Once reborn as a powerhouse amid aggressive recruitment of free agents, he is now being rejected by big fish. Attention is getting colder toward the Toronto Blue Jays in the Major League Baseball.

The Toronto Sun, a Canadian media outlet, claimed on the 20th (Korea Standard Time) that "Toronto should replace its president (Mark Shafayro) and general manager (Ross Atkins) before the team collapses."

Toronto finished the season at the bottom of the American League East with 74 wins and 88 losses. The game was 20 games shorter than the top-ranked New York Yankees. Toronto had only one win (35 wins and 36 losses) up until mid-June, but suffered a slump after seven consecutive losses and ended the season without rebounding.메이저사이트

Toronto, which admitted its failure, pushed the reset button by selling off Yusei Kikuchi, Kevin Kiermaier, Justin Turner, and Danny Jansen at the trade deadline in July even before the season ended. It is the first time in 11 years that Toronto has ranked the lowest in the world since 2013.

It is a shocking result for Toronto, which was challenging the presidency amid active investment in the 2020s. Toronto, which lost 95 games in 2019, won Ryu Hyun-jin (currently Hanwha) a four-year, $80 million contract, the highest amount of pitcher FA in the team's history, after the end of that season. Toronto advanced to the postseason for the first time in four years since 2016, with Ryu Hyun-jin playing so well that he ranked third in the Cy Young Award voting in the starting lineup, which is a weakness.

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed several star players since then. Ahead of the 2021 season, the team signed a six-year, 150 million-dollar contract with George Springer, and signed more than 100 million-dollar contracts with Jose Berrios (131 million-dollar contract for seven years) and Kevin Gausman (110 million-dollar contract for five years) in 2022. Existing players such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bob Bissett also continued their winning percentage in the mid-50s.

However, Toronto lost all two games in the American League wild-card series in both 2022 and 2023, and nightmares continued in the stove league. After the end of the 2023 season, Toronto entered the bid to recruit Shohei Ohtani, and according to local reports, Toronto bet more than $600 million. However, Ohtani ended up with the Los Angeles Dodgers, which handed him a whopping 10 years and $700 million.

Atkins confessed at the time of Ohtani's failure to recruit him, "I was very disappointed, and the phone call (Ohtani's rejection) was the hardest call of my life." However, he showed a hopeful attitude, saying, "There is no doubt that Ohtani was attracted to copyright, Toronto or the Blue Jays."

Since then, Toronto has been constantly mentioned as a destination for big-name FA. This winter, he was also considered one of the five teams that offered Juan Soto more than $600 million, and he joined the New York Mets, who made an offer of $765 million for 15 years. The Dodgers also won the bid to recruit Roki Sasaki, who had attempted to enter the U.S. through the posting system.

Towards Toronto, which serves as a best man every winter, the Toronto Sun reacted sharply, saying, "Wasn't this the last year of Shafiro and Atkins, the main culprit of the FA market defeat?" He then claimed, "This happened through the nightmare of the 2024 season, the elimination of the first round of the playoffs in the previous two seasons, and two shameful off-season."

The media, which pointed out Shafayro and Atkins as "the most unpopular and rejected sports operators in Toronto's history," said, "We tried to bring Sasaki and Soto this time, just like a year ago in the baseball world's unicorn recruitment race," adding, "It's great to chase hard, but in the end, sports have to win."

The media mentioned the case of right-hander Jeff Hoffman that Toronto brought in this winter for three years and 33 million dollars. Hoffman was initially offered better conditions by the Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles than Toronto, but he failed the medical test. The media said, "Baltimore with 91 wins and Atlanta with 89 wins were withdrawn after MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) tests. Does Toronto's MRI machine work differently?"