Tuesday 8 December 2015

The Great Divide Among Jays Fans

There seems to be a divide amongst Jays fans as I watch tweets go back and forth.   One group is optimistic for 2016 and the other is ready for disaster.  Perhaps every fan base has the same kind of thing, but these days the fans seem quite polarized.   

After 1) an exciting run in 2015‎ that energized all Jays fans, 2) a new president arriving, 3) AA leaving the team, 4) a new GM, 5) various off season moves or notably moves they didn't make (Price).......there's a lot of anger out there.   I'd argue that most of the anger is misplaced. 

There's people that want to fire Shapiro even though he hasn't even had the chance to succeed or fail yet.   There's people who don't like the Atkins hire, even though they don't know anything about him.    

These same people are the ones that perpetually wanted to fire AA up until when the magic started.   But now suddenly the Jays are falling apart cause AA is gone.   With insane reports about how AA would have signed Price, even though he wouldn't have been given the budget to do so, some fans have idealized AA into a miracle man‎.   

It's interesting and ironic that some of the things they are upset about right now are the repercussions of things that AA did.   Many prospects were traded away at the deadline.   While I supported the moves at that time, I knew that once the 2015 season was over there would be some tough pills to swallow.   The cupboard of pitching in the system was bare and that means having to fill it through free agency before the farm can be built back up.  With so many starting pitching holes to fill, that also made it more difficult to allocate a huge amount of money into one player (David Price).   Re-signing Estrada and signing Happ are the kind of moves you need to do.   They are the kind of moves that AA would have had to do.   In a way, he really left the team at the perfect time in terms of his reputation.  He doesn't have to feel the heat from the repercussions of the back end of the risks he took in 2015. Instead, he's the guy who brought us Price and Shapiro is the guy who let Price get away.   It's completely unfair to Shapiro to judge him that away, especially when his predecessor Beeston never allowed deals beyond 5 years to begin with.  

But some of the media are feeding ideas to those fans that eat up negative news.   To the rest of us who remain positive on the team, the negativity seems irrational and sometimes seems as if they don't want the team to do well in 2016.   There are people who say this team is now ruined, but if you look at the roster it is largely the same as it was in 2015.   If you look at the team as it existed after the 2015 trade deadline (say August 1st) ‎to right now, it is very comparable.   We lost Price but now have a healthy Stroman.   Buehrle is gone but now we have Happ.  Lowe and Hawkins are gone but that's not too hard to replace.   We will have Tulo and Revere for a full year. There's certainly more work to do in terms of bullpen and adding pitching depth but people are behaving as if this is a stripped down team.  It isn't.  

Judging from some of the callers into PTS recently, it's as if they didn't understand that Price was brought in as a rental.   One fan literally said that AA brought Price in and Shapiro shipped him away.   That's an insane and naive way to look at it.

Baseball is such a highly unpredictable sport.   Injuries can derail a season.   Often players don't perform as expected.   And often a diamond in the rough emerges to be an all star.   Losing Stroman in spring last year was a huge blow to the team.  Estrada emerging as he did was a pleasant surprise.  That's what happens every year.  We have seen a team like the Red Sox go from last place to first place and back to last place within 3 seasons.   That tells you how unpredictable the sport can be.   It also tells you that it is foolish to think you know how 2016 will go.    There's every reason to be optimistic.   There's also things that can go terribly wrong.   That's what makes it interesting.  There's reason for so many fan bases to be excited right now.

I once had a friend that every spring would tell me that the Jays will come in last place.   I'd be optimistic and excited going into the season and he would laugh at me every time the Jays would lose.   Yes, he is highly immature, but I interpreted this to mean that he wasn't a fan at all.   This same guy painted a Blue Jays logo on the hood of his car in 1992.   But in 2013 and 2014 he enjoyed every loss so he could rub it in to me.   He was literally rooting for losses.   He wouldn't go to games and waste money on a losing team.  When they would lose, it was the big "I told ya so!" that maybe is a victory of some sort for people like that.   But in 2015 he also predicted they would come in last place.   So do I get to say "I told ya so!" to him now?    I wouldn't bother.  And guess what, suddenly at the end of 2015 he was a big Jays fan again.   It's the definition of a bandwagon fan.  ‎I just don't understand how one gets enjoyment out of that.   When Bautista whipped his bat into the air in game 5 of the ALDS, all of the real fans felt the release of years of frustration. The excitement and joy that comes from winning is so much more meaningful when you were part of the struggles.   It's like a friend who only is around when things go well but abondons you in times of trouble.   You treasure the friend who is around no matter what, as you should.  

This is what is happening now.   Some fans are setting things up for the potential failure of the 2016 team.   If they do fail then they will give us the big "I told ya so!".   If the Jays succeed they will say they are happy they were wrong, or maybe make up some narrative about how they won despite of themselves. Or better yet, if the 2016 team wins, it will be because of what AA did. If they lose it will be cause of what Shapiro did.   That sounds about right.

What I propose is the idea that Shapiro et al are going to do their best to make the Jays a winning team in the short and long term. Let's give them a chance to succeed or fail before making judgment.    Let's root for a team that is filled with great players that are exciting to watch. Let's hope that they can have success in 2016 and beyond.


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