DUNEDIN, Fla. – Mark Shapiro has been making the media rounds this spring and if that sounds unusual, it’s because he’s never done it before. At least not quite like this.

Shapiro sat down with a couple different outlets earlier this week and talked about his vision for the Blue Jays. Toronto’s president and CEO appears to have done a complete 180 on his approach to public relations as he attempts to be more open and accessible to reporters, and by extension the fans.

I wrote a column about the change in tactics, but there was only so much space for quotes. Below you will find a partial transcript of my interview with Shapiro, which covers a wide variety of topics. Since Shapiro had done a couple interviews earlier this week, I was more focused on the topics he hadn’t discussed yet, including: his approach to media, the lack of renovations at Rogers Centre, the recent MLB.TV blackout controversy, the lack of local products at concessions and ownership issues.

Here it is:

The Star: Before your time in Toronto there was talk that the Blue Jays might have to leave Dunedin to get a new spring training deal. How do you feel now that everything is resolved and the team is here to stay?

Shapiro: “It's interesting coming in and thinking about Dunedin from the outside looking in, and the drives that we used to make from Winter Haven, Fla. to here and how tough it was to get to the ballpark, in the middle of the city block and how old the ballpark seemed, even 15 years ago when we came in. It wasn't something that, coming in, I thought was going to happen. I thought in order to get what was necessary to be competitive in baseball, we were probably going to move. But it took a short period of time to recognize that, ‘Hey, we're the only team that's still training where they started training.’ That there's a special appreciation for the Jays and the community here. We knew we'd have to do some compromising.

“So, the compromise is the stadium's not in the same location as the training site, but we knew we needed to: A get everybody under one roof. That that was important for us from an identity culture, training environment. And B, we needed to have a facility that was a potential competitive advantage. That put the player at the centre and provided all the modern capabilities to integrate technology and all the different subject matter experts that help a player reach his potential mentally, physically, and fundamentally.

“Never easy, but to put a financing deal together with the city, county, state and our ownership, all contributing, we finally did get to that point. So, now we're opening, 75% of the facility this spring and then with the one big piece of the development complex building left to open over the summer. It's pretty exciting to reflect and see, pretty meaningful to know the next generation or two, will all continue to watch the Blue Jays play in Dunedin, train in Dunedin. Because it really has moved from just training to something, we do training, rehabilitate 365 days a year here.”

The Star: Over the last decade I’ve been covering this team, I've heard a lot of comments from players about the facilities and most had complaints about how outdated this place was. How much of an obstacle was when you tried to recruit players? Did it ever come up and do you think improving the conditions provides a better overall selling point?

Shapiro: “I try not to talk about it being so outdated because I feel like that would become an excuse for us. We put a lot of time and energy right away, into updating what we could update. We redid the weight rooms in both locations. We found outdoor spaces that created overflow. We redid fields and did what we could do, but the reality is we were still playing from behind the entire time.

“I think as we move from the antiquated facility to one that is state of the art, the biggest advantage is going to be the number of players that are considering living here all year round. The number of staff that are considering being here all year round, knowing that they will not have a better facility, or better coaches to train with -- whether it's strength, baseball or medically -- then here, and knowing we will be able to offer that, I think is a competitive advantage.

“As far as attracting players, I think it will be an attraction for players that already live in Florida. But not necessarily one that would say, ‘Hey, this is going draw a guy from California, or draw a guy from the Dominican’ and say, ‘this is where I need to sign,’ because I think there are other things we can do, like winning, that could make it more attractive.”

The Star: As you touched on there, nothing is going to change the perception of your team more than winning, but how much do you think the perception of your team has changed based on the off-season and the money you spent?

Shapiro: “I reflect back on the expenditures, the steps we took in free agency and trades, and I look at the fact that the perception, probably just in the industry more than with our fans, had already changed as we transitioned the young players up here, and people watched us play and compete, particularly the last two months in the second half of last year when really we had less talent on our pitching staff, but actually won more games and were far more competitive. Their belief and the demonstration of their potential, left teams that played us saying, ‘Man, those guys are really going to be really good.’ You could feel it. I think that established the credibility and then supplementing that core with some proven veteran pitchers, that clearly was a need for us, kind of took it to the next level. Now it's dependent on us going out and winning more games.”

The Star: But what about the perception within the fan base?

Shapiro: “I think it's important for the fan base. Fans probably cling to off-seasons at a disproportionate level, but it's understanding, it's kind of an opportunity for a fan to measure is a front office. Is ownership as committed? Do we want to win as badly as they want to win? I think when you go through a necessary period of kind of retooling, and it's clear as you transition young players, that winning doesn't always look like it's the immediate goal, some fans, unless they're the hardest core fans that really understand the game, that want to understand the game at the most, granular levels, they'll feel some distance. They'll feel some level of under appreciation for their support. So, it's important to obviously move with a sense of urgency towards winning. And it's important at times for them to have that validation that, ‘Hey, these guys are bringing in other players too, and that they want to win as badly as we do.’”

The Star: You recently mentioned ticket sales didn’t receive much of a bump after signing Hyun-Jin Ryu. Is that concerning? Were you expecting more?

Shapiro: “Not really, no. I think it normally lags behind a little bit and I think there's just the reality that, with big stadiums -- and ours is one of the biggest -- that when you go through a period where there's not a lot of demand for your tickets, people lose the sense of urgency. It takes winning before people feel like I've got to buy in advance. That said, I still think we will have more fans this year than last year. I just think that there's not a big sense of urgency. I think it's going to happen, it's just going to happen as we start to play and win.”

The Star: At the winter meetings, during the height of free agency, you talked about moving the goalposts, that you adjusted to the market and were willing to spend more than originally thought. Was the off-season surprising to you in that way? How difficult was it to go above your comfort zone compared to your initial evaluations?

Shapiro: “One thing that being long tenured affords you, you’re rarely surprised. I've seen free agent markets exceed expectations so many times now that I'm probably more surprised when they don't exceed, than when they do. We just had to adjust. We had to still take the values we framed and then kind of put an understanding of where the market escalated, and attack that onto the values we frame. So, the work to frame values was still meaningful, and it still helped to shape the contracts, but then we adapted to where the market went and overstepped what our initial values were.”

The Star: How would you evaluate the job that Ross Atkins in the front office has done and how it lines up with your vision of the franchise?

Shapiro: “I look at our baseball operation staff led by Ross and think, for us to have tried to play out that stretch as long as we did, which to some extent compromised the pace of retooling and putting a new team on the field, yet to still have elevated the talent level to where the last couple of years we're one of the better farm systems in the game, and then to see those players transition to the big leagues and do it in a way where their potential is clear to everyone watching, that's a tremendous accomplishment. That's much harder to do than it sounds.

“There are some teams that have quick turnarounds, but some of the best, like the Cubs and the Astros, they take losing and picking in the top two, three picks, and that's really losing a lot, multiple times to get that talent in. We've never done that and yet I think we're still positioned and poised to have a really good stretch of baseball here for a long period of time. So, I'm excited about the job that Ross is leading our baseball operations to group to do, and I do say that it is a collective effort. It's the whole group of baseball operations. It’s whose names you've heard like Joe Sheehan and Mike Murov. Guys, you haven't heard that are all contributing and helping us get to the best outcomes and the best results.”

The Star: I don’t think I’ve ever missed one of our media availabilities, so I can’t help but notice there has been a noticeable shift this off-season. You went four years without tweeting, you’re tweeting again. You’re doing more updates, you’re meeting more frequently with the media. I’m curious where that came from and if you’re trying to change the way you’re perceived in this city?

Shapiro: “It wasn't quite as strategic as it sounds and they're probably not all connected to each other. The Twitter piece, I'm on Twitter all the time and I always have been. I use it as a great source of information because I think you can customize feed of your Twitter to what your interests are and a lot of mine are based to kind of about learning. So, I've got regular people I follow and just go down the rabbit hole when I have time. Reading articles that are linked to Twitter, bits of inspiration and daily thoughts. I felt like if I could get back on Twitter without the need to kind of generate content, and be just more myself that, I was comfortable doing that. So, I talked about that here with folks internally and in the end, I just decided to do it. So, I'm on there and I'll occasionally tweet out Blue Jays stuff, but I'd say it's probably 10 to 15% personal stuff, 50% my interests and the other 35% is Blue Jays or baseball related. I'm comfortable with that because it's authentic to me. What that means, I don't know. I do think it's important for fans to feel like there are people they can connect to and that they can feel tied to, that care and that are running the team. If it's an opportunity to personalize me and those around me, I think that's great. It's not necessarily strategic or like a really strong effort, but it feels natural to me.

“The availability piece, I probably was intentionally not that available out of respect for Ross initially. I didn't want there to be any grey area of what the reality was, which is, I'm overseeing the whole organization and he's running baseball operations. That doesn't mean I'm not involved in it. We're all involved, but I said, those guys I mentioned earlier, are far more involved than me. As I felt like it was more clear to everyone that Ross was actually the GM running baseball operations, I felt more comfortable speaking and that it wasn't going to be viewed as, ‘Oh, he must be telling Ross what to do.’ I think it was clear that I wasn't doing that. For the media as well as our fans. I'm comfortable doing media, I mean, I've done it for a long period of time, so it was just more like, could it be helpful? Could it be helpful to your organization and team? If it was, I'm fine not doing it, you know? But if it was helpful to the organization, then I'll be more available.”

The Star: There was that perception early on, which you likely considered unfair, that it was you and not Ross calling the shots. Do you feel like that changed and if so, has that increased your comfort level?

Shapiro: “It was always so foreign to Ross and I, because we came from a culture where it was never one person making decisions. Yes, there are those rare moments that individuals have to make decisions. It’s not quite as easy to understand. So, people kind of get angered or resent it a little bit when we use certain words like process. But as we move towards making decisions, so many people contribute along the way. You've got objective analysis where analysts are contributing. You've got medical information where our medical staff's contributing to that. You've got to make up personality and character where people are researching a player to understand what kind of teammate he is and how he'll fit in our environment, in our culture. And then you've got subjective analysis like scouts.

“When you put all the information together, it often points pretty clearly at the right decision. So, it doesn't take one person to step up and say, ‘That's what we're going to do.’ It takes one person to help lead that process and to help build an organization and lead the organization day to day. Ross is doing that on a day-to-day basis for baseball, and I move to wherever the leverage lies between the business and the baseball side and try to just be a resource and obviously also fill an MLB role, fill a role in talking with our ownership and being the representative with ownership and for ownership as well. Doing all that doesn't allow me the time to run baseball operations day to day. I think as that became clearer to the people who around the club regularly, and you guys are the conduit to our fans, I felt more comfortable speaking more.”

The Star: You spent a lot of money this off-season. I’m assuming a year from now you’ll be looking to add to the core you have. What gives you confidence the money will be there from ownership?

Shapiro: “I guess just that they've been incredibly supportive of the plan. I really articulated from the time we got here, we knew the point was coming. So, we said, we wanted to try to keep that window open with that last core of players as long as we possibly could, out of respect to our fans, but that when it closed, we were going to move resolutely in this direction. I've seen enough, and they've seen enough markers that we've made legitimate progress towards building a sustainable championship core. I guess I would say, I think we'll win more this year, which will further solidify that belief, as well as the investment that comes with that.”

The Star: You mentioned at the winter meetings that you thought the upside for payroll might be even higher than it was a few years ago, or you could at least get back to that point. What needs to happen for you to get that support from ownership?

Shapiro: “I think we need to win. We need to win more, take the next step and obviously we need to see the fans coming out. But it doesn't need to come out to the level that we'll spend exactly what we make. I think there's an understanding, and there always has been, a clear messaging that at some point the spending will have to outpace the revenue and then it usually it catches up, that happens everywhere in baseball. That’s not just here. If you read Mark Attanasio quotes with the Brewers and you look at almost every situation out there, as teams start to win, they ratchet up payroll ahead of the financial support that follows.”

The Star: On that note, there are lots of fans who consider Toronto a big market team, one that shouldn’t have to go through those cycles. What would you say to those people?

Shapiro: “Toronto is a big market. It's not as big a market as New York or Los Angeles. That's just a fact. It doesn't have the regional media dollars that Boston has. It obviously has a national following, but the regional media dollars that exist in the U.S. media markets is very different for the largest scale.

“That along with the exchange rate, which is real. I tend not to dwell on that, because it's not an excuse, but the reality is that the majority of our revenue comes in and Canadian dollars and the majority of our expenses, is U.S. dollars. It doesn't take much figuring, that's just a 25 to 30% tax and no other team has. So that mutes our revenues.

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“It doesn't mean we're not a big market. It probably puts us at more of a large-middle market or a small-big market. It's very fair to expect that in our high expenditure days, we’ll be a five-to-10 level team, which is great. It’s more than enough. And when we're building, which hopefully we don’t go through again, it's not necessarily driven by revenue. It's driven by more where we are with our young players.”

The Star: I know it's not under your portfolio anymore, but we’ve been expecting an update on renovations to Rogers Centre for more than a couple years now. Is there anything you can say about the project and whether this is still a priority for ownership?

Shapiro: “I focus on what I can control, and I'm excited about what we've done down here, which will have a major impact on wins and losses, but I also understand fans in Toronto don't see that and aren't affected by that. I will say, when it comes to Rogers Centre, we continue to spend money on improving fan experience within the constraints of that building.

“We’ll have a new sound system this year. We'll have other upgrades to announce in the coming weeks, and then next year, even some bigger ones, probably. A lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of focus from people, both within our ownership and even a couple of people within our building, continue to be spent exploring the next steps for a much bigger plan. It is incredibly complex, and I think that'll be clear once it's announced and so that's why it's taken so long.”

The Star: So, it's not off the table? You're still expecting something to get done at some point?

Shapiro: “I still do expect that there'll be an announcement in progress on a long-term plan for Rogers Centre.”

The Star: There were a lot of upset fans this week after MLB.TV announced it was blacking out all Blue Jays games in Canada. Was that decision related to discussions at last year’s owners’ meetings in regard to local streaming rights?

Shapiro: “When it comes to MLB.TV … we were the only market that didn't have a local blackout on MLB.TV. That was just a unique (situation). We were the only merchandise house that wasn't serviced by Fanatics until last year. We did our own merch until last year. Every other major league team, Fanatics had a deal with MLB.

“So, the Canadian market is sometimes carved out, and sometimes it just lags behind the way MLB treats it, because of the unique regulatory systems and other policies that impact doing business in Canada. Now they've just transitioned the exact same approach for us as every other major league team. The way we're being treated now, the other 29 markets have all had the exact same circuit. You could go to Baltimore, Detroit, you can go to L.A. or Chicago or Boston or Dallas, and they've all had the exact same thing where they're incapable of watching through MLB.TV, they’re incapable of watching their local stream. They can still get it through their (regional sports network), which is the same as us.”

The Star: You’re always trying to attract more eyeballs to your product. Are you concerned about what a move like this will do to the exposure of your team?

Shapiro: “Whether that's a concern, it's not something I can control. It’s an MLB policy and it is what it is.”

The Star: One concern I hear a lot from fans going to games is about concessions and beer selection. When you arrived, you talked about getting more craft breweries and local restaurants in the stadium. What obligations do you currently have contractually and how easy or hard is it to make the changes you and fans want to see?

Shapiro: “There are existing contracts that had been in place, with our broader concessionaire, Aramark and with our different components of beverages, both beer, ready to drink, wine and all those different things. As those contracts come up, we will always explore, can we add more diversity and more local flavour and listen to our fans. We are very aware and we both challenge our existing partners to help us get better in those areas as well as consider adding outside partners as well.”

The Star: When you look back on your time so far in Toronto, what are some things that you like about what you guys have done and what are some things that you would like to have back, or would have approached a bit differently with hindsight?

Shapiro: “I don’t tend to think that way, things you’d do differently. Coming in, I felt like the biggest opportunities to broadly impact and build a sustainable championship team were to: One, ensure that we got a renovation of the spring training facility to what was the state of the art complex, and got us all under one roof. I'm excited that is nearly complete. There was a need to build out and modernize the infrastructure of baseball operations and our business operations. That has been done. We've grown analytics from, one person to a staff that is as large and capable as any in Major League Baseball right now.

“We’ve added resources in mental performance, nutrition, medical, physio, all those different areas that were either non-existent here or were not very large. And we've created a player centered process for developing players that I think maximizes our ability to help players research potential. And added a lot of talent, a lot of young talent. We've taken a farm system that was at the bottom of the game and moved into towards the top of the game and started to transition those players to the big leagues.

“The only piece that, as I came in, I felt was a big opportunity that we haven't addressed is a significant renovation of Rogers Centre. I feel like we've done the necessary things to keep the building one that we're all proud of, and one that's strong, but that still remains to be done. But everything else, which provides a foundation to build a sustainable championship team, I think has been done.”

The Star: You talked earlier this week about proposals to expand MLB postseason. I know you’re on that committee, so there’s only so much you can say, but what about a balanced schedule? Is that something you intend to lobby for, because the Jays will always be at a disadvantage if they have to play Boston and New York much more than any other team.

Shapiro: “What I could say about that, it's among the topics we have considered. It’s among the areas that I would say as a, as a leadership group within MLB, we consider to be important, not necessarily a balanced schedule, but a more balanced schedule. We’ll listen to fans and players and think about the disproportionate number of games played within division now, at the level it's at, is probably not great for the game. A lot of energy and time is spent considering what the schedule could and should look like, and that is one area that has gotten some attention and I am supportive of moving to a less balanced schedule, but I'm not alone, I think I'm probably in the majority of MLB.”

The Star: Are you in favor of an expanded playoff format?

Shapiro: “I am, yeah. But I'm in favor of doing it very clear in a very careful, measured way, and not doing it to where you diminish the meaning of making postseason. I think there are too many games that are played in September right now where they're not meaningful to fanbases. So, if we can play more meaningful, more games that with clubs in contention in September and August, that would be a positive outcome for the game. If we can do that, carefully, where we expand to a level where it's still meaningful: A to win your division and B, to make the playoffs, and we don't diminish or dilute that. Then I think it's something we should do, and I feel like we are moving towards that. But we have to obviously negotiate that from a CBA perspective as well.”

The Star: What are your expectations for the upcoming season?

Shapiro: “That we win more. I think you work hard to get to a point that you're not judging your success by transitioning players, developing players, getting a new coaching staff in place that you feel is aligned. We're at the point now, where you want to be, for the next two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight years the answer to that question is going to be winning.

“It’s not quite yet saying it's not a success if we don't make the postseason, but it's certainly not success if we don't win considerably more than last year. I know that's to some extent vague, there's a bandwidth with which we expect, but I don't want to place limitations on what the club's capable of doing, and I do expect us to win more this year. I think that that's important.”