The initial reaction to anything Marcus Stroman says should be a straightforward “stick a cork in it and pitch,” and doubtless there are great wide swaths of the Toronto Blue Jays fan base – specifically, the non-HDMH Kool-Aid drinkers – who feel that way after Stroman opened a bottle of the first whine of the season.
But that’s too easy and – I can’t believe I’m writing this, given my natural predilection to wonder whether the Stro Show is all smoke and mirrors – overlooks the fact that I don’t believe this is a matter of yet another immature construction of a bogeyman or strawman construction by somebody who needs to believe the whole world is against him. You want to find somebody piling on Stroman for being selfish, immature and precisely the wrong person you want exercising influence in a young clubhouse? Look elsewhere.
Rather, what Sunday’s comments revealed to me was a pitcher who realizes that time’s-a-wasting. It’s easy to look at the little dude and think he’s Peter Pan but Stroman turns 28 on May Day, and in this game and this market, that’s getting pretty close to a guy’s ‘Best By’ date.
Height doesn’t measure heart. But neither does a fancy marketing slogan hide age. And right now, Stroman is a guy coming off an age-27 season in which he was hurt, had blisters, who spent one of his first days of spring training claiming the shoulder irritation that he developed in last year’s camp was a factor all last season, which is one hell of a sales pitch for teams that might be interested in your service. It’s understandable that Stroman would pine for a multi-year deal: he has seen the likes of Luis Severino and Aaron Nola sign four-year, $45-million deals with club options for a fifth season. But they’re both just 24 and even without knowing what other teams’ analytics say about Stroman or what they think of him as a clubhouse character, my guess is there isn’t a baseball person out there who would choose Stroman over either of them.
The fact is that for the Blue Jays, signing Stroman to a multi-year deal makes little sense at this time – even if they aren’t predisposed to trading him, which I guarantee happens in 2019.
The New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies need the cost certainty provided by locking up Severino and Nola, considering all the contractual heavy lifting they need to do in the short- and medium-term. They are loaded with talented players who will break the bank and will add big-name free agents this year or next. The Blue Jays? They don’t have much left on the books. If Stroman does become a Cy Young candidate, they can easily go year-to-year in arbitration with him these next two seasons without any concern. Plus, it makes him easier to deal.
So, I’m not going to do what I usually do and tell Stroman that he’s tiresome and needs to grow up. Because given what has transpired in this winter’s player market, and given that his free agent year will be after the 2020 season, which will be the final year of this current collective agreement and could be an even more prohibitive market for anybody on the cusp of 30, I think he’s showing a full understanding of the reality of his situation. All this talk about loving Toronto and Canada sounds like a sales pitch on the part of a guy who knows there aren’t too many buyers for what he’s selling. What he needs to do is figure out how to carve out a career with the ground shifting underneath him, wherever he ends up this season. My guess is Sunday was part of that process.
NOW TWEET THIS
In which we declare the NFL victorious in its battle with Colin Kaepernick … ponder the cliché of veteran leadership … bless the Padres … pray for Connor McDavid’s freedom … and wade into the complicated, fraught waters of transgender athletes.
• I’m not certain Colin Kaepernick was ever going to “win,” and in the absence of a public confession of collusion on the part of the NFL, this financial settlement benefits nobody other than the league, which just made a mammoth PR issue disappear #Draw.
• Alexander Ovechkin has hit the 40-goal mark once again and his scoring pace in his 30s is historic. Of 19 players with 600 regular-season goals, only Bobby Hull (0.65) and Mario Lemieux and Phil Esposito (0.63) managed higher per game averages after turning 28 #SpringChicken.
• Get used to hearing all about a lack of veteran leadership in the Blue Jays clubhouse this spring and get used to general manager Ross Atkins’ take, which I happen to agree with: that’s a huge commodity in the playoffs, but production is more vital over 162 games #Cliche.
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• God bless the Padres for seeming to go all in on Manny Machado and Bryce Harper but, man, if they don’t get one of them my guess is they’re going to have a hard time convincing their fan base it wasn’t an example of off the field “false hustle” #JustLikeJimEdmonds.
• If we really are entering an age where NHL players are feeling emboldened and less tied to their team, it seems to me Connor McDavid will be the acid test. There is no earthly reason for him to want to continue for much longer in the muck and mire of the Oilers mess #FreeConnor.
• Brayden Schenn was a trade candidate when the Blues were struggling. They’ll be the hottest team in the NHL when they take on the Leafs Tuesday and his shift from centre and move up to wing on a new first line with Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly is a large part of the reason #ScriptFlipped.
• The most complex sports story of 2019 will be the manner in which transgender athletes find a place in the competitive mainstream. Witness the reaction to Martina Navratilova’s comments suggesting transgender women’s athletes are cheaters #Nuance.
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THE ENDGAME
Well. The Raptors and the rest of us have managed to get through all-star weekend without anything dramatic or upsetting on the Kawhi Leonard front other than a few folks parsing his comments about how he’s not used to wearing winter “boots and everything,” and suggesting it’s bad news for Raptors fans. That can only mean it was a slow news weekend on the NBA front and that, once again, it’s mission accomplished for the Raptors and Leonard.
That’s no surprise since both sides have presented a playbook in how to handle a potential walk year without letting it become a distraction. Plus, I don’t know but I think this has been a pretty good couple of weeks for Leonard and the Raptors: he gets voted in to the all-star game an unveils a new sneaker brand, which once again puts the lie to the notion Toronto is an outpost where a man can’t get any love from fans or sponsors. Hey, I get it: the counter-argument is that New Balance has received a nudge and wink from Leonard’s folks and that the endorsement has been put together with an eye toward the player being in L.A. next season. But that’s a helluva leap of faith for a company.
At any rate, something else happened at the NBA trade deadline that didn’t get as much play as I thought it would: the fact that Kristaps Porzingis had the Raptors as one of his four preferred trade destinations when forcing the Knicks’ hand in a deal with the Mavericks. Considering Toronto is usually on every professional athlete’s no-trade list – even that of some NHL players – this has to be a welcomed sign of openness on the part of a new generation of NBA players. Come to think of it, maybe the lack of a reaction is a sign we no longer feel the need to apologize for geography.
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show on Sportsnet 590/The Fan weekdays from 9 a.m.-Noon ET.
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