Blue Jays Sign Guanaguaney and Hazel: A Tiny Reveal

If the Blue Jays make an October announcement, my brain supplies stage lighting. It wants a curtain, a microphone, and somebody whispering that the future is about to walk through the door.

On October 6, Toronto signed outfielder Orangel Guanaguaney and shortstop Cayro Hazel to minor-league contracts.

The curtain can stay in storage. Both signings are worth noting. Neither notice says the Jays have transformed the team. My brain, which is currently unemployed as a game-watching device, would prefer a more elaborate production.

Please welcome the actual news

Guanaguaney signed a minor-league deal. Hazel signed a minor-league deal. Their positions are outfielder and shortstop, respectively. That is what the transaction record gives us.

It does not give us a lineup, a major-league role, or a timetable for either player. Those would be useful additions to my imaginary presentation, but the Blue Jays have not included them in the material available here.

This is the peculiar trouble with a quiet offseason move. A signing is an action, and action sounds like the beginning of a story. I see two names arrive on the same date and immediately wait for the next slide. Surely this is where someone reveals how the pieces fit.

There is no next slide. There are two minor-league contracts.

I can appreciate the signings without pretending the lack of further detail is a puzzle I have been invited to solve. Still, if I have brought my own stage lighting, I would like credit for setting it up.

The fan-made ceremony gets out of hand

Here is how the ceremony goes in my head: the curtain rises, the names appear in enormous letters, and I stand up from my chair as though a transaction notice can see me.

Then someone reads the words “minor-league contract,” and I sit down carefully. Not because those words are bad. Because I have once again dressed for an occasion that requested ordinary shoes.

The joke belongs to my expectations, not to Guanaguaney or Hazel. They signed contracts. Good for them. Nothing in these notices asks either player to answer for the Blue Jays’ whole winter before it has happened.

Fans are allowed to be curious about new names. I certainly am. The available facts simply stop well before the questions I want to ask. Where might they play? What might they contribute? Those questions can wait for information rather than becoming confident guesses in a homemade press conference.

For now, the reveal is that the Jays made two minor-league signings. I know. I was also hoping the curtain would do something.

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The size of the room matters

Toronto finished 79-83 and fifth in the division. After a season like that, I understand the urge to treat every offseason move as an answer to the entire season. The alternative is sitting with the record while the calendar has no game to offer.

Thursday is an off-day, and there is no upcoming game in the supplied schedule. The transaction wire has become my nearest available source of baseball motion. Naturally, I am tempted to make it carry more weight than it can.

But these contracts do not rewrite 79-83. They do not tell us what Guanaguaney or Hazel will do for Toronto, and they do not announce the rest of the club’s plans. They are a small piece of news following a season that left larger questions.

A tiny transaction is not a miniature parade. It is a transaction with less confetti.

That may be frustrating if you have already imagined the route and notified the neighbours. I speak from a hypothetical position of considerable experience.

Leave the lights on low

There is a pleasant, modest way to receive this update. Learn the names. Keep the positions straight. Remember that Guanaguaney and Hazel each signed a minor-league contract on October 6. Then resist the urge to attach an entire offseason to the announcement.

I am working on that last part. My brain still wants to ask where everyone should stand for a photograph of the new era. The transaction record has not announced a new era, and I have no photograph to arrange.

So the stage lights can go off. The signings remain real with the room lights on, which is a perfectly respectable amount of light for two minor-league deals.