Blue Jays enter crucial period as disappointing season ends

TORONTO -- This time, there’s no great heartbreak on the final day. Those heartbreaks are reserved for those who came close.

There is no stunned silence in a still clubhouse, no thousand-yard stare across the room, no wondering what just happened. That’s because there’s no mystery and no suddenness to the end of the 2024 Blue Jays. This slow slide to the end began months ago and the period of mourning has long passed.

Instead, the Blue Jays’ clubhouse was a beehive of boxes and ballplayers on Sunday morning. Some packed their belongings or asked teammates to sign jerseys while others, unsure of whether they’d call that clubhouse home again, sat back to soak in one last day.

The Blue Jays lost to the Marlins, 3-1, to finish their season with a 74-88 record, a disappointment in every way for a team that landed in Dunedin, Fla., in February chasing a deep postseason run. For the first time since 2019, that didn’t happen.

“It’s frustrating. There’s frustration in going out there knowing you’re not going to make the playoffs,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said through a club interpreter. “At the same time, you’ve got to respect your fan base, your organization, your teammates, even your family. You still have to work and give all you have for your team, your city, even though we knew we weren’t going to make the playoffs.”

The final weeks of the season left little to hold onto, ending in a sweep to the 62-win Marlins and losses in eight of the Blue Jays’ final nine games. September dampened many of the feel-good stories the Blue Jays had coming out of their Trade Deadline sell-off, when some young players tasted early success, but this organization is about to pivot quickly to the offseason. It’s come earlier than anyone wanted, but they’ve seen it coming for miles.

“The last two years, it’s over and you don’t want it to be or didn’t expect it to be. It takes time to digest what happened,” manager John Schneider said. “Especially in our case the last couple of years. This has been more deliberate. This has been more thought-provoking, even over the last couple of weeks. What are we going to do starting tomorrow and into the offseason? It’s been … slow, for sure.”

Every offseason feels big in the moment, but this winter is absolutely crucial to the short and long-term future of the franchise. The Blue Jays spent the past four years as a postseason contender, and they made the AL Wild Card Series in three, but they went 0-6 in those games. Those October letdowns include their collapse against the Mariners in 2022 and their loss to the Twins in '23, headlined by their aggressive move to lift José Berríos early.

Even though the final days were crushing, those rosters still felt close, perhaps a tinker or two away. This time, it’s clear to everyone involved that major changes are needed and that internal improvements can only account for a portion of that. On top of it all, Guerrero and Bo Bichette are entering their final year of club control. The Blue Jays have a lot to juggle here.

“Everything. We have to get better at everything,” Guerrero said. “I have to be realistic here and honest, I’m not thinking about that right now, because I can’t wait to go home and be with my family, take my daughter to school. We need to get better at everything.”

The Blue Jays’ veterans -- those left, at least -- also point to themselves. Guerrero re-established himself as one of the game’s brightest stars, batting .323 with 30 home runs and a .940 OPS, but this lineup boasted few other success stories in 2024.

Money shouldn’t be an issue for the Blue Jays, but they need to find the right fit. Schneider pointed to “a couple of guys who are going to be sandwiched in around Vlad and Bo,” which would be a fine place to start.

“Anytime you can add anybody who has had some success, that’s obviously big for our lineup, but that starts first and foremost with me being better,” George Springer said. “I understand that wholeheartedly. I’m not going to back away from that. I need to be better and I will.”

The Blue Jays have a reputation to shake. So much hangs in the balance this offseason, from jobs to the club’s identity moving forward. But the heartbreak happened months ago. Now, they begin to move forward again, still searching for the right path after another year.