Ross Atkins is planning as though next season happens exactly on schedule. History suggests that kind of certainty can be costly.
Toronto sports has been here before. John Ferguson Jr. ran the Maple Leafs into the 2004 NHL lockout believing hockey's teflon franchise couldn't be touched by an economic shutdown.
The Leafs had made the playoffs 10 of 12 seasons before that lockout. After it, they never made the playoffs again under Ferguson, missing the postseason 10 of the next 11 years.
Toronto's payroll sits second-highest in the American League, spending around $280 million while half the league spends under $165 million. Baseball is heading toward some form of salary cap, and Atkins would be wise to have a plan beyond simply outspending everyone.
Cease's historic season, and an offense that's collapsed
Dylan Cease has been sensational, sitting at a 2.41 ERA with 174 strikeouts across 119.1 innings, squarely in the Cy Young race with the Yankees' Cam Schlittler.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has hit just six home runs this season, one more than Anthony Santander managed for Toronto last year, a jarring number for a player who hit eight homers in 18 playoff games just last October.
The offensive collapse is total. Toronto ranks last in the American League in runs scored, home runs, walks, OPS and on-base percentage, a stunning fall from 2025, when the club finished top three in nearly every one of those categories during its World Series run.
There are 49 days left in the season, and 22 of them feature wild card contenders playing each other, meaning Toronto can't gain ground on those nights regardless of its own results. Twelve of the 29 open dates fall in September, Toronto's easiest remaining stretch.
Jose Berrios, Anthony Santander and Yimi Garcia have combined for zero games played this season while earning a combined $42 million, a rough look for an organization that's long touted its training and medical department.
It's a bit like a well-funded renovation that somehow left the foundation untouched, all that spending and none of it addressing the actual crack in the floor.
Grading Atkins highly for adding Jose Soriano while ignoring that the offense, the team's clear No. 1 weakness, got no reinforcement at all seems like grading half the exam.
Should the Blue Jays have prioritized adding offense over pitching at this year's trade deadline?
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