Blue Jays Leadership More Than Earned New Contracts
Toronto's front office has made many great moves in recent years, and they've been rewarded with contract extensions for their efforts
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The Toronto Blue Jays have one of the most intimidating rosters in all of baseball thanks to the efforts of general manager Ross Atkins and president and CEO Mark Shapiro. After undergoing a rebuild that has put the Jays near the top of the league in pure talent, these two executives have built themselves a very strong team.
In December, the Jays gave Shapiro a five-year extension to remain in his role with the franchise after leading them to their first World Series berth in 32 years. Shapiro has been a baseball executive for quite some time, becoming Cleveland’s GM in 2001 and team president in 2010.
Serving in his role with Toronto since 2015, he’s overseen the overhaul of the franchise, for good and bad, for over a decade.
On March 23, the Blue Jays announced a similar five-year extension for Atkins, who was hired by the Blue Jays under Shapiro following the 2015 season. Atkins has masterminded some of the best trades and moves in franchise history, and the pair have put together some of the most memorable and intriguing seasons and teams the city of Toronto has ever seen.
This piece is going to delve into some of the best moves that this executive pair has made in their Blue Jays tenure, and there’s plenty to choose from. There will be an emphasis on moves that we’ve seen play out successfully for the Jays thus far and not so much on the unproven deals like Kazuma Okamoto’s $60 million contract or Dylan Cease’s $210 million pact.
The Daulton Varsho Trade
Blue Jays acquire: OF Daulton Varsho
Diamondbacks acquire: C Gabriel Moreno, OF Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
In December of 2022, the Blue Jays struck a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks to acquire outfielder Daulton Varsho in exchange for a package of outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and catcher Gabriel Moreno. The most contentious part of this deal was the Jays including their then No. 1 prospect in Moreno and keeping their catcher tandem of Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen.
This was one instance of the Jays taking a calculated risk on a talented player by dealing away both a fan favourite (Gurriel) and a top prospect. It’s safe to say this trade worked out great for Toronto.
Since the trade, Varsho has slashed .222/.289/.428 with 7.6 fWAR, 60 home runs, and 180 RBI as a Blue Jay. His defense has been among the league’s best in this span as well, garnering a Gold Glove Award in 2024 while totalling a +32 Defensive Run Value and +34 OAA in his tenure with Toronto.
The Diamondbacks were National League Champions in 2023 but lost to the Texas Rangers in five games, and while Moreno and Gurriel factor into their lineup regularly, the impact of Varsho on this Blue Jays roster cannot be understated. His defensive stability and strong presence in the middle of the lineup brings much more than a simple offensive stat line can show.
In 2025, Varsho was even on pace to hit 46 home runs and 125 RBI, as he smashed 20 home runs with 55 RBI in just a 71 sample size. He’s off to a slower pace so far in 2026, but he’s been a crucial part of the Blue Jays’ identity in recent years.
Trading for a Cy Young Winner
Blue Jays acquire: LHP Robbie Ray, cash considerations
Diamondbacks acquire: LHP Travis Bergen
This trade, again with the Diamondbacks, is the closest thing to a one-sided trade you might ever see. The Blue Jays acquired left-handed starter Robbie Ray in August of 2020 in exchange for reliever Travis Bergen, a 2015 seventh-rounder that had hardly any MLB experience.
The D-Backs were trading Ray because of his $9.43 million price tag and he was one of the many parts they sold off at the trade deadline, but this would turn out to be the most consequential. Ray had always struggled with command, but when paired up with Toronto’s pitching coach in Pete Walker, they were able to sort through these issues.
In 2021, Ray returned to the Jays on a one-year contract and won the American League Cy Young Award by going 13-7 while leading the league with a 2.84 ERA, 193.1 innings pitched, and 248 strikeouts. Getting this value out of a pitcher that was essentially thrown away by his previous team is incredible.
Bergen hasn’t appeared in MLB since 2021 after being re-acquired by Toronto from Arizona for cash considerations, and he hasn’t pitched in a MiLB game since 2022. No matter how you look at this trade, it was a masterclass from Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro.
Ace of the Future
Following the 2021 season, the Jays parted ways with Robbie Ray after he won the Cy Young Award and pursued another option as their potential ace in Kevin Gausman. Gausman was coming off a season that looked strikingly similar to Ray’s, going 14-6 with a 2.81 ERA over 192.0 innings in which he struck out 227 batters while only walking 50. It’s safe to say this deal worked out great.
Toronto inked Gausman to a five-year, $115 million contract, with its final year being the 2026 season. Over this span, Gausman has the second-most strikeouts in MLB (819), the fourth-most innings pitched (751.0), and he sits in seventh on the Blue Jays all-time strikeout list. He was an AL All-Star in 2023 and received Cy Young votes in both 2022 and 2023.
Gausman has been one of the best pitchers in baseball for a while now, and in 2026 he’s been incredible through his first three starts: 2.08 ERA, 1.29 FIP, 17.1 IP, 26 K, 2 BB, 0.64 WHIP. He’s the ace that the team was looking for and he’s never posted an ERA above 4.00 for the Blue Jays.
In a season where the team is mired with injury, Gausman has been a bright spot on their pitching staff and he’s been their ace through thick and thin. He’s been one of the team’s best when the lights shine the brightest, owning a 2.93 ERA over 30.2 innings in last year’s postseason.
Locking Down Their Franchise Player
Early in 2025 with star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. entering his final year before being eligible for free agency, the Jays signed him to a lengthy 14-year, $500 million contract to keep him in Toronto for the rest of his playing career. Even though only about a year has passed since the deal was signed, this move makes the Jays’ front office look like absolute geniuses.
In 2025, Guerrero slashed .292/.381/.467 with 34 doubles, 23 home runs, and a 3.9 fWAR while making his fifth All-Star team. He was a source of consistency in the regular season while not performing to the highest standard the team had seen from him in recent years, but when the postseason began, he transformed.
In the 2025 postseason, Guerrero slashed an insane .397/.494/.795 with 29 hits (second in MLB history), 15 RBI, 14 walks, and 58 total bases (second in MLB history). He tore apart the Yankees in the ALDS single-handedly, slashing .529/.550/1.059 with three home runs and nine RBI, including a massive grand slam off Will Warren in Game 2 of the series.
Early in the 2026 season, Guerrero is already exceeding his triple-slash marks from a year ago, and he’s walking more than he’s striking out (11 walks, six strikeouts). The Blue Jays shelled out the big bucks for their franchise cornerstone talent, and it’s paying dividends.
Finding the Next Postseason Hit King
In March of 2023, utilityman Ernie Clement was released by the Oakland Athletics, and the Jays eagerly snapped him up on a minor-league deal. He would only get 52 plate appearances in 2023, but he slashed .380/.385/.500, earning himself more of a tenure in Toronto.
In his career as a Blue Jay, Clement has hit .278/.306/.406 with 303 hits, 101 extra-base hits, 130 RBI, and 20 stolen bases, all while endearing himself to the Toronto faithful with his charismatic personality.
Guerrero might’ve been second on the all-time single-season postseason hit leaderboard, but who sits on top? Well, it’s none other than Ernie Clement as of last year.
In the 2025 playoffs, Clement notched 30 hits, eight of which went for extra-bases, where he slashed a ridiculous .411/.416/.562 including a .387 batting average in the World Series.
Clement hit a fly ball in Game 7 of the World Series that, if struck just a foot or to higher, could have won it for the Jays. As the words ‘could have’ implies, this didn’t happen and Toronto ended up losing the series, but Clement has quickly become a fan favorite all over Canada.
Closing Thoughts
The Blue Jays have had some of the most entertaining, successful, and down-right awesome teams over the last decade, and fans can thank the work of Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro for making Canada’s team so memorable and fun to watch.
Their relentless drive to get better and better shows in their roster construction and the moves they’ve had to make, and it’s paid off more times than not.
Obviously, there’s much more that could be said on some of the other moves that they’ve made, but it’s worth noting the most impressive that they’ve swung in recent years. There are times where the Blue Jays have been among the best teams in baseball, and when they’ve been at the bottom of the league throughout their tenures, the team always comes back to success.
While the Jays are having a tough start to the season, their truckload of injuries can’t be blamed on anyone in particular, let alone the executives. But they’re still an entertaining and successful team on the field. Once things start getting back to normal and Toronto can get their star players back to good health, the Jays will be back at the top of MLB as a driving force.
Even though at times this front office has garnered some ire from fans for moves that may not have paid off, the same could be said of any front office in professional sports. Sometimes deals that should work out end up failing, and this duo at the head of the Blue Jays has limited the damage in that department. They’ve more than earned their extensions.
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Ethan has been writing for Just Baseball since 2024 and is fascinated by how sabermetric statistics can assist our understanding of outcomes and probability in baseball.…