TORONTO — Eyes welling up with tears, Bo Bichette reflected on a baseball season that had just ended.
For Bichette and the Blue Jays the year began in Dunedin, Fla., transitioned to Buffalo, N.Y. for two months and finished in Toronto. It featured an MVP calibre performance from a 22-year-old superstar in the making, a Cy Young season from a pitcher who had just led the league in walks and one of the best rookie pitching performances in the 45-year history of the franchise.
The season ended with three consecutive must-win games, and the Blue Jays won them all. And even then, it wasn’t enough.
“I’m proud of the way we fought. Proud of the way we finished,” Bichette said after the Red Sox and Yankees had officially eliminated the Blue Jays from contention Sunday evening. “But at the end of the day, we held the cards pretty late in the season. We had our opportunities and we didn’t get it done, so we’ll just learn from it.”
“This game’s really hard,” he added. “Beating big-league teams is really hard. And I think sometimes we just had more on our minds than we should have.”
In the aftermath of the Blue Jays’ season-ending win over Baltimore, Bichette wasn’t the only one to get emotional. And while some emotion often rises to the surface toward the end of a 162-game season, this felt different.
“We became, in my opinion, the best team in baseball,” said Marcus Semien. “But it was just a tick too late.”
So how to make sense of a team that missed the playoffs but calls itself the best team in baseball? How to weigh the incredible individual accomplishments and impressive team-wide resilience against the reality that there’s no prize for being the best fourth-place team in baseball? And how can the front office be sure next year’s team actually reaches the playoffs?
In the coming months, the Blue Jays will move on from the pain of this near-miss. Their core of young position players is as talented as any group in baseball. With the right additions, this roster could contend year after year and emerge as the AL East ‘behemoth’ team president Mark Shapiro envisions.
In that sense, this group is very different from the 2015-16 Blue Jays teams that revolved around a talented but ageing core. Yet every chance to win is precious, and there’s little doubt this Blue Jays team would have been a feared playoff opponent after going 46-29 in the second half on their way to a 91-71 record.
With the best lineup in the American League and a strong starting rotation, they really could have won against any team in baseball. Even the bullpen had been improving for the Jays in recent weeks. The Yankees acknowledged the strength of the Toronto roster by choosing to face the Red Sox over the Blue Jays in preparation for a potential four-way tie over the weekend.
Under those circumstances, it’s impossible not to wonder what could have happened this year. And as promising as this young lineup looks, the relatively rapid rise and fall of the Cubs offers a reminder that there are only so many chances for even the best cores out there. Even for a young team, a missed opportunity should — and does — still sting.
“It hurts,” Vladamir Guerrero Jr. said via an interpreter. “Knowing that you win 91 games and you didn’t make the playoffs really hurts me, hurts all my teammates. That’s just going to make me stronger and come back next year even better.”
At least there’s no scapegoat here. All weekend, the Blue Jays did their part, only to remain on the periphery of the playoff picture thanks to strong finishes from the Yankees and Red Sox. But the Blue Jays take some pride in the fact that they finished with a series sweep.
After missing by such a narrow margin, the temptation may exist to look back at games the Blue Jays lost in painful fashion. And sure, with a better bullpen the Blue Jays are likely in the playoffs right now.
But that’s the nature of such a near miss: change any one variable and the entire outcome shifts, too. With a fully healthy George Springer, the Blue Jays are in. With better production at third base, they’re in. If they don’t devote so many early-season starts to Travis Bergen, T.J. Zeuch, Tommy Milone and Tanner Roark they’re in (when Roark’s name came up in conversation this week, one Blue Jays person responded quite seriously: “That was this year?”).
But as Springer points out, if you’re going to look back at all of the near-wins it’s worth acknowledging some of those near-losses, too.
“We won some games that we probably shouldn’t have,” Springer said. “Getting down big and scratching and clawing. We have a great culture and it’s only going to get better hopefully.”
With Springer, Guerrero Jr., Bichette and Teoscar Hernandez in place for years to come, the makings of an elite offensive team are in place. In Jose Berrios, Alek Manoah, Hyun Jin Ryu and Nate Pearson they’re well on their way to an above-average starting rotation. And their farm system remains strong even after dealing two top prospects for Berrios.
But the biggest question now looming over the Blue Jays is whether they can bring back Robbie Ray, the likely 2021 AL Cy Young winner, and Marcus Semien, who hit 45 home runs on his way to a 7.1-WAR season. Within the Blue Jays’ clubhouse, there’s no doubt as to what those two players mean.
“It’s pretty easy from my point of view,” Springer said. “I want them back. They’re huge, integral parts of this team and I hope they’re still here (in 2022).”
Once free agency opens next month, both are sure to be among the most coveted players available alongside the likes of Carlos Correa, Javier Baez, Corey Seager, Trevor Story, Max Scherzer and Kevin Gausman. When asked about the possibility of returning to Toronto, Ray and Semien each expressed interest in staying with the Blue Jays.
“It’s definitely an option,” Ray replied. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”
“Of course,” Semien said. “We had the best offence in the major leagues and the best starting pitching in the game. How could you not want to be a part of that?”
And after the years Ray and Semien had in Toronto, how could the Blue Jays not want to bring them back? It’s never that simple, of course — not once other bidders get involved and not when the Blue Jays must weigh any commitments they make now against the desire to lock up the likes of Guerrero Jr. and Bichette long-term.
But after signing Ryu two winters ago and Springer this past off-season, there should no longer be any doubt about the Blue Jays’ willingness to spend. Whether it’s with Ray and Semien or some other impact free agents, GM Ross Atkins & Co. are clearly prepared to add to the existing group. And after signing Ray and Semien to two of the best one-year deals this franchise has ever enjoyed, the front office has shown itself to be capable of identifying and recruiting difference-makers.
This much is obvious: with two-fifths of their starting rotation hitting free agency and a need for one or two more bats, the Blue Jays can’t stop here. Plus, there’s little doubt that trades are coming, too. On opening day 2022 this roster will likely look very different.
By then, the pain of this year’s early exit will have faded. It will be time for Bichette, Guerrero Jr. and the rest of the Blue Jays’ young core to start pursuing a playoff berth once again.
