After the dust settled on a bewilderingly eventful and jubilant trade deadline, Toronto Blue Jays fans got their mojo back.
It’s not just that the Blue Jays improved their lot with their unexpected and high profile acquisitions. It’s that the team – from the front office to the roster to the fan base – seems to have reclaimed some of the swagger that hasn’t been seen in these parts for decades.
As luck would have it, I had planned months ago to visit Toronto over the August long weekend, figuring that I’d be dragging friends and family somewhat against their will to watch a couple of games with me. But by the time we reached our seats on Saturday, there was a palpable sense of hopeful elation in the crowd as they watched their freshly refurbished contending squad take on the American League’s putative preeminent team.
Never mind that by the end of that day, the Blue Jays would sit a single game over .500. Or that last season, they were 10 games over .500 entering the same long weekend, sitting in a playoff position and a game and a half back of the division lead. Because clearly, the prospects for this year feel different, and certainly better.
And if you want to start penning the narrative of how the tension-filled game last Sunday brought the 2015 Blue Jays together, I’d argue that it did as much if not more to provide a rallying point for the team’s supporters.
It is to some extent understood that the Blue Jays’ record to this point of the season did not accurately reflect their true talent. Some bad luck and some gaps in the roster and some poor performances conspired to take a team that seemed like a potential championship challenger and drag it down. What was wrong with the team seemed to constantly obscure all that was right.
In that sense, they are reminiscent of the 1989 Blue Jays, who approached the trade deadline a game under .500, though still in the mix in a weak AL East. Following the acquisition of a high-profile, recognizable veteran in Mookie Wilson, the Blue Jays rattled off a 37-20 run to win the pennant and buoy a city that had begun to lose faith in its baseball team after a collapse in 1987 and a disappointing 1988 season.
In parsing the numbers now, Wilson’s contributions were probably overblown at the time, in part because of that era’s disproportionate admiration for batting average and steals. FanGraphs’ WAR calculation actually figures Wilson to have been somewhat of a detriment, posting a -0.3 mark to go along with a 91 wRC+ and .681 OPS.
You could certainly argue that Lee Mazzilli, who was picked up from the scrap heap on the same day as Wilson, contributed more in the final stretch, posting a 0.4 WAR, an .850 OPS and a 19.8 percent walk rate. But the perception of Mookie’s acquisition, both at the time and in retrospect, was as much about the light that this still-glimmering star shone on the franchise and the city itself.
Adding luminous, heavenly entities like Troy Tulowitzki and David Price to the fold is exponentially more exciting because it feels like an ostentatious gift. It flatters us, and even if seems like a wild extravagance to add two of the most premium baseball players in the world, there’s pride bordering on hubris that makes us feel as though, “Hey, we deserve this!”
The results since the moves certainly ratchet up the excitement and expectations. Since Tulo’s first game in blue, the Blue Jays are 8-1, scoring five or more runs in all but one of those games. This isn’t just a team that is now in flight, but to steal a line from Kenny Loggins, they are jumping off the deck and shoving into overdrive.
(Sorry. I just watched five minutes of Top Gun. Be happy there are no shirtless volleyball references.)
Poker analogies have been overused to the point of cliché in recent years when discussing Alex Anthopoulos’ moves, but after busting out when allegedly going “all in” three years ago, the Blue Jays GM managed to build up enough chips to make another set of meaningful and dramatic moves. His timing might have been perfect. Frankly, he might not have a better chance than now to make this sort of moves given the player contracts expiring at the end of the next two seasons.
In the long term, the Blue Jays gave up a hefty sum, with 11 prospects – many of them prized pitchers – leaving the organization and depleting future resources.
But with the Blue Jays squaring off against the Yankees 13 more times starting this weekend and the city again behind them, it’s hard to imagine not trading the promise of some distant season for the euphoria of this moment.