The Blue Jays have spent most of this week looking not entirely useless — a welcome change from most of the month previous, and not just because their games have become somewhat actually watchable again. The tenor of the conversation surrounding the team as they skidded through Canada Day weekend was ugly. It felt like those who weren’t resigned to grimly going down with the ship were masking their pain by gleefully embracing a complete annihilation of the Blue Jays as we know them.
There’s probably a certain comfort in pretending to believe that there’s no path back to respectability from here, and that everything must be burned to the ground before the club will be able to see success again on the horizon. It’s a pretty dumb posture to take though. And fortunately, with the benefit of some distance from our despair, I think most of us can see that now. What feels like it’s still not so easy to see, though, is where the Jays actually do go from here. Do they go full-on rebuild and try to get as much back as possible for Josh Donaldson and their other pieces? Do they stay the course and try to retool for 2018? Do they end up somewhere in between, mired in mediocrity for the foreseeable future?
The reality is that these questions aren’t ones that the Blue Jays can answer entirely for themselves. These questions, in a lot of ways, are being answered for them. They’re being answered in the way their best trade chips are playing. They’re being answered in the way payroll shapes up going forward, and in the way that current contracts make certain deals prohibitive. They’re being answered in considerations about the market, attendance, TV ratings and about the front office’s job security.
They’re being answered more clearly than a lot of Jays fans think — and certainly more so than a lot of Jays fans will be led to believe over these next three or four weeks. We just need to step back and put the pieces together.
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Andrew you nailed it in the paragraph that dealt with the way current players are playing, pay roll structure, market , attendance etc. etc. A comparative analogy happened in the past 24 hours as another of Toronto’s major league teams found itself ham strung with salary cap issues that prevented them from taking a run at a good Canadian kid Kelly Olynyk. Thanks to two practically large immovable contracts that belong to two Raptors, Jonas and Carroll who can’t play at the ever increasing speed game of the N.B.A. The Raptors couldn’t put in a $13 million a year bid.
As I’ve stated and you and others have, the Jays have a solid core or pillars yes Kevin is in this group, to rely on as the team develops the kids in the minors. Osuna, Sanchez, Stroman, Biagini, Smoak etc. Now another comparative analogy is why the leafs blew up their team totally was because they literally only had 3 or 4 solid players on their squad. None of them were considered all stars, with the players being a young Reilly, a still developing Kadri and Bozak and J.V.R.
The Jays are in a much better position to do a partial rebuild as they fill the barren cupboards left behind by A.A.
B.T.W. I loved your story on the Houston pisser. We could use him out here in B.C. as the forest fire season is becoming severe. Keep the winning streak going Jays against a very talented Houston squad even if one of the players has to wear depends.
Great article Andrew, well written and a lot of food for thought. Some of your best work.