Major League Baseball wraps up this week.
Actually for the Toronto Blue Jays, it wrapped up quite some time ago.
In a familiar pattern, one that has been played out for more than a decade, Toronto will finish double digits behind the East Division leaders, meaning this is yet another September without meaning for the Toronto club.
The Jays, like the Montreal Canadiens in hockey, haven’t won anything since 1993.
Seventeen years if you’re counting
In that time, the Jays have been good, to very good briefly, but never great for a season.
Looking at their finishes since 1996, Toronto has almost always finished with more than 70 wins, usually in the 80’s, but have never hit the 90 win mark since their last World Series in 1993.
There are die hard Jays fans naturally, who believe good things are just around the corner.
Those fans point to a pitching staff with great young arms like Marcum, Morrow, Cecil and more.
They’ll remind me Jose Bautista established a club record for home runs.
And they’ll also say the Jays were essentially a .500 club without great seasons at the plate from Adam Lind and Aaron Hill
Fair enough.
But the trend is your friend, and the forecast for the Blue Jays next year, likely will be similar to what’s gone down for the past 16 years.
I’m Fred Wallace