This Could Be the Start of Something Big

It's Opening Day, which means that we must be talking about new beginnings. And that might seem pat, because there are 29 other cities in which writers and bloggers guys at the end of the bar are currently waxing poetic about the new possibilities that lie before their ball team.

But with the number of new faces in new places that will be around the diamond and in the dugout tonight, this year's edition of the Toronto Blue Jays feels to the long-suffering fan like something more than a new iteration. It isn't merely a page turned, or a new chapter that has begun. It's a whole new volume whose spine is about to be cracked.

Not that we're completely done with the past: The new face of the franchise was brought to the team by the much-maligned former GM (in a move that elicited little more than shrugs at the time). So too were the much-praised fielding guru and hitting coach, the Opening Day starter, the Slugging Phenom, the Catcher of the Future, the Enigmatic Third Baseman, and the Accidental First Baseman.

There are many pieces around the club to remind us of the past. But a tweak here and a reinforcement there, and somehow, it all looks brand new.

When we look down towards the field of play tonight, we'll see the largest piece of real estate patrolled for the first time in a decade by someone who isn't Vernon Wells. And truly, few will benefit from the revitalized and renewed feelings of warmth towards the franchise than Rajai Davis. We've spent a few days working on paens in his honour, somewhat willingly oblivious to the two-plus wins that the Jays lose in this swap, and to the fact that Wells' value in one of his "down years" (3.2 WAR in 2005) was roughly the same as what Davis produced in his most prolific season (3.3 in 2009).

(Nor did we pay much mind to the fact that Rajai is less that two years Wells' junior, so this wasn't exactly a Rod Stewart-level trade-in of the old model - literally! - for the much younger version.)

But the move to Davis feels like something more than the swapping of numbers, no matter how articulate the metric might be. There's a weight that has been removed, allowing the team the flexibility in their payroll, in the lineup and in the field that feeds into a new energy, and a whole host of possibilities for clever management.

Which raises the other most significant change, new bench boss John Farrell. For a team that needs to be that much more clever than every other team in professional sports - no hyperbole intended - the Blue Jays have brought in a new manager who is something more than the retread with a reputation or the "good guy" baseball lifer getting a break. Farrell seems to truly approach the game with a vibrant intelligence that isn't weighed down by any overbearing ego.

The Jays entered their search for a new manager last year, and through the legendarily exhaustive process, they came away no only with the best man for the job in the top role, but several of his fellow candidates filling out the coaching roles around him. In bringing in Don Wakamatsu to focus on the catching mentorship and game-planning, and Luis Rivera in a truly unique "eye in the sky", non-uniformed coaching role, not to mention the retention of Brian Butterfield and Dwayne Murphy through the transitional phase, the Jays have added heft to throughout their instructional staff.

(There's a part of us that thinks that sometime soon, the granularity of roles and the player-to-coach ratio that the Jays have instituted this year will be the model to follow.)

We'll take in tonight's game sporting the now-shelved for good powder blue colours sported by the 1985 team. But as much as we think kindly on the past, we've shelved that volume of the team's history. We're ready to look forward, and to follow along with these new Jays as a new legacy is forged. Because as we open the new book, the possibilities are truly inspiring.

Play ball.

On optimism, new faces, and old familiar faces returning

There are moments in this offseason where we find ourselves slipping further into despair over the outlook for our team. Could we really handle the fifth place finish that most of the pre-season prognosticators have foreseen for the Jays? Could we continue to show up in our blogging pants day after day if this teams slides back? Are we prepared for a long, miserable season?

Then, we snap out of it. What would Mom say if she knew that we were sending such terrible, negative thoughts out into the universe? Are we asking for the failure that we so fear? Why can't we just be happy, and enjoy this moment for what it is?

(Sorry. We're kinda losing our rational stoicism through this winter. Maybe it's a vitamin D thing.)

If there is one thing that has stoked the fires and really got us geeked for the coming season, it's the sheer number of new faces in the Jays camp, as well as the familiar faces that didn't make an appearance in 2009. We're amazed at how excited we get when we see a newish face in the crowd as we take a gander at the photos being posted by Jordan Bastian through his Twitter account, and glancing through the shots on Daylife. We're even getting a bit excited when we see marginal players, who we assume might make their way to Vegas or get their walking papers before the end of March.

Hey look! There's José Molina, blocking what must have been an awesome February slider in the dirt! There's Brett Wallace, with a first baseman's trapper, wearing number 46! (Snider's 45 and Wallace is 46...there's something to that, isn't there?) There's Alex Gonzalez, who is suddenly growing on us as an everyday option at short...unless the better option is Mike McCoy. (Look at that fielding form!)

Even more encouraging for us are the faces of Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum. While we don't necessarily anticipate them stepping in and blowing the roof off the Dome immediately, we've started to look at their return to the pitching staff much in the way that we would think of two prospects about to emerge into their big league roles.

Sure, people can dump on the lack of prospect depth in the Jays' system, and the losses in terms of big league talent. But we think that misses the point. People who have this team pegged as the worst in the league they'll have so many players in uniform in 2010 who were not a part of the late season meltdown last year. Maybe more than any team (or at least as much as any team that we follow obsessively), the Jays will have more turnover in their lineup this season.

We don't want to sink into pat, management seminar clichés of how "change = good". But, given the alternative route of picking apart the weaknesses and building the case for the team's downfall, we prefer to embrace the newness of this team. The number of new names and numbers on the jerseys at the very least gives us something new and compelling to wrap our head around in the coming months.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...

...it'll be here, better than before. Yesterday's gone. Yesterday's gone.

(And right about now, there's a handful of you who have a Fleetwood Mac aversion and raw open wounds from the Roy Halladay presser in Philly yesterday who have just flipped out and thrown their computer out the window. Sorry about that.)

It was unquestionably sad to see Halladay in another team's uniform, smiling and shaking hands and speaking warmly of the coming opportunity and floating out empty platitudes about his time in Toronto. It was sad to hear someone float out a new nickname for him overnight: Dr. Phil. (Yikes!) But frankly, we're thrilled that this whole thing is over, and we can move on. Keep on movin'. Let's push things forward.

We're not saying that we're glad to see Halladay gone, but from where we're sitting, this is the most exciting moment that we've had as a Jays fan in a few years. Maybe it is the excitement that you feel when you're about to go through a set of Level 5 rapids in a white water expedition with a bunch of weak-armed bureaucrats, and maybe you know that there's a good chance that this ship hits the chute at the wrong angle and you're going over and you're going under for an undetermined amount of time. But fuck it...Let's do this. Let's go.

Let's not look back, and figure out the multitude of ways that this is the fault of J.P., or Paul Godfrey or Paul Beeston or The Manager or whateverthefuck. Let's look at these three guys we got, who instantly move into the Jays' Top Ten prospects list, and let's get ready for what their emergence as significant contributors could mean.

And we don't want to indulge in propect pornography, but the one thing that we'll say about the three guys that the Jays received in return is that they've all had the opportunity to play for a year or two or three in affiliated ball, and there is at least a better understanding of how their skills will transfer to the pro game, as opposed to some pie in the sky supplemental round pick that the Jays were going to get after Halladay left. Whatever the case, we're pretty geeked to have these three new guys.

Over the years, we've seen Jimmy Key go to the Yankees, and Dave Stieb go to the White Sox, and George Bell go to the Cubs, and Roberto Alomar go to the Orioles. We saw Carlos Delgado walk away to Florida, then go to the Mets. We've seen Tom Henke move on to the Cardinals (err, oops...I meant Rangers), and we've seen Tony Fernandez leave and return and leave and return more often than we can count.

The point is that the team persists. Our fandom and our dedication to the Jays persist. Our desire to see the team succeed persists.

This is not the end. This is a new beginning. This is the start of a new journey. This is a moment to savour.