It’s a common ploy — stink for a few years, reap the benefits later. But when your team isn’t trying to win, why should your customers care?
TORONTO — It has taken three years, but the Toronto Blue Jays finally come into a season with the bad team that its management has long sought.
But from that point on, even as management made moves that were outwardly about keeping the roster at least vaguely competitive, it was evident that fingers were hovering over the reset button. Shapiro has since admitted that they would have started the tear down and ensuing rebuild earlier but for the fact that the team’s booming popularity off those playoff runs made such a plan unpalatable.
The result is a team with just a handful of familiar faces, and if any of those perform particularly well — Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Justin Smoak — then they will almost certainly follow the path of Martin and Tulo, and Josh Donaldson and Marco Estrada and take your pick, really, and become former Blue Jays.
It’s a strategy common in North American sports today — stink for a few years, and reap the benefits later
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