Toronto Blue Jays' Kevin Kiermaier celebrates with teammates in the dugout after scoring in the second inning against the Baltimore Orioles during a 2024 Grapefruit League Spring Training game at TD Ballpark on March 19, in Dunedin, Florida.Julio Aguilar/Getty Images
Early this week, Joey Votto wrote an apology to Canada.
By ‘wrote’, I mean actually wrote. He wrote it out longhand and posted a picture of it on X. He has the sort of lovely penmanship only the aged possess any more.
In it, Votto referred to something he’d once said about Canadian baseball on a podcast – “I don’t care at all” – and declared himself “ashamed.” It goes on like that.
A Canadian lashing Canada, and subsequently himself, about a joke that didn’t land that almost no one in Canada heard in the first place? That’s a heritage moment.
The letter was a big story out of the Toronto Blue Jays camp in Dunedin.
Since being signed to a minor-league deal two weeks ago, Votto has been the big Jays story on a bunch of days. If you’d just stumbled across Toronto baseball and started following along, you’d think he was the most important person on the team.
That’s not a good thing. Six months from now, that may be the first harbinger of doom.
The Jays begin their regular season on Thursday in Florida. Because of renovations at the Rogers Centre, they’re on the road for the first 10 days of the year. That trip is a ring of fire – Tampa, Houston and New York.
Votto aside, how do the Jays look in the starting gate?
Thin, and a bit limp.
The off-season has been a drag. Unable to lure any of the big names, the Jays invested in two niche markets – infielders who can’t hit, and old guys who used to.
It’s possible that after they’ve been locked in a closet with a broken pool cue and told that only one can come out, newcomers Justin Turner (39) or Votto (40) will lead an offensive renaissance. But probably not.
If this team is going to turn it around, the guys who put them into the ditch last year will have to be the ones steering them out of it. Top of that list is Vlad Guerrero Jr.
This is the season where Guerrero either figures it out or cements the impression that he’s a bust. Not a huge bust. He’s an above-average major-league hitter. But a bust based on advance billing.
Where’s his head at during this crucial juncture? Guerrero’s over here talking about the home-run jacket and how much he misses it.
“I just want to bring the jacket back,” Guerrero told Sportsnet. “The player no want to do it? I probably do it by myself in the corner.”
Everybody, get your hands in and … 1, 2, 3, TEAM!
For a while there, the Jays had the home run jacket in place of a team personality. Some ball clubs are good late in games. The Jays had that dance they did with a coat.
Getting rid of the jacket and many of its biggest supporters was meant to signal a shift in organizational priorities. The Toronto Blue Jays were grown up now.
Now here’s the big guy on the team saying he will bring it back – all by himself if he has to – and dance on his own.
That’s a chemistry problem, which can be overcome by physics. The team that has better access to talent usually wins in baseball, even if they all hate each other.
The Jays advantage in this regard is pitching. Or used to be.
Last year, the Jays had the most precision rotation in baseball. Alek Manoah’s sudden turn from Cy Young contender to malfunctioning automatic sprinkler got all the press, which let everyone else work under cover.
Four guys started at least 31 games. If you can count on five or six quality innings to start 130 regular-season games, you have spotted yourself an enormous advantage over the competition.
The line going in to spring training was that the Jays were all of that again, plus a rejuvenated Manoah, plus top prospect Ricky Tiedemann.
Last year, Manoah waited until a couple of months into the regular season to start really bursting his seams. This year, he lasted an hour. After more tests and more soreness, you’re beginning to wonder if the problem is really his arm.
Meanwhile, the sure thing in the rotation – ace Kevin Gausman – hasn’t thrown a pitch against opposition this spring. Yusei Kikuchi has had two starts, and been lit up in both. Tiedemann is coming along, but hasn’t forced the situation.
The Jays have already announced that Bowden Francis, a lightly regarded 27-year-old who’s never started a major-league game, will feature in the first series of the season.
None of this may be a sign of things to come, but it definitely isn’t the basis for optimism.
In fact, the best thing that’s happened to the Jays during spring training didn’t happen to them at all. It was news that the Yankees won’t have the best pitcher in baseball, Gerrit Cole, for an indeterminate amount of time. That means that maybe, possibly, New York won’t run away with the division, making the Jays chase the wild card for the duration.
What does it all add up to? An eerie quiet.
The Jays have been up-and-coming contenders for the past four years. However badly they all ended, each of those seasons began with a lot of excitement.
I would not describe the mood as ‘excited’ right now. It’s leaning more toward irritated, with a hint of barely concealed sports rage.
The Jays are probably good enough to make the expanded playoffs. That’s more to do with a lack of competition than anything to do with their own qualities. But they seem just as likely to be the sort of good team that cracks once pressure is applied.
Every team in every league is either rising or falling. It’s hard to define what exactly makes that the case, but you know it when you see it.
The 2024 Toronto Blue Jays are contenders, but it feels as though the rise has stalled, which means the fall has begun.
The question for this year’s squad is whether they can achieve something before gravity really gets hold of them.