I don't see the correlation beside inflated expectations and fans blaming coaching and management.
The Flames were actually bad, and Sutter clearly lost the room. The Jays were actually good, they played great defense and had some of the best pitching in the majors and Schneider is being scapegoated for following analytics that many teams use now. Their offense let them down in large part because 2 of their youngest players had down years.
Perhaps they went in too hard on improved defense and pitching, but I find that hard to say when Nimmo was their CF target, and KK their backup choice.
The Jays pitching was definitely good this year. The defence also was a big improvement.
The offensive tumble was so significant that it almost took the team entirely out of the playoffs.
The biggest frustration is that the roster coming into the season should not have struggled so mightily on offence. The team had the parts to generate runs, but even with high averages they couldn't generate runs. And if at any point they had started generating runs consistently they could have gone on a big run.
Similarly, the Flames should not have struggled so mightily on defence and been so easy to score on. They were dominant in possession and didn't spend much time on defence. If they could have knuckled down and stopped giving up odd-man rushes constantly they could have gone on a big run.
So that's the similarity for me. Could have and should have. And didn't.
