The Blue Jays have been the most disappointing team in the majors. What’s left to play for this season?

A bitty factoid email from the Blue Jays drops into my inbox: Alek Manoah has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Oh yeah, Manoah. Almost forgot about the big galoot. Full of brass ‘n’ balls in 2022, twice demoted to the minors in a disastrous 2023, and out of the picture on May 29, 2024 — departing the mound after 1.2 innings against the White Sox, complaining of a sore right shoulder. Sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow, as it turned out, fixed up with reconstructive surgery in June — hybrid internal brace procedure, modified Tommy John — but won’t return to the bump until mid-2025.
So maybe we can hang the debacle of this season on Manoah? Like, it would all have unfolded so differently for Toronto if the fleeting all-star had simply reverted to his grand sophomore form.
Of course not. But as a theory for this spectacularly disappointing Jays season — arguably the most disappointing team in Major League baseball circa ’24 — it probably flies as straight as anything else. (Unless you’re listening to the Sportsnet broadcast, where everything is just amazeballs, hear them tell it, so many bright shiny objects to excavate from the slag.)
Chris Bassitt, one of Toronto’s three surviving starters from the Opening Day quintet, came tantalizingly close to spilling the tea on a podcast, the Chris Rose Rotation, a few hours before game time Monday — droopy Cincinnati Reds in town, to kick off a seven-game homestand at Rogers Centre.
What went awry? Bassitt was asked.
“We put I think $700 million into Shohei Ohtani’s basket and didn’t get him. We really didn’t have a pivot.”
Well, that really was the no-pivot death stall for the Jays, their quixotic pursuit of Ohtani, sans a Plan B, from which cascaded so much of what ailed this mushy roster. Truth to tell, we know exactly what doomed the Jays — gross mismanagement in the front office and dopey management in the dugout. Yet no heads of prominence have been stuck on a pike.
“I’ll say this,” Bassitt continued. “I think we do a lot of things right here. But I don’t want to identify the problems because some of the problems I don’t think are fixable.”
Such a tease, that Bassitt. Dish a tad, then turn schtum.
The 35-year-old right-hander has another year left on his $63-million (U.S.) contract and the Jays seem content with running him back. Or they found no takers at the trade deadline, wherein eight players were dispatched to worthier environs. (For someone who hadn’t been around the clubhouse in a month, stepping inside that sanctum of missing faces brought to mind the poignant ballad “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” from “Les Miserables.”  And miserables these Jays certainly are.
Perhaps you’d like to clarify or expound, Chris?
“No.”
Of course, you, Bassitt, don’t really have to worry about hanging on to a job with the Jays next year, right, 9-12 record notwithstanding? “I don’t believe that either. Every person has to fight for a job, no matter what, every year.”
Some six weeks left in a season that’s been a big fat fizzle. How to make the best of it?
“We’ve got to win games, make sure people are healthy, and just play the game the way that it needs to be played to win more games.”
Toronto doesn’t have that busted-out emoji next to its names in the standings yet and likely won’t be formally eliminated until the last fortnight or so on the schedule. But who’s kidding whom? Fortunately, baseball always has intrigues and spurts of pleasure, no matter how ugly the big picture: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s recent 22-game hit streak, a complete game from Kevin Gausman — I recall when that wasn’t such a rarity — a fine Jays debut by the incoming Will Wagner.
Passport in hand, getting the down-low from a team functionary pre-game, Wagner was settling into his locker in a city where he’s never been before, admitting he knows sweet eff-all about Toronto. “I hear you have great coffee.”
Half these guys, I couldn’t pick them out of a police lineup. Several wouldn’t make a major league lineup other than Toronto’s.
Daulton Varsho, who’s augmented his often-breathtaking defensive play in the outfield by injecting some pop into Toronto’s offence with 15 home runs, second only to Guerrero’s 26 — that 26th a monster mash into the second deck to open the scoring in a 6-3 loss to the Reds (equalling his total from last year) — shares Bassitt’s philosophy on playing out a very long string and playing as if there’s something at stake.
“I don’t think I’m guaranteed a spot for next year,” he claims. “I know the Aaron Judges, the Ronald Acunas, the Vladimir Guerrero Juniors of the world, they probably have a guaranteed spot. The rest of us, every year you’ve got to come and compete.
“There’s always the competitiveness inside of me,” he adds, referring to the late August and September dregs of the season, where Toronto’s only reasonable objective is getting back to .500 baseball. “You want to be able to get better and show them what you’ve got. We’re not out of playoff contention yet” — so sweet — “but overall, we have to keep playing every day, advance our skills and master them and build up a better baseball IQ. Understand that this game is going to beat you up at times, but being able to understand how to get through these tough times.”
Because he’s been there before, with the Diamondbacks in their uber-crap era.
“I’ve played on the second worst team in baseball and that’s not fun.”
Skipper John Schneider — dealt a lousy hand but lacking managerial acumen anyway — will have more than enough time to assess and evaluate the young and incoming Toronto has garnered. That’s something to be going on with in a re-purposed season, where the Jays really believed they would challenge for the World Series.
“How some of the guys are adjusting, both offensively and defensively,” he said, about making best use of these remaining weeks. “The pitch still has a lot of room for development, from a bullpen standpoint.”
That would be the IKEA ‘pen, as in slap it together yourself.
“We’re still trying to win every single game. But we’re looking at who can fit in, going forward, what kind of ball they can play.”
In retrospect, Schneider says that seven-game losing streak before the all-star break was a demoralizing juncture in the season. Otherwise, he couldn’t point at any specifics to explain where ’24 went sideways. “There wasn’t one thing like, holy s—t, this sucks, the season’s over. There hasn’t been one thing. Just unexpected to be here.”
You know who wasn’t here on Monday night? Not in the line-up against his old team, the only team where he’d spent his entire stellar career — Etobicoke-raised Joey Votto.
Toronto could have the (maybe) future Hall of Famer from Triple-A Buffalo, let him take his initiation bow as a Blue Jay, as the sand runs out of the hourglass for the 40-year-old six-time all-star.
But no. Because the bozos in charge of this club never miss a chance to do the wrong thing.