I like Brett Cecil.

He was a teammate and he's a friend and I’ve never known him to be vindictive or vengeful. But the filter through which I choose to interpret his most recent commentary about fan behaviour is one of an honest man reciting facts - fans do have short memories. They can be fickle and they don't factor in on a player’s personal journey before they express their emotions. 

While these facts are irrefutable, they’re governed under a larger, nullifying truth: Baseball was, is, and forever shall be a, “what have you done for me lately” operation. When you stink, the fans boo you. When you crush the enemy, the fans cheer. These are the rules. They’ve always been the rules and they will always be the rules.

And Brett Cecil knows the rules.

Despite how much I like him and understand where he’s coming from, he would have been better served had he suffered in silence.

Criticizing fans is a no-win situation. In fact, it’s a surefire way to make that which you don’t want to see happen, actually happen. Telling fans that their booing is bothersome and indicative of a short memory is like telling them, “the next time I stink, please boo as hard as you possibly can.” And telling fans that you’re not thinking about their booing is essentially telling them, “Dear God, I can’t get this booing out of my head!”

But the worst part is how trying to talk to the fans like they have a collective conscience governed by logic and reason reveals a loss of control. I’m not saying Brett Cecil has lost it. I’m saying he’s let part of his life as a player become linked something that should be a non-factor - fan sentiment.

Fans - I’m sorry to tell you this, but players are at their very best when you’re irrelevant to them. When they think of you as this faceless mass that pays their checks and makes noises in the background, they’re doing their job.

As a fan, you’re meant to be tuned-out, pandered to, celebrated only as a form of diplomacy and otherwise forgotten about. Believe me, you want it this way.

The indifference on the part of the player allows you to consume the sport with zero accountability. And it makes the moments they do acknowledge you feel like you’re receiving favour from the gods.

When a player grants a fan some access into his head, it’s like letting a toddler have a turn at the wheel of a car - no good can come of it. And when that car inevitably gets wrapped around a telephone pole, you can’t blame the child. After all, they didn’t know any better. You have to blame the parent - or in this case, the player. It was their own stupid choice to let a fan have control.

This seems to be a simple concept: focus on what you can control, tune out what you can’t and don’t let the immaterial matters affect the material matters. Unfortunately, egos grow over time and reap more from cheering fans than they ought to. And that gives more ground to the booing fans. When that happens, priorities get skewed and things get messy.

I wish I could say this was simply the flaw of having egomaniacs in the big league, but’s it’s really the flaw of every athlete. We spend most of our life training far from the public eye so that, in the few fleeting moments they are under its gaze, we can be judged as worthy. The outcome shouldn’t matter and yet for many of us, it’s all that matters.

This precarious balance to tuning in and tuning out is why training your body is not enough to survive in pro sports. You must also master the fine art of self-measurement. All players experience lapses in their choice of measurement, though not all come as publically as Brett Cecil’s.

So now we wait to see how - and if - Cecil will recover. 

My gut feeling - along with Cecil’s last two seasons - tell me that he’s far too talented to be booed for much longer. In fact, his current .429 BABIP suggest that, while he hasn’t been as effective as his 2014 and 2015 seasons have led us to expect, he’s also been unlucky. His batting average on balls in play is nearly .200 higher than that of his 2014 and 2015 numbers.

But BABIP alone isn’t going to convince you, is it? Well then, let’s look at it from Cecil’s perspective: short memories.

Let’s go back to the start of last season, at the end of April when he had a fat 5.15 ERA. And by the end of June, he had a 5.40 ERA! But come the end of the last season, Cecil had a 2.48 ERA and 70 strikeouts and 13 walks with opponents hitting .197 off him.

In 2014, Cecil ended April with a 5.23 ERA. But he ended the season with a 2.70 ERA, 76 strikeouts to 27 walks and an opposing batting average of .227.

Cecil is a slow starter, but a strong finisher. And he’s only thrown nine innings this season. NINE!

So yes, while he may need to stay away from battles he can’t win - like arguing with fans about what he’s done lately - he does have a point. This past April has been bad, but then again, his last two Aprils were bad as well and he turned it around just fine.

Dirk Hayhurst is a former Major League pitcher with the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres, as well as best-selling author.

Follow him on Twitter at @thegarfoose and on his website at www.dirkhayhurst.com