Former Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos is feeling the same heat as Atkins to start the 2025 season

All of this and much more left fans shocked, disappointed, and even enraged when it was announced that Anthopoulos had rejected a contract extension and chose to pursue other opportunities, something that didn’t seem possible as the Blue Jays returned to the playoffs for the first time since the 90s in 2015.

However, the situation had changed quite a bit that year, as Mark Shapiro took over for Paul Beeston as the new team president, and it was very clear that Anthopoulos and Shapiro never saw eye to eye on how things would work going forward. As a result, Atkins was hired to replace the popular Anthopoulos, and despite eventually building a team that would return to the playoffs again three times between 2020-23, you’ll still frequently hear fans wondering out loud how things would have worked out if Anthopoulos had never left.

While that could be a fun rabbit hole to go down, I’ll save that for another day.

Instead, I wanted to invite Blue Jays fans to check out Twitter sometime and see what fans of the Atlanta Braves are saying about Anthopoulos these days.

Of course, after winning a World Series title in 2021 and remaining one of the better teams in the National League over the last number of years, Anthopoulos has developed a whole new following of believers in his front office abilities. “AA” will always have that championship with the Braves to hang his hat on, and he’s made several savvy moves since taking over in Atlanta back in late 2017. However, these days the Braves are struggling to join the playoff race in the NL, and currently have a record of 26-29 (.473). And as a result, I’ve started to see more frequent criticism of Anthopoulos’ work coming from Braves fans. Take the tweet and comment section below it as a prime example:

While some of it is a bit much, there are some fair criticisms of some of the decisions Anthopoulos and his team have made more recently.

No GM is going to bat .1000 when it comes to building a roster, even if it has occasionally felt like AA was doing just that.

For example, though, I understand why there are some Braves fans who are still upset about Freddie Freeman ending up with the powerhouse Dodgers and continuing to post numbers that will almost surely put him in the Hall of Fame one day. I also understand the frustration about seeing Max Fried thriving with the Yankees while some Braves starters like Spencer Strider and Chris Sale have struggled to stay healthy, and/or pitch to previous levels of dominance. There are a few other moves that Braves fans have brought up as strikes against the Canadian executive as the reason behind their below .500 record.

To be fair, there are all kinds of contexts that could mostly explain those situations, but the point is that I understand why there are rumblings of discontent in Atlanta these days, and the fans are usually quick to point the finger at the coaching staff and the front office at times like that. Not even Anthopoulos is immune to stuff like that.

While I’m going to stop well short of endorsing this current front office, especially over a Canadian success story like Anthopoulos’, I just think it’s fair to point out that no front office executive is spared from this sorta thing when their team is underperforming. At 26-29, the Braves are 9.5 games behind the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies, but we’re only a third of the way through the year, and a lot can change with more than 100 games to go. That said, there’s no disputing that the Braves have been a huge disappointment thus far.

Currently at 28-28, the same could be said for Ross Atkins and the Blue Jays so far in 2025. They’re currently 7.5 games back of the Yankees for the AL East division lead, and 2.0 games behind the Astros for the third and final Wild Card spot. Just as it is for the Braves, the Blue Jays have plenty of time to change the narrative about their 2025 campaign, and hopefully Thursday’s 12-0 thumping of the A’s will be the turning point we’ve all been waiting for. If not, the criticism of Atkins will continue, and will likely be much louder than anything Anthopoulos is facing at the moment.