Blue Jays: Are management playing us for a fool?

The Toronto Blue Jays brain trust continue to force feed us philosophies and propaganda in regards to their intentions for 2018 and their desire to keep Josh Donaldson in the fold for the long haul.

However, my spidey senses have me thinking that Ross Atkins and company are playing us for a fool with their repetitive lip service, especially after the remarks from Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro earlier in the week.

Shapiro appeared on Toronto radio and enlightened us all that if it were not for the fans they would have blown this team up over a year ago. He also capitalized on another opportunity to stick it to the former GM Alex Anthopoulos by saying that a very, very, very high price was paid to contend.

Get over it already, the Jays made the postseason in two consecutive seasons and revived baseball once again in Canada. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

“I’ve said all along, if we were just running our team without fans and it was an intellectual exercise, we would’ve hit a reset over a year ago,”

Easy for him to say now after a dreadful 2017 campaign. Let’s be honest, it isn’t about the fan’s feelings or putting a winner on the field, it’s about the hard earned money they continue to dump into the Blue Jays. Rogers realized they were sitting on a licence to print money if they kept it interesting on the field last season. That message was undoubtedly relayed loud and clear to Shapiro and his foot soldiers.

My articulate colleague and host of the Jays Journal podcast Ari Shapiro summed it up magnificently as he always tends to do.

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The Blue Jays appear content waiting out the market this offseason, hopeful that someone will fall into their lap on the cheap. The majority of the names linked to the Jays have been players coming off of down seasons or creeping up there in age. The likes of C.C. Sabathia, Carlos Gonzalez, Carlos Gomez hardly signify their mantra of getting younger and more athletic.

It almost appears they will dumpster dive and bargain bin shop to fill their vacancies so it will be an easier sell to tear it down at season’s end. Call me a conspiracy theorist but Shapiro’s comment signifies the writing is on the wall.

Unquestionably a rebuild is a tough sell on ownership after the Blue Jays finished first in American League attendance last season. So piece it together on the cheap, keep the fans content, shut ownership up and then when the team implodes once again, say I told you so, let’s blow it up.

Next: Blue Jays: Besides St. Louis, who else is after Donaldson?

So Blue Jays fans are management playing us for a fool? I hope their actions in the coming weeks to build a winner prove me wrong, but only time will tell.