What A Show, Eh?

See, if the Blue Jays had succeeded in signing Shoehi Ohtani, then that headline is the pun we’d all be getting tired of. Aren’t you glad we dodged that bullet? No, me neither.

It's been a weird offseason for the Blue Jays. It started with a sense of doom:  The team has kind of painted itself into a corner: Several players have expiring contracts, and the team’s offence needs improvement, but this year there isn’t a lot of offence available in this year’s free-agent class. There was a sense that there was little to look forward to.

Then, unexpectedly, the Jays made a major push to sign Shohei Ohtani. This is a team that has rarely gone after the top free agents, and then they go after the biggest free agent ever. Even though the contract was expected to be at least three times the biggest contract the Jays had ever signed. Nevertheless, as the rumour mill’s list of suitors dwindled, and the Blue Jays slowly rose to the top of the list of potential destinations.

And then, suddenly, it was over. It was like reality reasserted itself, and Ohtani signed with the Dodgers just as everyone expected. Of course, it's entirely possible that the chances of his signing with the Jays was always remote, and it was exaggerated to drive the final price up. For Jays fans it was doubly a let down, missing out on Ohtani, and him signing with a super-rich team, as if to emphasize that fantasy time was over now. Okay, it was refreshing that it wasn’t a super-rich team in the Jays’ division for once. I heard some people suggest that Ohtani’s contract decision was a missed marketing opportunity for Major League Baseball, and they should have made it into a televised spectacle, like LeBron James' first free agency. But it seems to me that would be a disappointment, seeing as the result was so predictable.

(And fittingly, my first attempt to spell Shohei was autocorrected to "Sorry")

The whole experience was very strange, and I'm not sure how to describe it. It was like we jumped into an alternate universe, then got pulled back to reality. The effect was similar to watching this video, which hinges on the odd fact that Tom Brady was drafted by the Montreal Expos:

Unfortunately, the timelines of that alternate reality don't quite line up, since Larry Walker left as a free agent a few months before the Expos drafted Brady. But that's part of the experience I'm trying to describe: surreal dreaming, and now back to a dull reality where you realize that dream wasn’t really possible. But after being allowed to dream, it seems extra depressing. 

On a practical level, the Blue Jays are back in the predicament that began the offseason. But on an emotional level, this incident contributes to a long-running frustration for Jays fans: we'd just like to know what type of team we have. There are big-spending teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, cheap teams like the Rays or Royals; some teams spend strategically, like the Cardinals, and some spend wildly, like the Mets. The Jays, on the other hand, seem to jump between personalities. 

They spent big in the World Series years, then turned into a small-market team for a couple of decades. That was at least predictable. Since then, it's been a crap shoot. They might spend big, or not. They might try patiently building a team of talented youngsters. Or they might go after the biggest free agent in the history of sports. I just wish we could adjust our expectations.