Hustle Martin

The most successful film produced by Disney's Pixar is Cars. It isn't the best movie the animated house produced, instead it's probably the worst of their 14 features. But it's the most successful in that it's the most profitable. Cars moves merchandise, and sequels and spinoffs put more money in more pockets than the quasi-progressive Wall-E or The Incredibles aka the Best Pixar Film.

It might not be high-minded Oscarbait or making a timeless classic, but Disney's prestige arm understands the value of doing more than making a great movie for a great movie's sake.

Signing Russell Martin makes the Blue Jays a better baseball team for the 2015 season because of the things Martin does on the field. Yet Martin signifies the importance the baseball industry, and the Blue Jays in particular, place on soft skills. On the field, Martin is regarded as an elite pitch framer and game caller, which doesn't absolve all sins but it cannot be ignored. It opens up the range of options for his bat to make the whole operation hum.

Leadership -- the eternal moving target and fall back excuse for old, bad players -- is a soft skill that doesn't count well but it cannot be dismissed just because the idea is unpalatable for those of us on the outside. It matters. Only up to a point, but it matters.

The Other Teams Are Better

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No point in burying the lede. The Blue Jays aren't in the playoffs (though they're still mathematically alive) because they other teams are better. Or they're not good enough. One of those two things.

It isn't for a lack of trying and it isn't by a lot, but wins 84-90 are a lot tougher to come by than wins 74 to 83. There was one great month and few months that were decidedly less than great, months that undid the goodness of that magical May.

That pretty much sums up the club on a more granular level, too. For all Jose Bautista's GBOATery, there were far too many sinkholes undercutting his production. Rather than tower over the lesser mortals, he was a fully-grown actor walking in a moat so Sylvester Stallone doesn't look like oompa loompa while laying waste to an Oregon village.

Gobbobons À Gogo

It is September 10th and the Toronto Blue Jays season is not technically dead. The contact high from "not technically dead" is enough to make a very green fanbase going full "post this salvia trip on Youtube!" up and down Blue Jays Way. "Not technically dead" is all we can ever really hope for in this life.

It is curious that the current state of "not technically dead" runs concurrent to the benching of Colby Rasmus and all but kicking Casey Janssen to touch. The Jays were close enough that presumably better players would help their cause but, in the mind of John Gibbons and Alex Anthopoulos and just about everybody in between, it doesn't matter who's "better" as much as who's better for the team.

Under Cover of Night

image courtesy of There Will Be Bourbon

There is little doubt in my mind that the Jays sweep in Seattle might have saved the season. Our perspective of the season, that is. If they laid an egg after a three-day gestation period in the Eastern Time Zone, the knives are out to a much greater degree than today.

Let there be no doubt, going down in such a timid manner at the hands of the Mariners is bad news for 2014 chances. But it's hard to maintain radio call-in ire when you're drifting off to sleep during the fifth inning. There's a certain kind of malaise that sets in when the team is reeling and playing late at night here on Earth, the gentle caress of "what great travelling support from West Coast Jays fans!" soothing your troubled soul. A nation united makes for more pleasant dreams than burning angst directed towards Juan Francsico.

Plus, when R.A. Dickey gives up two runs in the first inning, it feels like the game is already over. You're fast asleep before you realize how right you were, blissfully unaware of the five dece innings that followed.

It adds up to a whole lot of air let out of the Jays balloon. The circumstances allow it to leak out slowly and silently, rather than a whoopee cushion effect when they fall flat under the CN Tower's long shadow.

Never forget your first

The next time Travis Snider steps onto the field for big league action, it will mark the 500th game of his career. Of those 500 games, more came wearing the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates than the Toronto Blue Jays.

Travis Snider was the first prospect I followed closely. His shooting star was the first weighed down by the hopes and expectations of the blog generation, as the rise of Jays-specific sites coincided with his meteoric ascent through the minor leagues.

And though Snider got his name on more scoresheets in the National League, he actually played more with the Jays (917 PAs with Toronto compared to 642 with the Bucs.) As a top prospect, the Jays gave him every opportunity to fail. He was the high school batter destined to challenge for MVPs and hit in the heart of the order for years to come.

The Player Haters Guide To The Second AL Wild Card Spot

It's August and the Toronto Blue Jays are sitting in a playoff spot.

Pinch yourselves, folks.

We're less than a month away from Meaningful September Baseball (tm), and with 47 games left on the calendar the Jays and their fans find themselves in the unfamiliar spot of fending off teams with designs on sneaking into the one-game crapshoot.

There's an important step that needs to be taken from going to fans of an also-ran to fans of a serious playoff contender. That step is hate. Hate, hate, hate.

To help guide you through the next month and a half of pure seething hatred towards the rest of the sopping garbage juice that is the other AL Wild Card hopefuls, here is a handy guide to properly hating the other five contenders.

Timing is everything

It is not yet August so it is not yet a pennant race, but the Toronto Blue Jays are in a situation they haven't been for a long time - they matter. Their games matter, dripping with primordial playoff implications as they do. Given the AL East warzone, these future implications are more than just tiny glimmers of hope reflecting off the brass ring that is the second Wild Card game.

For the first time in a long time, people are very excited about homegrown talent that contributes to Toronto Blue Jays playoff positioning. People are excitedly watching on TV in record numbers. People are excitedly watching the scoreboards, cursing opponents of the Yankees and Orioles for seeming incapable of scoring runs or protecting leads. People are excited.