John Schneider discusses reason for closed door meeting

The Blue Jays held their first version of that meeting Wednesday after waiting for the early-season chaos to settle a bit. Toronto had injuries, roster churn, and enough moving parts to delay the usual check-in.

These meetings happen every 2 weeks and bring together coaches, front office staff, and other baseball personnel. Schneider said he likes them because they let the club slow down, digest what it is seeing, and talk through solutions instead of playing Whac-A-Mole.

That matters because Toronto's start has looked too familiar. Going into play Wednesday, the Blue Jays were 13-16, the exact same record they had at that point last year.

Last season, the obsession was baserunning. This year, Schneider said the focus is different, and it gets right to the middle of why the offence still feels stuck.

His wording was telling. Schneider said the Blue Jays are swinging a lot and making contact a lot, but they are also chasing more, which creates a strange offensive mix.

That is the real issue. Contact alone is not fixing anything when the quality of that contact is off or when hitters are making pitchers' jobs too easy by expanding the zone.

Schneider did not paint it as one clean team-wide flaw, either. He said some of it is personnel-driven, and some of it comes from outside factors, like Nathan Lukes dealing with vertigo or Kazuma Okamoto adjusting to new pitchers.

That context matters because Toronto is not trying to flatten every hitter into the same template. Schneider made clear the club is looking at each at-bat profile and trying to diversify it in the short term.

He also offered the clearest explanation of what the Blue Jays are trying to thread. If a team is not slugging and is still making contact, that contact has to come at the right time. If hitters are just rushing to touch the ball, the lineup becomes ordinary fast.

That is why Schneider brought up intent again, one of his favorite words. Toronto works best when hitters are feeding off one another and leaning into their own strengths instead of just putting the bat on the ball for the sake of it.

There is also a lineup consequence to all of this. Schneider said when regulars are out, the batting order turns into one square wheel and three round ones, and the whole thing gets harder to balance.

That is where this meeting actually says something useful about the Blue Jays. Toronto does not think the offence is hopeless. It thinks the offence is too scattered, too chase-heavy, and not precise enough in the moments that matter.

The return of George Springer, and soon Addison Barger and Alejandro Kirk, should help. But Schneider's message was already clear before they get all the way back: the Blue Jays do not just need more swings. They need better ones.