Toronto made numerous deals prior to and during the 2016 season that had a large impact on the Blue Jays making a return trip to the American League Championship Series. These deals ranged from re-signing Marco Estrada and signing J.A. Happ to trading for Jason Grilli and Joaquin Benoit. Then there’s Joe Biagini. On December […]
Category: The Season That Was
The True Legacies of R.A. Dickey and Josh Thole
TORONTO – The good, the bad, the ugly, and the great. That’s how Josh Thole described his time in Toronto over the past four years. It was a fitting description for the tumultuous times he and batterymate R.A. Dickey shared while in a Blue Jays uniform. The duo entered their time in Toronto with a […]
The Blue Jays’ Most Suprising Heroic Moments of 2016
Everybody loves a Josh Donaldson walk-off. The anticipation as he rocks his front heel up and down, and the violent swing in which you have more faith than most things in your life. Then maybe you turn to your buddy, shake your head and smile in mock disbelief, and say something like “That’s just what […]
Saying Goodbye to an Unexpected Era
I was about a month old when the Blue Jays last won the World Series. It’s been mostly downhill since. Cursed with the burden of rooting for Toronto’s teams while growing up around New York and spending my college years in Boston, it’s been two decades of watching everyone else and their teams celebrate various […]
Re-Imagining the Blue Jays’ Year End Awards
The 2016 Toronto Blue Jays season is now over. Despite a successful and entertaining run, Eric Owens became the official fall guy for a 2016 Blue Jays team that lost in the American League Championship Series for the second year in a row. As we are now forced to endure a four month stretch without […]
Mark Shapiro, Alex Anthopoulos, and the Failures of Change
History as we know it is defined in eras. Sports history is no different. When we think back to dynasties in baseball’s past, they’re asssociated with something specific. First, it was managers as the face of teams; like the Connie Mack A’s or the John McGraw Giants. That eventually gave way to the player era: […]
Building the AL’s Best Pitching Staff on a Budget
Coming into the 2016 season, if you asked fans/writers about the biggest weakness on the Blue Jays roster, you’d probably get a near unanimous answer of “pitching.” The hitting was coming off an historic run-scoring season, and the defense was only going to be improved by a full season of Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop. Meanwhile, […]
On Michael Saunders and Defying Expectations
There were high expectations for the Toronto Blue Jays coming into the 2016 season. The end to 2015 was thrilling, and the Jays had made the playoffs for the first time in 22 years. Most of that exciting team was coming back, and there were even places a couple of places where you’d expect improvement. […]
On Brett Cecil, Ignorance, and the Illusion of Happiness
There is a famous French novel from the revolutionary period written by Claire de Duras titled Ourika. It deals with, among many other themes, the question of whether ignorance truly is bliss. Ourika is a black woman who was brought to France at the age of two from Senegal where she was orphaned and destined to become […]