‘I expect us to be playing meaningful games:’ A Q&A with Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro

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This article was published 27/03/2021 (1688 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite the recent spate of injuries, the Blue Jays have a lot to be happy about these days. The franchise is coming off its first appearance in the post-season in four years, the rebuild appears to be ahead of schedule and big names were added to the roster via free agency.

With opening day just around the corner, president Mark Shapiro has been making the media rounds in recent days to offer his thoughts on the upcoming season. It has become an annual tradition for the front office executive to host a series of one-on-one interviews during spring training, earlier this week it was The Star’s turn:

Ratings have been down in almost every sport since the start of the pandemic. There are a lot of different reasons for that, but teams are competing for eyeballs and you probably want to create a buzz so when tickets are sold again, people are interested in buying them. How concerned are you by the lack of spring training broadcasts from Sportsnet and does it bother you to be the only team without a dedicated radio broadcast?

It is challenging enough for me to run a Major League Baseball franchise and, over my career, I’ve been subjected to a lot of people thinking they could do our jobs better than us and offering a lot of advice. What I’ve learned from that is that I don’t profess to know someone else’s business and Sportsnet, on both the television and radio front, have been great partners. And obviously while we share a common owner, we still operate at arm’s length, that’s necessary by Major League Baseball standards.

We factor in their decision in a very similar way to how every team would work with their broadcast partner. We certainly provide our opinion, respect that they’ve got a business to run and respect that their business was impacted by the pandemic. If there have been decisions that were made that are not ideal for us, we hope that they’re going to be shorter in term, one season in nature, just like they are for everybody dealing with challenges right now.

If investments from ownership are coming in stages, what needs to happen this year for there to be another injection of cash at the end of the season?

I would say the results. We’re probably a year ahead of where we expected to be. That’s us reacting to our players’ belief in themselves, in their own talent, and each other as a team, and the results they posted in a short season. I’m very aware of the team we were two years ago, and even as encouraging as (last) August and September (were), I’m aware of the number of games we lost. So, I think there’s also some realization that there still may be a natural progression that we see this year.

I expect us to be playing meaningful games late in the season, hopefully in October, and I think if that’s the case, nothing that’s been either communicated or demonstrated would cause us to alter course next off-season. We’ve already budgeted this off-season for large losses, again, larger than last year, frankly, because our payroll is so much higher. The expectation is that we’ll lose that money and, especially in the corporate world, we didn’t provide hope that’s going to change. Anything that happens in a positive uptick would just be a plus. I think what we do hope is that next year is a return to a more normal business climate.

If your team contends, that probably makes it easier to get support from ownership. But there’s a window of opportunity over the next several years, not just one. So, if something goes wrong this year, and you don’t contend, would you still have the opportunity to continue with another wave of spending next winter?

That probably strikes at the core of what my job is. My job is to sit down, interpret the results, ensure that we are not too emotional or too momentum-driven on a small piece of information, on a small subset of data, and look at the bigger picture. We look at the trajectory over two, three years in the past, as well as two, three, four years in the future. I think we have a great group around here that can help us put together that analysis.

It seems in the six years that I’ve been communicating with our ownership group, that approach has resonated, that we haven’t taken a short-term look. There’s urgency right now, this minute, and I have been clear when I’ve communicated, yes, it’s fun to see a team go out and spend money on a major free agent but what’s most encouraging is the window and the era that we’re entering into should give us a chance to objectively feel good about the team leaving spring training for three, four, five, six, and hopefully longer years ahead.

There were a lot of layoffs across baseball this year. A lot of teams let go more people than yours did, but the Blue Jays are coming off one of their most expensive off-seasons in franchise history. How do you explain reaching record highs on the player side while making cuts in other areas?

Historically, as a business, major-league payrolls always been looked at as a separate expense line than operationally and running the business. The best answer I can give you is the fastest path back to health and hiring people is winning. I view the commitment to stay on course with our plan, to be the most direct action we can take to hiring people and bringing people back.

This isn’t under your portfolio anymore but, since you represent ownership, is there any update on the renovations to Rogers Centre? Has there been any movement on a new stadium during the pandemic? Or is that been pushed to the back burner?

It’s just on hold is what I would say, not to the back burner. We have a very significant renovation to the batting cages and meeting rooms going on right now. We’ve got a new sound system that no one’s even heard yet, because we haven’t been in the stadium. We are actively planning to replace the scoreboard in the next year or two. We continue to move forward with our plans to renovate and know that in the next five to 10 years, there’s going to have to be some meaningful, significant large-scale solution provided to an aging stadium. But for right now, from an infrastructure standpoint, it’s in good shape. The business continuity piece is a reality for every single business. Large-scale capital infusion when you’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars is not something that I would push for or would expect.

With the collective bargaining agreement between owners and players set to expire at the end of the year, how concerned are you about a potential work stoppage?

I’ve been through the cycle, I think, three or four times in my career now. Whenever we get close, it seems like the same type of discourse happens and the similar type of questioning occurs. And my answer is always the same. I’m always concerned. I’m not an owner nor a player, I’m someone who loves the game and cares about the game and is thinking about it through a fan’s lens as often as I can. I want to see what’s best for the game of baseball.

I’m always optimistic that once we actually get into the situation, while people always look out for their self interests, the good of the game will play a role in the outcome. I think that will take over once we get into a negotiation and get closer to deadlines. I think the only the only different concern I feel now is that the trust, relationship and alignment behind the twine between the players and owners, both feeling like they’re stakeholders in the game, does not seem to be at a high level. We both need to work, the players and us as MLB, need to work at building back the trust and the alignment, ensuring that everybody doesn’t just worry about the moment and this minute, but thinks about the game and being stakeholders in the future of the game.

Is there anything specific the Blue Jays are kind of lobbying for in the next CBA? A balanced schedule or another big-ticket item you think would benefit the club?

When we get into our inputs, we’re thinking with one hat on an industry level, what do we think will be good for the game? If we look at ourselves as 1/30th owner of MLB, what do we think would just help the game, and we provide input and feedback on all those things, from rules to revenue, sharing everything else. Then we also owe it to our ownership group to think about what’s best for the Blue Jays.

I’m very transparent when communicating with (MLB) where our feedback lies. Here’s our feedback that is more industry-focused, here’s our feedback that is Toronto-focused. We need to be very careful about the Toronto-based focus, to use our capital in a way where we can affect change. There are one or two asks that we will make in concert with the CBA this year — I’m going to keep those private for right now — that are more Toronto-specific. But the bulk of our work is trying to advance and help the game in general and provide impact and feedback of systems and rule changes that we think would be helpful to for everyone.

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Is there any update on a contract extension for general manager Ross Atkins? Is that something you would like to get done before opening day?

It’s a comfortable conversation for Ross and I to have. I think the body of work that he’s produced makes it an easy evaluation, not just for me, but externally as well. I’m a huge believer in continuity and stability being a competitive advantage in sports. I lived that life in my previous job, and I believe that strongly here. I’m confident it’s something that we’ll be able to put to a close early in the season, if not before.

What are your expectations for the upcoming season?

I think continued development and progress of our young players, incorporation of the veteran talent that we’ve added and developing the championship personality of this team, which means learning to play with expectations, competing at the highest level and playing meaningful games late in the season with a chance to play in the post-season. I think that would be our expectation coming in.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca