Blue Jays: Trying not to let the lockout dampen my excitement

For those that have been reading my work for a while, you’ll know that I’m generally a pretty optimistic person. I do my best to think that way for my own good, but that’s also the general message I prefer to put out into the world.

As a baseball fan, I can’t help but feel the frustration of the ongoing MLB lockout, and what it means for the 2022 season ahead. Spring Training was supposed to start this week, and instead we’re still waiting to hear about meaningful movement between the two sides of this whole mess. At the moment it looks all but certain that the season will be delayed, and perhaps even shortened depending on how long this drags out, and that’s a bummer no matter how you look at it. Last month I wrote about why I still believed we will still see a 162 game season, and soon I’ll likely have to admit that I was wrong.

As a Blue Jays fan, I’ll concede that I’m particularly annoyed with what’s going on these days. This is supposed to be the start of what could be a truly special window for the franchise. They’ve finally developed some elite pieces of the puzzle within the organization like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Alek Manoah, and more, and the front office has been aggressive in bringing in star free agents to supplement the roster. I know Alex Anthopoulos made some aggressive moves in 2015, but the kind of free agent contracts we’ve seen handed out lately has been something most of us aren’t used to as Blue Jays fans.

When we look ahead to the future, I think most Blue Jays fans understand that the good times won’t last forever, no matter how much Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro are looking to build a sustainable winner. I very much believe that they’ve built a roster that could have a long competitive window, but for now I can’t help but look ahead to the potential free agency for Guerrero Jr. and Bichette in four years. Ideally they’ll both have signed extensions long before that, but for now I feel like we can feel good about at least the next four years.

I still have faith that a deal is going to get worked out, and hopefully sooner than later. That said, I don’t want to be robbed of any opportunities to watch this team play, or to witness the emergence of a potential future Hall of Famers or two. It’s a special thing that we don’t get to experience every day, and it just feels like the baseball gods are being a wee bit cruel to baseball fans north of the border. I don’t mean to make this all about me or us as fans, but it’s been a long couple of years, and we just got the team back in Canada for the last few months of the 2021 season, and in time for a captivating run too. We’re also on the cusp of putting mandates in the rearview mirror in Canada in the coming weeks, and that was supposed to equal a jam-packed Rogers Centre.

Having all said of that, for the sake of my sanity I have to maintain my belief that there will be a MLB season in 2022, and hopefully it will begin sooner than later. Either way, I’m not going to let this lockout take away my excitement about the future for the Blue Jays. There’s just too much to like about what’s ahead, so long as there’s a season to be played that is.