TORONTO \u2014 When the Toronto Blue Jays raise their 2025 American League Championship banner to the rafters of Rogers Centre on Friday, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is going to give himself a moment to let his feelings come out.<\/p>\n
After all, Toronto came within a hairsbreadth of winning the Blue Jays\u2019 third Major League Baseball championship before a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, definitely. I mean, the emotions are going to be there,\u201d said Guerrero through translator Hector Lebron. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be great emotions, especially when they see that banner unfurling, it\u2019s going to be great. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t finish the way we wanted to, but that\u2019s the part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
But once the umpire yells play ball and Toronto starting pitcher Kevin Gausman throws the first pitch of the game against the Athletics in both teams\u2019 season opener, the Blue Jays\u2019 2025 season will officially be in the past. Guerrero, Gausman and the rest of their teammates will be focusing on the new season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectations are for everybody else, they\u2019re very high for us,\u201d said Guerrero on trying to replicate last year\u2019s success. \u201cJust the same thing: go out there and keep working very hard, trying to do everything to win every game.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur expectations are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gausman, who will be the Opening Day starter for the first time in his five-year tenure in Toronto, was philosophical when asked about his expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s really only so much you can control,\u201d said Gausman. \u201cOnce the ball leaves your hand, you can get over and cover first base and make sure that you\u2019re backing up a base if you need to. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut once it leaves your hand, you don\u2019t really have too much control on the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the expectations may be the same, some major changes were made to Toronto\u2019s roster in the off-season. <\/p>\n
All-star shortstop Bo Bichette and veteran starting pitcher Chris Bassitt both signed elsewhere. Japanese star third baseman Kazuma Okamoto, Cy Young Award runner-up Dylan Cease and reliable journeyman pitcher Cody Ponce all joined the Blue Jays as free agents. <\/p>\n
Right-fielder Jesus Sanchez was acquired via trade with the Houston Astros for outfielder Joey Loperfido during spring training.<\/p>\n
General manager Ross Atkins said on Thursday that \u201cwithout a doubt\u201d this year\u2019s Opening Day roster is better than 2025\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can understand why our fans don\u2019t see it quite that clearly because of the subtraction of Bo Bichette, who is a very good player, who will continue to be,\u201d said Atkins at a news conference. \u201cBut in bolstering our pitching, first and foremost, was a very clear goal, one that we feel, that we accomplished in a significant way. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen the addition of Okamoto is something that we\u2019re very excited about with the experiences and the growth of the players that we\u2019ve been talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manager John Schneider said he still wakes up in the middle of the night to go over the decisions he made in Game 7 of the World Series that Toronto lost 5-4 in 11 innings. But Schneider also said that he\u2019s ready to move on and that the Blue Jays can\u2019t dwell on last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy expectations are for these guys to show up every day, be great teammates and be obsessed with winning. That\u2019s it. If we do that, we\u2019ll be just fine,\u201d said Schneider at his news conference. \u201cYes, you acknowledge the past, you talk about the precedent, you work, you\u2019re working on your process and right now the past, the past is gone, right? <\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s just the present, it\u2019s process and be productive. I think if we do that, we\u2019re going to be just fine. We have the talent, we have the people, and we have the experiences to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atkins said that how he judges what a successful year looks like might not be a common or even popular definition.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to love my answer, but it\u2019s to compete and to control what you can control, because it\u2019s just too hard to say that if we don\u2019t win the World Series, that it\u2019s a failure,\u201d said Atkins. \u201cThere\u2019s so many variables and so much at stake. It\u2019s certainly our goal, but just as we ask our players to focus on things they can control, and take it one pitch at a time, we think that we would be talking out of both sides of our mouth if we said anything different.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a belief that comes from the top down, with Blue Jays team president Mark Shapiro telling reporters on Thursday that \u201cit\u2019s a dangerous thing\u201d to think momentum can be carried over year to year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no such thing as running it back. This year is this year,\u201d said Shapiro in a Rogers Centre board room. \u201cWe\u2019re shaped and formed by our past, but we have to organically be a new group of players pursuing a new goal this year, and have to let that transpire, naturally as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only one thing that\u2019s certain heading into every Major League Baseball season, and that is that something unexpected is going to happen along the way, and how we adapt and adjust to that will define this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luis Severino gets the start for the Athletics on Friday.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 When the Toronto Blue Jays raise their 2025 American League Championship banner to the rafters of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-562891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}