Maybe it’s that we’re plunged in the midst of the most chaotic shopping weeks of the year that makes us ever more desirous, in spite of the bounty before us.
Much as our American friends joined hands with loved ones and gave thanks for what they had mere hours before rushing the entrances of stores to get even more stuff, the reaction to the Toronto Blue Jays’ acquisition of Josh Donaldson was curiously under-appreciative.
There’s no question that there was much excitement and bewilderment following the stunning announcement that the Blue Jays had acquired this new all-star, MVP-candidate third baseman. But in the same breath as expressing glee at the prospect of this exceptional player joining the team, people were also expressing the need for the Jays to “fill the holes” at second base, left field, the bullpen, DH and/or first base, and probably also the front of the rotation.
Maybe we’ve all been focussed on second base for so long that it’s hard to stop thinking about it. Or maybe we’re all still pining over Melky Cabrera, and remembering how important he was to the Jays’ successes in 2014. Maybe fans are a bit scarred by the struggles of the bullpen year, and can’t deal with the frustration of losing games late again.
None of those concerns or overriding feelings are out of place. Yes, there are needs that remain, and the Blue Jays are by no means a perfect team. But at the same time, it probably merits a moment of pause and recalibration of our expectations when the team has just acquired a guy who might just be one of the ten best players in the game.
Put another way, Russell Martin and Josh Donaldson are the big presents under the tree: Franchise cornerstones whose performance will go a long way in determining the future success of the Blue Jays. That might be hard to grasp, given that we’ve never seen them get a blue jersey dirty, but the moves to acquire players such as these are the ones that define eras.
Donaldson in particular seems to me to be a far greater importance than one might understand at first blush. Though he’s a late bloomer and not that much younger than Edwin Encarnacion or José Bautista, he stands to inherit the role of the team’s marquee player, and maybe sooner than we think. With four years of contractual control remaining, there’s a reasonable chance that either or both of Bautista and Encarnacion will leave the fold before Donaldson.
This is a tricky bit of business, attempting to intuit who will be the team’s franchise player five years down the road, especially considering that many would have figured that Donaldson’s counterpart in the deal, Brett Lawrie, would fit that description not so many core injuries ago. It might have been a role that we’d have imagined for Travis Snider – who’s still two years younger that Donaldson, incidentally – or Alex Rios or Vernon Wells.
Even with those past examples of our lack of clairvoyance – or maybe it’s foresight? – hearing Donaldson’s name dropped in the same sentence as Mike Trout or Andrew McCutchen is enough to make the mind wander ahead, envisioning him among the pantheon of the greatest Blue Jays ever.
No pressure, though.
As for the short term, it seems certain that the Jays will make several more deals between now and March, though given the price and importance of the deals so far, it seems far more likely that the acquisitions will be peripheral. Alex Anthopoulos even noted that he was working to clear as much off his plate before the winter meetings because of the difficulty in using that chaotic event as an opportunity to get deals done.
Moreover, there are dozens of players with some level of prominence who are likely to be non-tendered by midnight Tuesday, which means that a new pool of big league talent could become available at a reasonable price. All those pangs you’ve had for Gordon Beckham or Yonder Alonso might just be satiated…or not.
The 2015 Blue Jays are by no means a finished product. They probably won’t be until sometime next October. Hopefully towards the end of the month.
But take a moment and appreciate the substantial steps the team has taken towards keeping its window of contention open wide for the next few years.
