Reason for optimism: Like Seinfeld's David Puddy and Elaine Benes, the break-up of Jose Bautista and the Blue Jays didn't take.
Reason for pessimism: Like Friends' Ross and Rachel, Toronto and Edwin Encarnacion are on a break.
Very quietly, the Blue Jays got old as the franchise morphed from a team led by its offense to one led by the pitching staff in 2016, a season that increasingly began to look like a last stand. Let's unpack the various parts of that sentence:
Quietly: To the casual baseball fan, Toronto's season didn't seem remarkable and, as always, they probably didn't get enough attention in the U.S. While they didn't win the division as in 2015, the Jays comfortably made the playoffs and even sat in first place as late as Labor Day.