Player Morale and Management's Role

The Blue Jays wrapped up their 2014 season being known for something. They are now known as the team with the longest playoff drought in North American Big 4 sports. With a drought standing at 21 years and counting these are not good times to be a Toronto sports fan.

Obviously in this world on fire this is a very trivial matter. But the question does beg an answer. Does Alex Anthopolous deserve to keep his job?

Generally I am not someone who is knee-jerk. I might be rather impulsive in my real life, but when it comes to sports I am a bit of a pragmatist. It is difficult to have a long term plan for your franchise if you are bringing in someone new every year. This is why companies don’t fire the CEO for having a bad quarter or two.

That CEO must have the confidence of his board of directors but he also must have the confidence of those that work under them. A workplace is reliant on morale to keep it running at maximum efficiency. While it appears Alex Anthopolous does have the confidence of the people who pay his cheques I am not convinced he has the confidence of the player he signs the cheques for.

Obviously I don’t know what is going on internally in the organisation. I am just someone sitting in their apartment waxing poetic about a team that I care about. But what is the morale in the Blue Jays club house and how is that effecting how they go to work every 

day?

In the lead up to the 2014 season A.A talked about the Blue Jays’ need for starting pitching. There was the documented debacle that was the Ervin Santana attempted signing. A situation where Alex claims that everything was going smoothly until Santana abruptly decided he wanted to pitch in the National League. Which is understandable. If I was on a one year contract where my performance dictated how much I would be paid the coming year I would certainly choose the path of least resistance. Instead of getting knocked around the A.L East and taking a pay cut the coming year.

We all saw how displeased Jose Bautista was when no major moved were made at the trade deadline (unless you count Valencia as a major move.) It reminded me very slightly of the owner in the Charlie Sheen movie Major League not bringing in reinforcements to end the season. While I am certain Jose Bautista wasn't the only one upset by the lack of reinforcements he speaks for the team as its leader. So really this is a question of morale. Can we expect the 2015 Blue Jays to play inspired baseball for an organisation that didn’t do much to help them? Based on how this year’s team went into the tank not that long after it is hard to come to any other conclusion. In the military a commanding officer that doesn’t command the respect of his privates isn’t very useful.

Jose Bautista is frustrated because the prime of his career is being wasted. He is arguably the greatest player that has ever worn a Blue Jays uniform. While he hasn’t worn it for that long he is setting almost every record concerning “fastest to _____.” Jose Bautista is a player who has never been to the playoffs and he certainly wants to see his team do everything it can to get there. I am not sure how much Jose Bautista cares about the long term future of the Blue Jays when he might be gone or retired. This is where a bit of the divide between player and management lies.

While we hope that athletes getting paid more for one game than most of us make in a year would play inspired no matter what. But consider a job that you had where you had little respect for or confidence in your employer. It probably impacted the job that you did. While maybe not even consciously. I am talking about small things that cumulatively add up. Morale is a big thing in any work place. Why do you think companies stress its importance? No matter how much you get paid the respect level for your employer impacts your performance. Optics is everything.

The 2015 Blue Jays are going to look very different than the team we saw this year. Two-thirds of the starting outfield may be different. The bullpen is going to have to be reworked and the Jays should work to bolster their bench. Gibbons appears to be coming back but if there is a new General Manager I doubt he wants a manager from the previous regime. Whoever is in the post of General Manager certainly has their work cut out for them.

Alex Anthopolous has done a great job of replenishing the Blue Jays from when he took over. But if A.A does stay he certainly has some fences to mend.