The 2016 baseball season has been a roller coaster ride for Toronto Blue Jays fans.
Early on the team looked so bad that a wholesale blow out of talent looked to be the best course.
But the ship righted and sailed into contention in the American League East, where a wild card berth looked to be likely.
The team didn’t make any midseason moves that were close to adding David Price last summer, but a tinker here, and a tweak there, and as September arrived the Jays were in first place, and frankly look poised to win the AL East now.
That is huge as it will avoid them having to play the ridiculous one-game wild card playoff. Yes, I recognize time is an issue when considering a longer wild card set, but one game is ridiculous and usually means the winner burning their ace, putting them as even larger underdogs as they move along.
The question is can the 2016 Jays make it to World Series?
After their run last season, anything less has to be deemed a failure.
To win it all a team generally needs some playoff experience, or maybe it’s just that losing a playoff set makes you hungrier to succeed. Either way the Jays should want it badly come October.
That need should be made keener by the realization whatever transpires there are several members of the current roster who are unlikely to return next year. We often talk about windows of opportunity in sport, and the window on some core members of the Jays seems likely to close after this year, at least in terms of them having a shot in TO Blue.
The starting staff looks deep enough.
The big sticks are there, although at times the Jays bats go rather silent against stellar pitching.
The question mark is middle relief, something that has proven to be the key to success in playoff runs of late.
Rare is the starter who is effective after six innings in the heat of a playoff series. Often they are pulled after five.
The Jays have reliable Roberto Osuna as the closer, but the bridge from starter to closer has been rickety at times this season.
The bullpen will need to perform above what it has shown to-date this season for this edition of the Jays to have the eyes of Canada upon it in the World Series.
Why oh why ‘Riders?
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are devolving.
They have been abysmal on the field for a couple of seasons, but now they are becoming a bad punchline.
What do they do when they have one win in nine starts?
Well they get caught and fined for breaking CFL rules.
Sure there are those who believe all teams do what they were caught doing, but the fact is they got caught and it cost the team cold hard cash.
Oh, and they still weren’t winning.
So what comes next?
The Roughriders sign Khalif Mitchell to their practice roster.
Really Chris Jones you think adding this walking billboard for trouble is going to somehow help this team win? Or, is Mitchell on board to divert attention away from how bad the team is as we stare in disbelief that the team signed this guy?
Remember Mitchell has at best a controversial career. His CFL career looked to have come to an end before the start of last season, when he made anti-Semitic posts on Twitter.
Mitchell was fined by the league and his then team, the Montreal Alouettes, who subsequently released him.
Yes, Mitchell is a two-time CFL all-star defensive lineman, and he comes with a spotted resume having been fined several times, for on- and off-field incidents heading up to the seeming career-ending bad choices made last year. At 30, he didn’t find work with another team.
That is understandable the guy is a ticking time bomb, in terms of when he might again make a bad choice.
And it’s not just Twitter madness.
Mitchell was suspended for two games by the CFL in 2012 when he was a member of the B.C. Lions. After getting into a twisted mass with Edmonton Eskimos offensive lineman Simeon Rottier, Mitchell spun around and hyperextended Rottier’s left elbow. That’s brain power at work.
So maybe age has mellowed Mitchell, or he has grown smarter, but the question remains if the heart of a bigot remains.
This is the guy that after the CFL fined him for antic-Semitic Twitter posts had the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to issue a release voicing its concerns about Mitchell.
Apparently the league office is not convinced he is reformed issuing a statement they’ll be monitoring the situation.
So really Jones why go down this road?
It’s not like this season is salvageable if George Reed was suddenly 24 again and Ron Lancaster’s ghost was at quarterback.
Mitchell won’t be the answer, no matter the question this year, and no one can think he’s a big part of a retooled 2017 team either.
But here we are John Chick looking pretty darned good in Hamilton, and fans here left to stomach Mitchell on the roster.
Ouch, that just plain hurts the ‘Rider Pride.
Sadly the signing smacks of desperation on the part of Jones. In the midst of what should be a rebuild with youth, he suddenly plucks Mitchell from the scrap heap, warts, bad choices and bigotry included, as a potentially viable way to improve the team.
The ticket taker at gate 7 could have found a better option by going through a web search of unsigned college players.
Jones, the team saviour only a few short months ago, is now beginning to tear at fandom in much the same was Corey Chamblin did, and we all know how well that turned out.
