You’ll have to excuse me if I sound incoherent of late.
When I started writing on the Blue Jays seven years ago, part of my goal in launching the blog was to provide the point of view of a fan who attempted to balance off his passion for the team with some semblance of reason. I’ll leave it to you to decide how successful I’ve been in that pursuit.
The intent wasn’t to be completely detached or analytical, because that hardly seems fun for me or for you. We should never forget that what we’re talking about is grown men in polyester active wear gallivanting about the lawn, chasing balls.
The problem as of late is that the reason and the passion seem less like counterbalancing weights, and more buckets of cold and hot water that I alternately dump over my own head. I find myself simultaneously optimistic about the 2014 Toronto Blue Jays, and utterly pessimistic about the very same team. Even about the very same players.
This was illustrated well over the weekend, when the potential signing of Ervin Santana launched fans into concurrent frenzies of excitement and shrugs of indifference. The feeling was something like: “The Blue Jays can’t win without him, but probably couldn’t win with him, but maybe they could, but we’ll never know and who cares anyways, excuse me as I refresh my browser to see if there is any news that I totally don’t care about…”
Elsewhere, there’s the dreaming on marginal players, like Todd Redmond and Ryan Goins. I find myself making passionate defenses to myself of their potential and their role on a winning club in 2014, even if I suspect that I’m torquing my thought process to find any small slivers of light in the darkness. But a few at bats later, I’m just as ready to write them off and look for small streaks of sunshine somewhere else.
Step right up, Chris Getz. No, seriously. I have dreamed up a winning scenario that hinges on your ability to play every day.
There are moments when the marginal upgrades feel monumental, like swapping Dioner Navarro for the husk that wore J.P. Arencibia’s gear in 2013. Even if Navarro is just average, it’s got to be a vast improvement, right? At the same time, a look around the AL East shows the Tampa Bay Rays with an enviable tandem of Ryan Hanigan and Jose Molina and the Yankees adding Brian McCann. Moving forward and keeping pace aren’t always the same thing.
In some instances, there is a rationale for the swing from one extreme to another, such as the case of J.A. Happ’s transition from potential optimism upside play – “new arm angle!” “movement on the fastball!” – to an evidence-based source for pessimism after lousy outings and news of a bothersome back. Conversely, there’s the swing to optimism that comes with seeing a healthy Melky Cabrera swapped in for the rickety old man who stumbled about for months last season.
If the fickle nature of good health is at the core of this year’s edginess, then the indecipherable state of the starting rotation is the other half of that unstable element. After watching two more or less promising seasons undermined by an absurd cluster of injuries, Happ is but one of many Blue Jays whose health has us feeling jittery in this preseason. Go up and down through the list of starting pitchers, and you’d be hard-pressed to find pitchers who you fully expect to stay healthy and be successful through more 30 starts.
R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle both tossed more than 200 innings last year, and looked much better in the second half of the season, tossing to ERAs of 3.56 and 3.18 respectively. But they’ll also be pitchers over the age of 35 this year, which means that health concerns should never be far from our mind. Even Buehrle – the model of consistency or at least a model of spotless attendance – has to break down at some point.
As for Brandon Morrow, I don’t think anyone is going to believe in his ability to remain able-bodied and prosperous until he actually does. Except that if he does…well, maybe you have something. Maybe. I hope so.
Even with all of last season’s acquisitions, I figured the Blue Jays would likely find themselves just out of the playoff picture with 90 wins. This year, I can still construct a positive scenario in my head that gets them to that win total. It’s a scenario with many maybes, and ifs, and other conditionals.
And I dearly want to believe it is possible, even as I want to insulate myself from the disappointment if all goes wrong.
