PHOENIX – At a certain point the extended accumulation of failure becomes an ingrained part of the narrative around a sports franchise, a burden that can weigh down a club trying to break through to the next level.
History doesn’t make plays, of course, and it certainly doesn’t diminish talent, but it can affect the environment in which players operate, allow the negative to snowball, and prevent potential from being reached. A here-we-go-again mindset is easy to fall into when an unsuccessful past is ever present.
Overcoming that isn’t always as simple as the accumulation of talent alone, something the Toronto Blue Jays seem to be bearing in mind so far this off-season. The recent experiences of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have made consecutive trips to the playoffs after 20 straight losing seasons, and the Kansas City Royals, who advanced to the World Series in their first post-season appearance since 1985, offer key lessons in that regard, in understanding that intangible elements, to some degree, matter.
“In terms of transitioning to a culture that thinks and wants and expects to win from one hoping to win, that becomes a challenge,” Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said in an interview at the GM meetings. “There is something to learning how to win, there is something to understanding what it takes to win 90 games or 85 games versus 75 games. The parity in baseball is real, the clubs that have a way to figure out how to win those 10 games in between, that can be a very big swing in whether you make the playoffs or are just out of the playoffs. I don’t know if there’s a magic formula to it, but as guys learn, as they shift their focus and become committed to something bigger than themselves, you have a better chance to win those late games, those games you’re not necessarily supposed to win.”
Royals general manager Dayton Moore echoes a similar message. Two off-seasons ago he went for broke by dealing away a package that included blue-chippers Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi to get James Shields and Wade Davis, and after seeing his team improve by 14 wins in 2013 but still fail to reach the playoffs, the benefits of the culture change paid off with an 89-win season that ended their drought.
“The environment is crucial,” Moore says in an interview, “and once your players start playing meaningful baseball, the concentration level is higher, they get much better as players, instead of in July and August wondering where they’re going to be, or what free agents we’re going to add, they’re focusing on winning today. Their concentration level allows them to get better because they’re not worried about any drama, they’re not letting anything come between them and what they need to do, and that’s do their best for the team that day.”
Examples of extra drama around the Blue Jays this past season are easy to find, with the salary deferral plan hatched to try and sign Ervin Santana and frustration over the trade deadline inactivity immediately coming to mind.
While blaming the club’s ultimate inability to reach the post-season on such moments rather than bullpen’s woes or the stretches in July and August when replacement-level players were overexposed is foolish, so too is pretending that they didn’t waste energy and pull focus to some extent from where it was needed.
The ‘playoff-free since 1993’ narrative surrounding the team only amplified such feelings, which is why some of the roster turnover the Blue Jays are undergoing this winter is healthy. Running out largely the same group again and hoping for a different result wouldn’t make sense.
To that end, the type of players GM Alex Anthopoulos seems to be targeting this off-season are notable. Free agent catcher Russ Martin, praised heavily for his leadership in Pittsburgh the past two years but also during his previous stops with the Dodgers and Yankees, seems to be a legitimate target and would really change the heartbeat in the clubhouse. So too would have Victor Martinez, whom they had interest in but was never really in play given his desire to remain in Detroit.
Even the trade for second base prospect Devon Travis fits the mould, as Anthopoulos praised him as “a baseball player,” a label usually reserved for those who possess determination, guile and instinct for the game as much as raw ability. It’s not the type of description he typically gives the players he acquires.
“I don’t ever consider myself great at any specific thing, I really just like to work as hard as I can and let the results show for themselves,” the 5-foot-9 Travis says Thursday on a conference call. “I have a lot of fun, I’m a guy that likes to smile a lot and really just enjoy the game, I try not to take anything too seriously. …
“I’m the little guy that’s always dirty, diving for no reason, trying to make plays that I know I’m not going to make, little things like that,” he adds later. “I have to come to the field every single day giving it 110 percent, it’s something that I’ve grown to love, being able to never take a day off, never take a pitch off, never take an inning off. As long as I go to the field every day and bring that same mentality, that’s all I can ask out of myself. I imagine maybe that’s what he was saying, I’m the type of guy that likes to bring a lot of energy every day to the game.”
There is, of course, no recipe that guarantees results.
The Pirates started turning the corner in 2011, when they sat seven games over .500 on July 19 before collapsing to a 72-90 finish. A year later, the drop-off was even more stark – they were 16 games over .500 on Aug. 8 but ended up 79-83.
Their 94-win season in 2013 ended the streak of 20 straight losing seasons dating back to their last playoff appearance in 1992.
“Our guys in ’11 and ’12, they weren’t playing to break the streak, they were playing to be a playoff team, and they didn’t get caught up in 82 wins,” says Huntington. “Now, when you get asked about it every single day for a three-month period as we had a chance to break the streak, then it becomes relevant.”
To help get his team over the hump, Huntington sought to beef up his team’s depth and to insulate the club’s young core with veterans like A.J. Burnett, Rod Barajas, Clint Barmes, Martin and Francisco Liriano.
“There was a conscious effort to add some veteran presence and take some pressure off our young players and let them go play, and not necessarily have to play and lead,” he explains. “Now the hope is Neil Walker, Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, Mark Melancon and Tony Watson are able to continue it so we don’t have to go outside and look for it as much. Hopefully the culture breeds itself.”
Like the Pirates did in 2013, the Royals transitioned this season from hope to belief, and the in-season pickups of veterans like Raul Ibanez, Jason Frasor and Scott Downs helped guide a young and inexperienced group through the impatience of a restive fanbase to an unlikely post-season run.
Every year further removed the Royals got from their World Series championship in 1985, the angst in a local community heavily invested in its team grew.
“It was a huge relief getting into the playoffs for us as a baseball operations department because you felt the pressure from the fanbase, you felt the anxiety, the intensity from Mr. Glass,” says Moore. “Not that he was driving us in a way that wasn’t professional, but the guy’s owned this team for a long time and the city had not experienced anything like that in 29 years. You had a generation of people who had no idea what their parents and grandparents were exposed to. I probably acted out of character at times down the stretch before we got in the playoffs just because we wanted it so bad. Did we put more pressure on ourselves? Probably. But it was a huge relief.”
Now owners of the longest active playoff drought in baseball, the Blue Jays are hoping to find similar joy and relief in 2015.