海角社区官网

He wants you to know “how much pride I take in leading this organization, the only one I’ve known in my adult life, how serious I take that,” the 44-year-old Schneider said in an in-depth conversation for 鈥淒eep Left Field,鈥� the Star’s baseball podcast. “So that’s the hope 鈥� to get this team back to where everyone wants it to get to, and I feel very fortunate that I’m tasked with that challenge.”

That challenge is creating a contender out of a team that could never get out of first gear this season. But that is not on the manager, who over 398 games at the helm has put up a better win percentage (.525) than Cito Gaston (.518) or John Gibbons (.501).

It’s on the front office, where last week club president Mark Shapiro said “Ross (Atkins) needs to be better. I need to be better. Our entire baseball operations need to be better.”

The general manager spoke later, and pointed the finger back at himself.

“We had to have more depth,” Atkins said as part of his mea culpa. “We have to do a better job of avoiding injury, and this (off-season) we have to be probably more aggressive on the external adds.”

The manager can only work with the players he’s been provided. The ones he had this year weren’t good enough.

The hitting coach, bullpen coach and major-league field co-ordinator are gone because they weren’t able to take what they were given and make chicken salad. Schneider remains, and has the confidence of the president.

“I thought he had a good year,” Shapiro said. ”(He) stayed solution-focused in the light of a lot of headwinds and a lot of challenges and ongoing setbacks and injuries. He was just focused on how to lead his staff to find a way to get better. That is not always easy to do ... He keeps getting better and will continue to get better.”

Despite those headwinds and setbacks, the Jays flirted with the break-even mark several times after dipping below it for good with an April 30 loss to the Kansas City Royals. But seven straight losses in mid-June were the death knell.

“You can look at that (losing streak), I think,” said Schneider. “Timing is everything over the course of a long season. That magnified what our season was 鈥� guys not performing at the same time consistently, guys not being healthy at the same time consistently 鈥� and it kind of led us to the position that we went to, because of where we were in the calendar.”

Though they managed to tread water for a while, they were 45-52 at the all-star break and prudently .

The offence was the issue at the start. The top three hitters in the order 鈥� George Springer, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 鈥� combined to hit .217 with seven home runs through the end of April. Guerrero came out of it in a huge way, Springer had a massive month just as summer began (but then went right back in the soup), Bichette never got untracked.

“Starting with Bo, it’s such an uncharacteristic season out of him, you know, from what he’s consistently done in his career,” said Schneider, the second-youngest manager in club history. “When you have guys at the top of your order (struggling) 鈥� it’s tough to win consistently. For whatever reason, that happened at the same time 鈥� That’s going to make a season very trying.”

There was criticism about the lack of a lineup shakeup. Springer stayed in the leadoff spot until May 18 鈥� the 44th game of the season 鈥� and when he was finally moved down was hitting .196 with a .558 on-base-plus-slugging percentage that was third-worst in the American League. Schneider said he won’t be beholden to such set roles in the future.

“You’re not always going to be a leadoff hitter,” said Schneider.聽“You’re not always going to be a No. 3 hitter. I tried different things. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but at the end of the day you have to trust people who have done it before, and if it doesn’t work then you have to make another adjustment.”

Where Schneider couldn’t adjust was in the bullpen. Injuries and underperformance meant that more often than not whoever the skipper brought into a close game was the wrong choice.

Only eight teams needed fewer relief innings than the Jays, but nobody’s bullpen gave up more home runs. Only one had a worse ERA. Better tools are needed.

Schneider’s job is to put players in the best position to succeed. Atkins must do the same for his manager this coming winter. He’s already fired two, after all.