Blue Jays: The talent is undeniable, and people are taking notice

The tone around the Blue Jays is already changing with the talented youth performing so well, and people all over the game are taking notice.

When a team decides to go into a full fledged rebuild, it usually comes with some pretty frustrating times. That has been the case when you look at the Blue Jays’ season as a whole, but not so much if you’ve been paying attention over the last six weeks or so.

The Blue Jays might be 49-72 on the season, but they’re 15-15 since the All-Star break and putting it simply, they’ve become a fun team to watch again.

The rookies have provided an exciting injection of energy into the roster and the fan base. Guys like Randal Grichuk and Teoscar Hernandez are playing great baseball right now, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has kicked things into another gear since the arrival of Bo Bichette. Speaking of Bichette, all he’s done is break franchise and MLB records in his first two weeks as a big leaguer.

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What’s truly interesting to me is to see the way that writers, fans, and even my friends are taking about the Blue Jays again. On the latter note, I have a lot of friends who are fans of the Red Sox and Yankees, which inevitably leads to all kinds of trash talk and chirping going back and forth. For the last few years I’ve mostly been picked on as the Sox and Yankees have battled it out for playoff supremacy, but suddenly the messages are changing.

I realize I’m just talking about my own life here, but two fellas in particular that love to pester me sent separate messages over the last week. One from a Yankee fan read, “Man, I thought we’d have the AL East sewn up for the foreseeable future, but these Blue Jay kids are for real. That Guerrero kid is special”. Another Yankee fan friend of mine sent a note yesterday just saying, “I really enjoyed that series. Your team is really fun to watch”.

You’re darn right they are, and it’s only going to get better from here.

None of this development is terribly surprising to me, but I will admit that it’s happening a little more quickly than I anticipated. Not that I think the Blue Jays are already contenders, but when I can read a quiet respect in a message that is normally full of good-natured ribbing, well, that’s not the way it normally goes.

It’s not just a handful of my friends though, as I’m sure many of you have noticed on social media. A few weeks ago the tone around this team was quite negative after the trades of Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Joe Biagini and more. However, even though it’s been two weeks or less since that went down, the shift in attitude feels palpable already. If you’ve type in “Blue Jays” on a Twitter search over the last few days, you’ve likely read a lot more positive comments than we’ve seen in months.

As a die-hard Blue Jay fan, I expected to be a bit of a punching bag for my friends for the next few years, and that’s still going to happen a fair bit no matter what. However, the young talent that’s already on the roster is making a significant impression, and we’ve only just begun. Becoming a World Series contender is still not going to happen overnight, but this team is fun a lot of fun to watch again. Even my jerk-face friends think so.