Ten Days of Takes: What an apocalyptic 2018 Blue Jays season would look like
By Kyle Cantlon
6 years agoIn the ten days leading up to the season opener against the Yankees, your friends at BJN will be dropping a #take a day to get you pumped up for the season! Day nine: What if everything goes wrong?
Ahhhhhhhh, it’s springtime, and the the sweet, sweet smell of disappointment and letdown fills the air.
It’s a pungent odor, indeed, but one that inevitably engulfs every Blue Jays season at some point and one that will surely do so again in 2018 — a sentiment with which all true diehard pessimists unanimously agree.
With the start of the Major League Baseball season a day away and the club fresh off the emotional high produced from Vladdy Jr.’s emotional walk-off dinger in Montreal to cap off the team’s spring, the Jays are riding into their season opener atop a momentum wave of hopes, good vibes, reasonable expectations, and positivity.
Make no mistake though, woke Negative Nancys and Pessimist Petes from coast-to-coast know, for a fact, that shit is going to hit the fan with maximum force in 2018, causing an apocalyptic, feces-filled tornado to rip apart everything players, management and fans hold dear.
Here’s a definitive guide to all the things that could (and probably will) go wrong for the Birds in 2018:
Justin Smoak returns to being Justin Smoak. The Blue Jays will need to squeeze every little ounce of offence from every possible source, with a heavy burden on Smoak replicating the type of 38-bomb campaign that made him an All Star a year ago. In this doom and gloom scenario, however, the first baseman is who we thought he was and returns to his very-mediocre self — creating a black hole of production at the position where they may need it most.
Tim Leiper frowns. My dude is ALWAYS smiling and is a goddamn delight. If Toronto’s (the people’s) first base coach is caught frowning or even motioning the slightest hint of negativity, it’s time to pack it up and go home — this thing is over.
Tulo gets gangrene and ankle must be amputated. Developing an ancient and rare (but still existent) bacterial infection from the interaction of bone spurs and field-turf resulting in a limb amputation would be peak Tulo.
Literally nobody hits leadoff. With the classic “who the hell is going to hit leadoff” question looming on the eve of Opening Day as it always does, a sign of a truly awful campaign would be answering that question with “literally nobody.” A carousel early in the season could see an experimental rotation of Devon Travis, Curtis Granderson, and probably 12 other dudes vying for that leadoff slot but, in the end, the team will decide to bat no one in the No. 1 spot and just concede an out every nine ABs. It’s for the best.
Gibby gets axed. I don’t give a shit if the team wins like four games in the first three months and Gibbons shows up to every practice, game and press conference lit up like a Christmas tree — If Gibby gets canned at any point I’m out, fam. We’ll need his beautiful, redneck soul to get us through these upcoming months of pain and darkness.
Devon Travis turns out to be an actual marshmallow. He’s had some downright awful luck and some heartbreaking injuries during his time in Toronto “soft” is definitely not the way to describe Travis as a ball player or competitor. But it will take a little time for the fanbase to accept that an MRI Travis will undergo in May will unequivocally prove that the Jays second baseman is actually a real-life, biological marshmallow. Travis will be forced to retire from the game he loves due too, well, being a marshmallow and fans will collectively weep the All-Star career that could’ve been.
Blue Jays lose Josh Donaldson for nothing. Listen, everybody loves Josh Donaldson and there’s no disputing he’s by far the team’s most valuable player, but if he walks for nothing at season’s end then something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. It’s great if management is able to miraculously reach an extension with the pending unrestricted free agent before the trade deadline. Also perfectly acceptable if the team flips JD midseason in order to retain a haul of young assets and kickstart a rebuild into high gear. The doomsday scenario is an indecisive standoff resulting in Donaldson playing out 2018 in Toronto and strolling away at season’s end without a lick of return for the Jays. This is hell, folks.
The Jays have to face the Yankees and Red Sox 38 times. Oh wait, this is actually happening. Shit.
Jose Bautista is actually gone for good. A point during the dog days of the season will come — like that brief rush of guilt and sadness that consumes your body for a few painful minutes during a week-long bender in Varadero — where it will all finally sink in and the fanbase will collectively shed a tear and realize that once and for all our hero, our lord, our bearded saviour Jose Bautista is gone for good and he’s NEVER coming back. I dread this day.
Aaron Sanchez develops a giant, arm-length blister. None of those little soft blisters that derailed Sanchez’s 2017 season almost in its entirety. Nah. I’m talking a giant, blob-like sack of fluid literally engulfing the whole right side of his body. It will make for a pretty intriguing 30-for-30 epi, at least.
Russel Martin becomes a man-bunned asshole. He’s about a nice and professional a dude as you would want to have leading your team’s rotation from behind the plate, but the man bun consumes all who gives it life, and Martin is now firmly on team bun. It’s only a matter of time before he goes from local baseball hero to pretentious asshole guy. RIP friendly Russ, we’ll miss you.
Beer prices soar beyond $20. Sell the team to Blackberry and move the club to Kitchener, this is the final straw. I can accept $16.50 a pint, but 20-dollar bevvies is just too much for one to take.
Don’t worry, babies, Thursday we come at you with the hard-hitting positivity ahead of the team’s home opener against the Yankees.
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