I must confess that I spent a good part of the evening on the couch, taking in the Giants-Dodgers broadcast (relax - it was after the Jays-Tigers) - I know, wild night, right? Annnnyway, MLB network's Clint Hurdle dropped one of those folksy old-school pearls of wisdom over the course of the evening that got me to thinkin'.Hurdle mentioned that the most important ingredient for a successful ball club was - wait for it - trust. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I kinda sorta bought into it (a little).
Now, hold on. Wait. Stop rolling your eyes. I am not so dense to ignore the fact that the primary - and maybe only - ingredient to a "successful ball club" is, uh.....talented players, maybe? But the statement, right or (probably) wrong, seemed entirely fitting with regards to the state of the Jays, so here we are.
Hurdle's "trust" assertion followed that the players had to have trust within the dugout and with the coaching staff, the staff had to have trust in the front office, and the front office had to have trust in ownership. And by extension (this portion mine), the fans had to trust in it all.
Now do you see where I'm going with this?
Paul Beeston's recent assertion that the team had a plan - to be revealed, of course, "in short order" - holds very little currency with those of us invested in the team (that's right, invested - emotional totally counts!) because any semblance of trust has been completely eroded by the constant state of inactivity by management, and the perceived disinterest of ownership.
So how does the organization get it back? Well, let's start by hearing about "the plan". Thoroughly discussed earlier by the Tao, I suppose at this point we can wait for the offseason to see what's in store - but it had better be something - anything - by design. Sink money into payroll in order to be competitive now, or make a concerted effort at rebuilding and committing to youth; we can debate the prudent action ad nauseam.
The key here is DO SOMETHING. Goddamnit. Something! And stick to it. Fuck all this slugging away (poor choice of words) with retreads and roster fillers just to maintain a lock on fourth place. Why? What's the point? Who wins here? The team 40% of the time? the 11,000 fans showing up to home games? The red ink factory when the financials get printed? No. Nobody is coming out ahead under the current course of action. So fuck this noise.
We have no choice but to wait, friends. Let's see what's in store for the organization come the close of game 162. I think we'd all love to hear that Rogers has decided to roll the dice on a payroll investment, but even a complete rebuild would be an improvement over the current sad state of affairs.
