Thanks for looking at our petition!  

TLDR version:

This petition is for Blue Jays fans to voice their displeasure with the front office and ownership ruining our Blue Jays by organizing a boycott of the team until Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are fired and a competent management team is in place.  

Fans who agree should sign this petition to show Rogers that we are serious and hopefully we can drive change for the better.  I myself cancelled my 4 front row season tickets 2 years ago that I had since 2015 but more fans need to take a stand to show Rogers we are serious.

Feel free to scroll to the bottom and sign the petition, but if you need more convincing of the front offices' incompetence, buckle up for a long read.

Spread the word!

Background: 

Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have shown again and again that they are grossly incompetent at running the Toronto Blue Jays and are ruining the team.  

The most recent example is their failure to re-sign Guerrero and Bichette, but the list is long and has been growing longer for almost 10 years now.

A few of the lowlights of their tenure:

2016:
Shapiro's mission statement when he took over was that he would create a sustainable winner, with an emphasis on drafting and developing "waves" of talent.  He talked about supporting a payroll that would allow them to re-sign their stars long term as well as make additions in free agency to supplement a contending team.  He talked of never having to rebuild and that they should always be contending for the World Series.  

It all sounded great in theory.

However, prior to Shapiro taking over following the 2015 season, General Manager Alex Anthopoulos made the splashy trade deadline moves to acquire David Price and Troy Tulowitzki, to go along with MVP Josh Donaldson who was acquired before the season.  Those trades gave us fans the best 2 season run (2015-2016) and first playoff appearances since the 1992/93 World Series years.  

The Blue Jays started to sell out the Rogers Centre on a nightly basis, and lead the American League in attendance and television ratings.  

Under the charge of Anthopoulos, the fanbase was supercharged and team revenues increased immensely as a result.  Fans fell in love with their homegrown Canadian GM who was a rising star among front office executives, winning MLB executive of the year in 2015.  It was odd that Rogers decided to hire Shapiro to take over as President while all of this was happening.

After the 2015 season, Shapiro insulted Anthopoulos after taking over as President for apparently stripping the farm system bare in the moves he made at the deadline.  As a result, Anthopoulos did not want to stay on as GM as he would be a puppet of Shapiro who wanted final say on all player moves.  Shapiro instead hired Ross Atkins to be GM of the Blue Jays, while Anthopoulos went on to win 6 consecutive division titles and a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in the following years.  Meanwhile the Blue Jays have zero division titles since 2015 and zero playoff wins since 2016, when they made the ALCS with a team whose foundation was built by Anthopolous.

2017/18:
After the 2016 season, the team failed to re-sign fan favorite and 2016 Wild Card hero Edwin Encarnacion to an extension.  He ended up signing with Cleveland and the Blue Jays pivoted to signing Kendrys Morales.  This signing backfired, and despite many in the fan base suggesting they should start the rebuilding process by trading stars like Josh Donaldson, they decided to "go for it" and ended up finishing 4th in 2017 with a 76-86 record.  

Ultimately they ended up with pennies on the dollar when they finally traded Donaldson far too late in 2018, acquiring little-known Julian Merryweather for the former MVP, meanwhile Donaldson helped Cleveland win their division.  

Rumours had been circulating that after the 2017 season, the Cardinals had offered 2 players including star pitcher Jack Flaherty for Donaldson but that the Blue Jays had turned down the offer, further showing their incompetence.  The Blue Jays went 73-89 and finished 4th again in 2018.

2019:
Atkins and Shapiro replaced fan favorite manager John Gibbons with the relatively unknown Charlie Montoyo.  In an attempt at a big brain move, this again backfired as Montoyo was constantly second guessed by the fanbase and media over questionable decision making over the next 2 seasons before ultimately being fired in 2021 and replaced by John Schneider.

Now in full rebuild, the team finished 2019 with a 67-95 record.

For some reason in 2019, Atkins extended Randall Grichuk to a 5 year $52 million contract when he was still 2 years away from arbitration and had shown no signs of becoming a star.  He had a career OBP below .300 at the time and the end result is Toronto had to pay a large chunk of his salary to entice the Colorado Rockies to take him off our hands 2 years later after grossly underperforming the contract.

2021:
Atkins failed to address the bullpen until it was far too late in the 2021 season when it was obvious to everyone that it needed to be done early on.  They ended up missing the playoffs by 1 game despite have 2 of the top 3 MVP finalists and the AL Cy Young winner that season.  

Unbelievable ineptitude by a front office that sat on their hands while the bullpen blew countless leads early in the season.  The farm system that was supposed to be producing "waves" of talent by now didn't have much in the pipeline.  The team was able to compete for a playoff spot only because Rogers increased team payroll to allow Atkins and Shapiro to paper over their failures by signing free agents like George Springer and Hyun Jin Ryu.

Atkins also failed to extend Vlad Guerrero Jr and Bo Bichette long term despite an industry wide trend of teams locking up young stars at this time.  They made an insultingly low offer to Guerrero Jr after his 2021 MVP calibre season.  Guerrero was an international signee by former GM Anthopoulos back in 2015 and it seemed that the team had little interest in extending him long term despite his stated desire to be a Blue Jay for life.

2022/2023:
After getting swept in the 2022 Wild Card Series vs the Mariners, Atkins completely misread the team and overreacted, trading away fan favorites Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Teoscar Hernandez.  Both players were very good hitters.  Instead the team pivoted to acquiring defense, notably Dalton Varsho, who was acquired in a trade of top prospect Gabriel Moreno and Gurriel Jr.
 
Atkins erroneously assumed Varsho would blossom into a star hitter, batting him cleanup right out of the gates in 2023.  Varsho went on to have a terrible offensive season, far below league average, while Gurriel and Moreno helped the Diamondbacks to a World Series appearance in 2023. 

Meanwhile the 2023 team squeaked into the playoffs as a wild card team but was widely panned as one of the most frustrating Blue Jays teams of all time to watch, struggling to hit and with Shapiro himself quoted as saying "I’ve been in the game 32 years and I can’t remember a season that felt like it was more of an effort."

The team also made the bizarre decision to pull Jose Berrios in game 2 of the Wild Card series vs the Twins.  Berrios was dealing, yet he was yanked in the 5th inning in an extremely puzzling move that angered some of the players and all of the fan base.  

Afterward Atkins threw his manager under the bus in post game comments for a decision that was obviously made by the front office ahead of time.  The Blue Jays were ridiculed by industry executives as a result.  By this point the front office was hated by the majority of fans and there were mass calls for firings.  After the season Shapiro insisted they had to get better at evaluating, and that it was on him and Ross to "be better." 

2024:
The front office failed to realize they were played by Shohei Ohtani's agent prior to the 2024 season.  The Blue Jays finished 2nd in the bidding for Ohtani, largely because they were the only team who didn't read the tea leaves that he was destined to sign with the Dodgers.  While other teams dropped out and focused their attention towards other players, the Jays stayed in the bidding war, were used by Ohtani's agent to drive up his contract value, and missed out on the other big name free agents, ultimately ending up having to sign the leftover scraps.  

The team that they insisted would be better in 2024 instead took a massive step back as a result, and finished dead last in the AL East with a 74-88 record despite having a record high payroll of $247 million at one point during the season.  Rogers was not getting much bang for their buck at this point.  The calls for firing were getting louder.

2024/25 offseason
Atkins tried to lure Juan Soto, one of MLB's brightest young stars to Toronto by reportedly offering a $765 million contract.  Again the Jays finished runner up in the bidding process and were largely used to drive up the cost for Soto, who ended up signing with the Mets for $765 million.

Despite being willing to offer Soto that massive contract, they were unwilling to come anywhere near Guerrero's asking price for an extension.  The homegrown star, fan favorite and face of the Blue Jays, the front office has never seriously attempted to re-sign Guerrero, perhaps due to some grudge due to the fact he was signed by Anthopoulos?  It just doesn't make sense.  

Vlad Jr has stated on numerous occasions that he wants to be a Blue Jay for life, yet this front office never seemed to want to get a deal done.

Now the team will go into 2025 with Guerrero Jr and Bichette as pending free agents set to walk after the season, while running a payroll close to $280 million, top 5 in MLB.  They are not expected to make the playoffs with only a 38% chance according to Fangraphs, and they have one of the worst farm systems in MLB.  

Fan Opinion:
This decade-long tenure of Shapiro and Atkins has been a strange and frustrating one.  Right from the beginning Shapiro botched the hand off by dragging Anthopoulos in the media, and he and Atkins' corporate speak became the ire of fans.  The front office never figured out how to talk to the fan base, coming off as robots in interviews, particularly Atkins.  They also give off "smarter than you" vibes, and are undoubtedly the least popular President and General Manager in Toronto sports history.  There have been numerous fan polls run by newspapers and websites where fans have voted their displeasure in astounding numbers:

-In a Blue Jays Insider poll from Feb 10 2025, out of nearly 5300 respondents, 92.4% wanted Atkins fired.   LINK
-A poll from Oct 2024 after the Toronto Sun front page called out Atkins and Shapiro as "Weiners and Losers" and asked fans if Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins were an embarassment to the Blue Jays, an overwhelming 97.6% out of nearly 1100 votes cast were for "Yes".  LINK
-A recent poll "Should the lack of a signing Vlad Guerrero Jr to a new deal mean the end of the Shapiro/Atkins era?", of almost 4000 respondents, 90% said "Yes". LINK
-A September 2024 poll by bluebirdbanter.com asked if fans approved of the job Ross Atkins was doing - of over 3000 respondents, 85% said Strongly Disapprove, with only 1% voting Strongly Approve.  LINK
-An anonymous poll by The Athletic of 40 MLB executives who were asked to rank their top 5 front offices, the Blue Jays did not receive a single vote, tying for last overall meanwhile former GM Anthopoulis' Braves front office was ranked 3rd overall. LINK

To summarize, Atkins and Shapiro should have been fired years ago.  Kudos to Rogers for raising payroll in an attempt to put a winning team on the field, but the prudent thing to do would be to fire Shapiro and Atkins, and hire a front office who would give them far more bang for their buck.  This team has a terrible farm system and no home grown stars on the foreseeable horizon.  I wonder what Anthopoulos could have built if Shapiro had never been hired and he had never been forced out.  I'm confident that $280 million would buy a lot more wins, a better farm system and a lot less fan frustration.

If you've made it this far, please sign the petition and spread the word!  Lets stop these 2 from destroying our favorite team!