LOYALTY NO LONGER EXISTS IN THE WORLD OF BASEBALL

Semien and Ray did it all in 2021, but their departures leave fans feeling a little jaded

If you didn't love what Marcus Semien did for a contending Toronto Blue Jays team in 2021, you would be best to check your pulse.

He did everything. Just about every day. In every conceivable way. He played. He led. He starred. He set an example. He delivered one of the greatest seasons in Blue Jays history.

And then he was gone. Just like that. From a team that won 91 games to a team that won 60. All in the name of dollars and term.

If you didn't love what Robbie Ray did for the Blue Jays of 2021, you would be best to check your pulse and maybe check it a second time.

He did everything, and did it every fifth day. With two pitches, he dominated the American League. He set an example. He carried himself with aplomb. He became the fifth Toronto pitcher to win the Cy Young Award. He didn't just win it, he owned it, taking 29 of 30 first-place votes. One of the great pitching seasons we've ever seen around here. And then he was gone. Just like that.

From a team that won 91 games to a team that won 90. Why, other than comparing a dollar or two with a dollar or two, because he said he wanted to win. And because the Blue Jays brought in Kevin Gausman, who went almost pitch for pitch and number for number with Ray last season. Two-pitch Ray was special for the Jays. Two-pitch Gausman was special for the 107-win San Francisco Giants as they compiled the greatest regular season in the terrific history of that franchise.

Gausman is coming to Toronto for 110 million reasons, all of them good ones. But if the past few days have indicated anything on a baseball planet about to be locked out, it's that we as fans, those of us who care about our teams, those of us still dazzled by the magic that can be baseball, have been forced into a form of emotional separation.

We used to adore ball players because they were our ball players. We would watch them every day. We would pick our favourites. We would hope — truly hope — that the love we have for our team, whatever team that is, would be the same kind of love the player would have in return. And if that was the case, if unfinished business meant anything to anyone anymore, Semien would still be a Jay, Ray would have signed in Toronto instead of Gausman, who would have stayed in San Francisco.

To add one more name, Max Scherzer, who has been just about the best pitcher in baseball over the last five seasons, would have remained in Los Angeles, instead of signing with the New York Mets.

You still hear coaches and management people in every sport talk about the name on the front of the jersey meaning more than the name on the back. That used to be true for the players, not necessarily for the fans. We may have loved the Blue Jays, but we loved Robbie Alomar and Joe Carter and John Olerud and Devon White more in those championship seasons.

When those players left, fans started leaving the ballpark.

Emotionally, now, you get attached over the course of a great season to Ray, to Semien, to dependable fifth starter Steven Matz, and you're asked to suspend those emotions, to push them aside, and move forward, not backward. They want you to be loyal and faithful and supportive. In return, you wave goodbye and wonder often what might have been.

We're still allowed to love Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette and Teoscar Hernandez and George Springer as much as we can because we assume they'll be here for a long time, but we can't help but be just a little jaded by the mercenaries of the game, splendid players and people like Semien, who could have gone anywhere but picked a last-place team, in a state that doesn't tax his income, to be his new baseball home.

The sport, apparently on the verge of lockout, is already divided between teams that will spend and teams that will not. The Jays are now big spenders. Now they need to become big winners. They will be everyone's pick to win the American League next season.

With a pitching staff that includes Gausman, Jose Barrios, Hyun-jin Ryu, Alek Manoah, and a starter to be named later, they have already won the winter in the AL East. It's the summer, however, that really matters. And replacing Semien in the everyday lineup will be next to impossible. But Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have proven to be creative with a chequebook and they'll find a way.

They can sign someone we can grab hold of for one season and say goodbye for the next. Loyalty has gone the way of the complete game in baseball.

Ball players have become like disposable diapers: much needed and useful, but at the end of the season, you throw them out because sometimes you have to, and sometimes they're just full of it.