age of 24. They were signing free-agent starting pitchers, finding gold in the likes of Alejandro Kirk. Inside and outside the industry, it was believed to be only a matter of time.

Now? Time matters, but in a different way. Everyone’s waiting for someone to pay for this poor start and the only lists Vladdy and Bo make these days fall under the category of ‘might be traded’. The minor-league system routinely ranks among the bottom third and look: I understand that things like anonymous executive polls are subjective but when The Athletic runs a poll asking your peers to rate their top five front offices and you get shut out? Even if the Blue Jays' decision-makers had lots of company, I think we can all agree that to some degree it’s a reflection on what the industry thinks about the general manager – when it thinks of him at all.

Some thoughts on the Blue Jays one-quarter of the way into this season? Glad you asked. Offensive co-ordinator Don Mattingly warned us all against expecting much power … and that’s held true. It’s all about run prevention and starting pitching and scratching out some runs and fans warding off what Blue Jays play-by-play man Dan Shulman adroitly described on Friday as “the fatigue out there with exit velocity.”

Blue Jays management told us all that the team would go as far as its core lineup would take it and, well, that’s also proven to be accurate. Offensively? Most of our suspicions have, by and large, proven true. Meanwhile, Bo and Vladdy’s clock ticks toward free agency, and the Summer of Orelvis seems a real possibility. The pitching? It’s been OK, but hardly great. That’s to be expected given the high-wire act created by poor offensive production. The home runs are an issue, though. A big issue: the Blue Jays have given up the second-most homers in the majors. No bullpen has served up more of them than the Blue Jays.

But that’s all big-picture stuff. Right now, there are two immediate issues. First, the Blue Jays have a George Springer problem – as I forecasted in spring training. He was uncommonly healthy by his standards last season … and slogged his way to career lows in several categories. The contract was never going to age well, but the hope was there would be some post-season bang for the buck before it reached this stage.

Springer was absent Saturday with illness when the Blue Jays put up their best offensive display since late last season with Davis Schneider in the leadoff spot for the second game. Springer returned to the leadoff spot Sunday and went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Now, based on Schneider’s at-bats against Minnesota Twins starter Bailey Ober, I’m not certain he would have done much better at the top. But I would have liked to see it, even if meant sticking Springer down at the bottom of the order and taking solace in the fact he catches the ball.

And that’s the issue right now. It’s not the $65 million or so left on the two-plus years of his contract, not unless ownership tires of putting up a $235-million payroll for a last place team. Not yet. Either Springer won’t move without kicking up a fuss or manager John Schneider thinks he deserves to have the second-most plate appearances on the team (which I don’t believe) or it’s one of those khakified, smartest-guy-in-the-room, bat-path, underlying numbers things. But if more George equals worse results, is that really a thing the Blue Jays will need to live with? Good luck with that.

Beyond that, general manager Ross Atkins needs to help his bullpen. Pronto. Look: we’d all rather have someone else at helm if the time comes when a big call needs to be made on Bo and Vladdy, but that’s not the point right now. It is remarkable that Atkins let his bullpen go from April 28-May 7 without having Yimi Garcia available, knowing Erik Swanson is no longer a leverage option and that Jordan Romano is still being handled a little gently. I get the Blue Jays aren’t in a position of strength to make any trade and that their top pitching prospects can’t stay healthy and that replacing Garcia’s performance would have been difficult. I get that Yariel Rodriguez’s return coupled with Alek Manoah's re-emergence will help. I get Atkins is probably busy with draft preparations. But Atkins could really use another Adam Cimber or Trevor Richards bit of magic. Unless, you know, the front office doesn’t think it’s worth it to stop the bleeding … which is, er, another story.

So it is against this background that the Blue Jays and Orioles square off and, well, let’s all try not to be too jealous, OK?

Everybody loves the Orioles. Everybody. Everybody is in awe of their endless pipeline of youthful excellence, to the point where they’ve stopped pointing out how much awful baseball it took to collect all those high draft picks. Their core already has one division title under its belt. They’re no longer overly impressed with the New York Yankees. They have a new, seemingly committed owner who visits the stands and sprays water on fans … and they have uncommon payroll flexibility.

The Orioles have the 24^th-highest payroll in the Majors and while 58 per cent of their roster is arbitration eligible (15 per cent more than the next-highest, the Cleveland Guardians) and another 10 per cent is pre-arbitration eligible, the upcoming crunch is offset by the fact that they have exactly $2 million in guaranteed commitments in 2025.

The Orioles are where the Blue Jays were when everybody loved them. Multiplied by, I don’t know, five?

In Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, they have two All-Star cornerstones. One of them will win a most valuable player award soon. That’s their Bo and Vladdy. Colton Cowser won American League rookie of the month in April. Jordan Westburg was MLB Pipeline’s 74^th-rated prospect overall in 2023 and arrived earlier than expected. Jackson Holliday, Samuel Basallo, Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad are all ranked in the Top 25 MLB prospects on Pipeline's latest list. Starter Grayson Rodriguez is hurt but it’s not hard to see him developing into a front-of-the-rotation starter.

The Orioles seem to have gone to school on the struggles Holliday had after his callup. General manager Mike Elias publicly took the fall in giving a measured and thoroughly plausible explanation. Holliday’s issues in part spurred The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal to dig into whether organizations were starting to wonder about the value of triple-A performance at a time when the quality of pitching at that level is deteriorating. Others have wondered whether the use of the automated ball-strike challenge system for balls and strikes leads to strike-zone judgment that might not translate to the majors, where it is not yet in use – and Angel Hernandez, unfortunately, is in use.

For a team like the Orioles, getting the timing right and not overreacting will be paramount. The New York Yankees of the 1990s and the current edition of the Atlanta Braves are examples. So, too, is making the right call on the right players when the time comes – as it surely will – to trade one of the prospects for a return of immediate consequence for the major-keague roster. The Blue Jays went down this road when they traded Gabriel Moreno (along with Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.) because they believed in Kirk. That’s turned into a bad call. The Blue Jays also dispatched Teoscar Hernandez that winter and therein might lie the biggest lesson for the Orioles: as good as your young players are, do not underestimate the comfort zone provided by an established run producer. Do not be so quick to move off, say, an Anthony Santander or even a Ryan Mountcastle – at least not without a replacement in hand.

The Blue Jays didn’t do that. It now seems that they overreacted to their post-season loss to the Seattle Mariners in 2022, resulting in a worse regular season record in 2023 and an even less satisfying post-season.

The guess here is the sheer weight of the Orioles depth will allow them to take advantage of their window of opportunity in a way the Blue Jays could not. Surely, they’ll lock up the Jeteresque Rutschman and Henderson on one of those Bobby Witt, Jr. contracts and forego the year-to-year approach the Blue Jays have taken with Vladdy and, for awhile, Bo. But that, too, is a balancing act because it can lead to comparative jealousy. Again: you need to make the right read. You need to know your players. Which player will view the long-term deal as giving freedom? Which player will view it as extra pressure? Get it right and the organization can spend money on free-agent starting pitchers – preferably those in their late-20s or early-30s who have already gone through the requisite Tommy John surgery and all the other developmental issues in modern-day, major league pitching.

This is something the Blue Jays have done well, to their credit. The Orioles might want to contemplate that. But otherwise? Seems to me the days of learning lessons are just about over for the Orioles. Seems to me they’re the ones who are going to be giving them out for a good, long time.