Shapiro Q&A: Championship expectations, Vladdy's growth

Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro sat down with members of the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming season and other topics. Note: Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How are expectations different this Opening Day compared to last season, and how do you move on from 2025?

Shapiro: I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about comparing last year to this year. I think there's things that feel the same. There's always the same kind of reflection for me about Opening Day and what that means.

Expectations, we put a lot on ourselves all the time. I don't think there's a moment that we don't hold ourselves to high expectations and very few moments that we reflect on being kind of satisfied.

We're chasing excellence. Excellence doesn't have a benchmark. Excellence doesn't have an end point. If you win that last game played, you want to do it again the next year. That part still feels like it's present and still feels like we want to bring world championships to our fans.

There will be moments Friday where we celebrate with our fans, celebrate last year a little bit. That's a fine balance to strike because it is next year. But we don't want to overlook the significance of the first time in 32 years playing in those games and having played one of the best World Series in the history of baseball.

Q: How do you get over the hump after coming so close in 2025?

Shapiro: I think it's a dangerous thing to think you have to build off last year. I think it's a balance. Like what parts of last year could serve as a foundation for this year? Part of it is just the experience, right? To know how it feels to have played in those games will make the majority of our players better. To know the identifiable traits and characteristics that we think form the identity of our team - that's transferable year-to-year. Kevin Gausman talks eloquently about that; our players own it now. They own the culture. They own the identity. I think that piece is real. They know who they are. They know how they want to play the game and how they want to be perceived by the team across the field, by the fans in the stands, by anyone watching.

We're 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.

I've seen more organizations go off the rails feeling they had to build off of a last year, rather than just organically approach this year. It's hard as hell, (the AL East is the) toughest division in baseball. Over 162 games, crap is going to happen that we're not ready for. Let's go. Let's get started. That's kind of the approach I think our guys will take.

Q: What would make a successful season for the Blue Jays in 2026?

Shapiro: I expect us to be a championship-caliber team. Defining it more than that is not something I'm comfortable doing. I'll look at the end of the year. I'll evaluate how we handle the challenges that we faced. Depth-wise, talent-wise, did we rise to the occasion? Did we play to our capability? But we have championship expectations, and I think if we fall short of playing meaningful baseball into October, we'll be disappointed.

Q: The Blue Jays are operating with one of MLB's largest payrolls. With the CBA set to expire at the end of the season, what are your thoughts on a potential salary cap coming?

Shapiro: It's obviously on people's minds. What I've encouraged from a leadership position is the best thing for (my staff) to do is to focus on what they can control. You will not find happiness thinking about what's coming in six months. We've got an incredible season to look forward to, and so at the end of the season, we'll address that and start to think about it. It's not that we won't think about those things in the interim, but as it pertains to the CBA, I'm not going to comment anything more than that. I certainly have opinions. I want people, I want our players, I want our staff, and I want our organization to focus on what I hope to be a magical year ahead.

Q: Would it be a negative for the Blue Jays if there were more spending restrictions in the next CBA?

Shapiro: We'll adapt and function with whatever the rules are at that time. I think it's a lot like the Dodgers have said, they're not doing anything wrong. They're operating within the system. Frankly, they're spending what they're making. It's the system that exists, and so we'll continue to work with the system. If the system changes, we'll adjust to this change. I'm not going to sit here and try to guess what that system could look like.

Q: Those Dodgers are coming to town in a few weeks. What will that experience be like after the World Series?

Shapiro: I think it will be impossible to not have some mixed emotions when they come here. But I'll do my best to hold myself to a philosophical core, which is, it's not last year; it's this year, and they're just the opponent we're facing. And that is what it is. But it'll be impossible not to reflect at certain times.

Q: Should fans continue to expect the Blue Jays to operate with a similar payroll moving forward as in 2026?

Shapiro: I think the question is best answered by the recent precedent. We do have a budget every year. We do go through the process of looking at where our major-league payroll is and where it could go. But we also are given a clear mandate from Edward (Rogers) and from Tony (Staffieri) that if there's an opportunity to make this club meaningfully better, bring it to them. And you've seen the outcome of that, whether it's a trade deadline or the offseason, that we've been green-lit to pursue some upper-level talent. The desire from ownership is to win.

I definitely felt like this market was capable of being a behemoth. The biggest challenge is just the foreign exchange rate again. I think it's important to not make that an excuse or complain about that. But without that, we are definitively a top-four-to-seven market. That's a fact, like our revenue is at par in the upper echelon of the game.

Q: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is coming off incredible performances in the postseason and World Baseball Classic. How have you seen him grow as a person and player?

Shapiro: He reminds me of growing up around Kirby Puckett. Minnesota's farm director once told me that Kirby made it better for every single person to come to the ballpark. Whether it was the equipment manager, the groundskeeper, or the starting third baseman, every single person enjoyed coming to the ballpark because of Kirby. He had that energy. And Vladdy has that same joyful exuberance and love of the game. He brings the things that were the same at 18, which is a joy of playing the game, and that impacts us more powerfully. And if that never changes, then that will be his greatest impact on this team and on this franchise and on this fan base because they feel it. It's authentic. It's genuine.

I do think that he's thinking about leadership differently. I think he's thinking about his ability to impact and imprint of the team. I think he's thinking about how he has the ability to think about this community and this country differently than he did a year ago. But he's still young. He's so incredibly young. That's the unbelievable aspect of him. I think we'll see what that looks like and how that manifests itself, but I would expect that his confidence in exerting that impact and that influence both on the country (and) on the city and on his teammates will continue to grow as his career progresses.

Q: Can Guerrero carry those performances over a regular season?

Shapiro: It would be almost impossible for him to the play at those levels for a whole season - or almost historic - but the hope is that we can see something closer to that than what he was over the regular season last year. Again, it's just a progression of a career and never a doubt of what he's potentially capable of doing.

Q: Are the Blue Jays still interested in hosting an All-Star Game?

Shapiro: It's been important to me. It's been put on hold due to the Olympics. It's just things keep coming up. They keep pushing us a little bit further in the queue. But we have an application in. We're going to have an All-Star Game here. It's just a question of when.

Q: What about hosting future World Baseball Classic games?

Shapiro: I think it makes complete sense to host some round of WBC. We'd have interest in that. I think that would be great for this city. We couldn't do it this year because of (renovations). We still had scaffolding up until a couple weeks ago. The renovation has prevented us from having offseason use of this building. Starting next year, we can start to consider offseason (events).