{"id":241045,"date":"2025-10-26T09:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T09:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/241045\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T09:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T09:17:11","slug":"culture-at-heart-of-blue-jays-world-series-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/241045\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture at heart of Blue Jays\u2019 World Series run"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Whether it was at the draft, the trade deadline, or during free agency, Ross Atkins has always emphasized the importance of values during his decade as general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

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Every time there was a potential addition to the team, Atkins never failed to mention their \u201chigh character.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes that policy has paid off in 2025, with the Blue Jays reaching the World Series for the first time in 32 years in large part thanks to their cohesiveness and dedication to each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been taught and learned and believed strongly that hiring and identification of \u2014 whether it be players, coaches, scouts, anyone that\u2019s helping support the organization \u2014 that hiring\u2019s the most important thing we do,\u201d said Atkins during a news conference on Friday before Game 1 of the World Series. \u201cIf you do that with values that are important to you, then over time, that\u2019s going to pay off for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Atkins said that centring the team\u2019s personnel policy and the resulting atmosphere is something that he and manager John Schneider actually spoke about earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that I think about the most is the relationships, the people that we have hired and the people that we have grown with together,\u201d said Atkins, who was hired as the team\u2019s GM in December 2015. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt there\u2019s a big group of people here that I\u2019m working with that will, for sure, be lifelong relationships and lifelong friendships.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis success \u2014 albeit we\u2019re not done, with work to do \u2014 not just this year, but well beyond, I think just emboldens that feeling of how powerful these relationships will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Toronto led all of Major League Baseball with 49 come-from-behind wins in the regular season, with 12 of those victories coming when the Blue Jays trailed by at least three runs.<\/p>\n

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They also rallied from a 2-0 deficit to the Seattle Mariners in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series. The climactic Game 7 in Toronto was capped by George Springer\u2019s three-run homer in the seventh inning, undoing Seattle\u2019s early 3-1 lead in that series finale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what forms a good team. It\u2019s talent and it\u2019s players, but it\u2019s people,\u201d said Schneider before the World Series began. \u201cI think that we\u2019ve done such a phenomenal job of creating a culture where people are just welcome.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s what we\u2019ve grasped on to, the standard we\u2019ve set. Not just the type of player we want, but the type of people we want in here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider has been with the Blue Jays organization since 2002 when he was drafted in the 13th round of that year\u2019s draft. He retired from playing after the 2007 season due to three concussions suffered that year, then became a minor-league manager for the rookie-level Gulf Coast League Blue Jays in 2008, working his way up through the franchise\u2019s different levels of ball.<\/p>\n

He said that the relationships that have been built in Toronto during Atkins\u2019s tenure has helped create the culture that made the Blue Jays (94-68) playoff run possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that when you\u2019re trying to establish a winning environment and a winning organization that can do it repeatedly, that people come into play,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cPeople that are going to push things forward and not be satisfied.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEven this year, when we acquired (infielder Andres Gimenez) and signed (Anthony Santander) and signed Max (Scherzer), we were talking about what that would do for people around them too and where the people that we had already were in their career and in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider said it was also a factor in July as Major League Baseball\u2019s trade deadline approached and the Blue Jays were gearing up for a deep post-season run.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool to have those conversations with Ross, understanding what we were doing at the time, and not trying to disrupt that,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cYou want to try to add people that are going to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Seranthony (Dominguez), who is about as selfless as there is, Louis Varland, Ty France, they\u2019re good pieces for what we already have, too. We made it a point to be really aware of it this year and, again, it\u2019s been a couple years in the making to get to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Varland and France were traded to Toronto by the Minnesota Twins on July 31 for Alan Roden and Kendry Rojas. Varland, who has become a fixture in the Blue Jays bullpen in the post-season, said that the strong culture on his new team was immediately apparent.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the coaching staff to the players to the support staff to the chefs, like everybody\u2019s great, everybody\u2019s friendly, welcoming,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw this the other day, \u2018the Glue Jays.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s, like, a perfect way to sum it up. Everybody\u2019s so close and everybody\u2019s a great guy or girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2025.<\/p>\n

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