Blue Jays need to completely clean house, but it won't be easy

The Toronto Blue Jays have opened the second half of their season losing back-to-back games to the Detroit Tigers, including Saturday's 7-3 defeat. Those two games drop them to a season-low 10 games below .500, leave them 10 games out of a playoff spot and give them the fourth-worst record in the American League.

With the trade deadline (July 30) just 10 days away, it is pretty clear that they need to become sellers over the next week and a half.

That could include pending free agents for whatever they can get, and it could also include core players like first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and shortstop Bo Bichette.

If the Blue Jays are serious about completely re-tooling their roster and re-stocking their farm system — which they probably should be at this point — Guerrero Jr. and Bichette are the players who can bring back the most significant returns. Not only because they are still star-level players, but because they are both signed through next season. That means any contender that trades for them gets two potential playoff runs out of them before they could potentially become free agents.

That only increases the Blue Jays' leverage in trade talks and potentially increases the return.

The longer the wait, either into the offseason or into next season, the lesser return they can expect.

This is the time to trade them.

The problem with that mindset is the Blue Jays' house cleaning should not and can not be limited to just the roster and the lineup on the field. It has to extend to the manager's office with John Schneider and especially the general manager's office with Ross Atkins.

While the Blue Jays have made the playoffs multiple times in Atkins' general manager tenure, the team has failed to come close to its potential ceiling and has badly regressed this season.

It is a very flawed, poorly constructed roster that has fallen far short of expectations. Given his hit-and-miss job with roster moves in assembling the roster, you probably don't want his front office to be the people trying to get grade-A returns on Guerrero Jr. and Bichette. That would mean waiting until a new front office is put in place. But that would not be ideal in terms of maximizing the return.

The reality is that the Blue Jays seem unlikely to make major front-office changes in-season, especially this close to the trade deadline.

That means Atkins is going to be the person making the call on what they do. They just have to hope he makes the right decisions.