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Nostalgic delusion lets a team off the hook. If your fans are content with mediocrity, why would you do anything differently?
On Sunday, the last day of the baseball season, Max Scherzer pitched his final game. Maybe. Upon first emerging from the dugout, Scherzer had to remind the crowd to salute him properly.
Another possible retiree, George Springer, took the same sort of bow. Springer was so emotional it took him several long moments to get it together in the batter’s box. When he was subbed out of the game, he pulled a full James Brown. All that was missing was the cape.
Midway through the third, the whole team came out to take a bow. They seemed genuinely excited to be finishing 79-83. What a pitch-perfect way to end this dud of a season – ‘Hooray for us! ’ Once five minutes from a World Series win, the Jays have spent the last eleven months turning into a blue-and-white pumpkin.
It happened so gradually that it was hard to see in real time. As late as mid-September, you could still squint your eyes and convince yourself you were looking at a contender. On Sunday, the Jays stood stripped of those pretensions, but still inexplicably pleased with themselves. They finish last in the AL East.
The Rays, Yankees and Red Sox lapped them, and an argument could be made that all three will be better next time out. With all that in mind, the final verdict on 2025 is in – a fluke. A glorious fluke, but a fluke nonetheless. This year, we saw the Jays as they are – underpowered, overhyped and exactly as whelming as they should be, which isn’t much.
This is a team that thought Brett Bateman – a rookie that the actually contending Cubs gave away at the deadline – was going to save them. That’s how desperate they are for answers. If anything, the Blue Jays outperformed their statistics. They had the worst offence in baseball.
Even more abysmal than the Angels, and the other L.A. ’s team uniforms are white as a tribute to the flag. Everyone who’d figured in last year’s run regressed. Some regressed to the mean.
Others regressed well beyond it. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. walked backward into the water and turned into a newt. He basically hit as many home runs this season as he’d hit in the playoffs the year before . Which is the likelier thing to be the result of luck, good or bad?
I’ll take last October. There are two ways to react to this outcome. The realistic way is accepting that what you thought was good enough isn’t. It’s a forgivable mistake, but you ought not do it over and over again.
So you make changes. Some things – Guerrero leaps worryingly to mind – cannot be changed for a while. Like, four U.S. presidential cycles from now. But everything else can change.
How about some pop in the middle infield, a DH who has the H as well as the D, a revamped outfield, half a new rotation and same again on the bullpen? The Jays are always banging on about the quality of their farm system. Okay, great. Where are these guys?
They’ve got passport trouble or what? Otherwise, you have to use your smarts to get help, which is something the Jays aren’t great at. It doesn’t take a genius to offer Dylan Cease more money than anyone else. The Jays need to find more Alejandro Kirks – misfit toys that everyone else underrated.
Also, they need their current misfit toys to figure it out. What little remains of the inertia of 2025 must be ridden raw before everyone in baseball decides the Jays are a hopeless case . Be ambitious. Don’t let Guerrero’s impending disaster of a contract dissuade you from burning another huge pile of Edward Rogers’s money.
I’ve seen pictures of the inside of his house. He doesn’t need it. Sadly, the Jays don’t have to do that, so they won’t. What struck you most about the final home stand of the year was the atmosphere – still buzzing.
Part of that was the weather, which was perfect. But a bigger part of it was the long halo of last year. These fans don’t believe in standings. They believe in feelings.
Toronto supporters want to believe the Jays are still good because they remember the ecstatic joy of last year. As long as they act like that could still happen, it might, though it won’t. The problem with nostalgic delusion is that it lets the team off the hook. If your fans are content with mediocrity, why would you do anything differently?
The art of managing a thriving professional sports concern is limiting risk. The current management waited nearly 10 years before it started taking big swings on the roster. Because that paid off last year, they may feel they can wait another 10. The stadium is often full.
The ratings are good. The price of everything is going up. People feel the team is a contender, despite the fact that it isn’t. Those are all arguments against ambition.
The beginning of next season will almost certainly be delayed by a lockout. That’s another reason not to do anything substantial this off-season. By the time baseball starts up again – if it starts up again – people will just be happy to be back at the ballpark. So that’s another mulligan year.
Meanwhile, you can tease Guerrero getting back into form. People will waste years believing that’s about to happen. The Jays have a magical way of pointing people toward the parts, so as to distract them from the whole.
Meanwhile, the division gets tougher, and the results continue to diminish. But this will still be the team that almost won the World Series, forever and ever, amen.
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