Will the Blue Jays further blow up their roster this winter? George Springer hopes 'we can make another run at it' 

There are two primary questions facing the Toronto Blue Jays as the once-projected playoff team flounders in the American League East basement in September.

With such a talented roster, what went wrong this season?

And what will that roster look like to begin 2025?

There was plenty of speculation as to whom may be sold at the trade deadline. The Jays were busy dealers — they shipped away several contributors including Danny Jansen, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Justin Turner, Yusei Kikuchi and Yimi Garcia — but they held onto their biggest names.

The nucleus of Toronto’s most recent playoff core could go untouched heading into next season. However, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Chris Bassitt are free agents after 2025, and Kevin Gausman and George Springer are signed only through 2026.

Still needing to shore up multiple holes, the Blue Jays could look to deal more veterans for younger, controllable players this winter. Or they could keep this group together and hope 2024 was an aberration.

Besides Guerrero, who started slowly but has been playing at MVP caliber since May, most of the Jays’ stars have had sub-par years. Springer, Bichette and Alejandro Kirk have hit far below their capabilities.

The vaunted rotation of Gausman, Bassitt, José Berríos and Kikuchi, who was traded to Houston in July, have struggled intermittently, with only Berríos sporting an ERA under 4.00. Rock-solid closer Jordan Romano has appeared in only 15 games (with a 6.59 ERA) due to an elbow injury.

So, yes, it has been a baseball disaster north of the border in 2024. But has the window closed for a team that has made the playoffs thrice in the last four seasons (and were swept in the Wild Card Series each time), or do they have a final hurrah left for next year? Could the window stay open even longer if they re-sign Bichette and Guerrero and some of their younger players take a major step forward?

Springer recently agreed to a Q&A about the Blue Jays, what’s been the problem and what the future may – or should – hold.

Editor’s note: The following has been edited and condensed.

What has this season been like for you and the team?

It hasn't been what we wanted it to be. It hasn’t been what we expected it to be, but I think that's the game of baseball. Stuff can go right, and stuff can go wrong. And, for us now, it's about just staying in the moment.

What do you think has gone wrong for this team?

I don't know. I just think we got off to a little bit of a slow start. We played better, initially, than the record showed. We did some things really, really well, and it just didn't turn into what you would call a positive result. And then obviously, we played teams like Baltimore and in New York a lot, and there's a lot of really good teams out there.

If stuff is not going your way, it can (snowball). It felt like we always ran into the hot team. We ran into Kansas City early when they were beating everybody, and then the Guardians. It just felt like we’d run into the hot team at the wrong time for us.

You’ve been with clubs that have added at the deadline. This year, you were with a seller. Were you bracing for that as the deadline neared?

That’s the side of the game that I don't think anybody can control, and that’s not really up to us. Yeah, it’s up to us to go out there and play and put the front office in a much better position. But here we are. I think there's still a lot of talent here.

What about for you, personally?

It’s been a really weird year for me as well. I’ve definitely hit the ball harder, and I've hit the ball better than the scoreboard would show.

What about this division? You came up with an Astros team that was bad, built smartly around young players and ultimately won a World Series and have been a force for years. Do you think the Orioles can have that type of impact?

The Orioles are extremely good. They're extremely well-run. I think their players fit exactly how they want to play. One, they've done an unbelievable job of scouting and drafting, all that good stuff. And they've developed guys. You can see it every day with Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Colton Cowser, and they’ve got a guy named Jackson Holliday that was just in the minors (recently).

There’s a lot of talent there. I think this is a team that's going to be good for a long time, albeit in a very tough division.

What about this version of the New York Yankees? How good are they?

They’re always gonna be good. And I think this division is always going to be good. The Rays are having what you would call a down year for them, and they're still around .500. This is a very tough division. And unfortunately for everybody in this division, we play each other a lot.

So, there’s a lot of bumps, there’s a lot of bruises, there’s a lot of lumps. There's a lot of hard-fought games, but I think that's why it’s the best division in baseball.

Do you feel like your organization can retool a little for 2025 and be as good as this club was expected to be in 2024? Because right now it’s arguably the most disappointing team in the game, given the talent.

That’s how everybody feels. In here, it’s like, "Man. Wow." There's nothing really more to say. Yeah, a lot hasn't gone our way. There's been some stuff that we've done that’s actually been really good, a lot of stuff that doesn't show up in box scores. But again, I understand that you get judged on the wins and losses. I get that.

I think for this team, you’ve just got to let the dust fall where it may at the end of the year, and onto 2025 with the expectations. I think everybody will learn from this and understand what we didn't do, what we did do right or what we didn't do right. We’ll put it all out there again next year.

Guerrero has been on fire since May. When he’s like this, is he as good as nearly anyone in the game?

Yeah. This isn't anything that I didn't know he could do. He gets a lot of flak for some odd reason. He is, in my opinion, one of the top five hitters in the game. He can do things that are incredible. He’s not on a run or anything like that. He’s just being who he is. And he's gonna be that way for a long time.

Guerrero can be a free agent at the end of 2025. So can Bichette. You are signed here through 2026. How important is it to you for this organization to keep you guys together and to keep those two Blue Jays lifers together?

I think it's huge. Obviously, Bo and Vladdy have been together since they were kids. They're still kids (Guerrero is 25 and Bichette, 26). I was brought here four years ago, and I feel like I have been here the whole time. To have those two here is huge. Not only for the locker room but for the organization. For me, I love them both. But again, I understand the other side of the game. But I hope we can all work together and make another run at it.