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By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
Email a copy of 'Offseason In Review: Toronto Blue Jays' to a friend
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Mills a notable subtraction?
Pfft. He was a AAAA starter at best…
Lunchbox45
they also listed gailey, jaye and webb..
pretty sure its just “losses” not notable
Coollet
Go Jays! Remove all awful memories of the Leafs and get a playoff berth!
Infield Fly
Ah, I see you’re getting the hang of this! 🙂
Go Jays!
stl_cards16
If they’re talking about an offseason in Toronto, that means they didn’t really have one. Haven’t you guys heard about how secretive they are?
Lunchbox45
did you see how AA totally ninja’d darren oliver in to signing?
total secret ninja move!
Lunchbox45
This team will go where its left handed batters take it . Johnson, Rasmus, Lind & LF (thames/ Snider) all have the ability to be pretty good…but also repulsively bad.
Thats 4 huge bats in your lineup, if they collectively post a low .300 wOBA, this could be a long year for the jays. You need at least 2 of them to have pretty good years, and the other two to not have brutal years.
vilifyingforce
Going to go with Lind/Johnson for pretty good and LF/Rasmus not being brutal.
Coollet
I love how we’re happy with “..not being brutal.”
vilifyingforce
I don’t think anybody said anything about being happy.
Coollet
Sorry, too strong, what about content?
vilifyingforce
I’d be content if nobody in the lineup was brutal.
ellisburks
As long as they don’t spike themselves.
Morley C
What about “brutal against opposing pitchers”? Eh? Eh?
johnsmith4
Great point on wOBA…BUT…I think the season will be bad if all four are around .330 wOBA. .300 wOBA is very low for even JPA (.309).
Need at least 2 (if not 3 if you include EE) to hit above .350 wOBA for Jays to challenge the contenders.
vilifyingforce
I think he meant a low .300, as in the low 300’s, not 300.
Coollet
There’s also EE and JPA as wild cards, and for the love of god i hope this doesn’t occur, Brett Lawrie could have a sophmore slump. The only sure bet on bats is Joey Bats. BUT, if the stars align and the batters do as you say, they bat avg or higher, this is gonna be a great season!
edit: forgot about Escobar, hope he just keeps being constant
Lunchbox45
I don’t know how much of a wild card EE is, if he’s healthy he’s usually pretty good.
JPA can be better for sure, but JPA being better wont have the same affect as Rasmus and Johnson re having 2010 years and Lind having a 2009 year.
Bombastic_Dave
I love that the article praises McGowan and Alvarez. I’m going to daydream about them both being strong, reliable ALE starters…
Coollet
I want Morrow to DOMINATE!!!! I’d love to see him perform be the next Verlander. Second on my wish list, Drabek being what we all hoped he be, the next Doc.
ellisburks
In order for him to even get close to Verlander(I don’t think he ever will) he will have to throw less pitches. That means pitching more to contact, walking less and striking out less. If he is always over 100 pitches by the 6th inning then he will be maybe a 4-5 starter with an ace’s strikeout numbers.
Coollet
My second wish is also far fetched but one can dream
ellisburks
True. Go ahead and dream. Nobody can take that from you.
Coollet
Too late, my wife already has 🙁
vilifyingforce
Morrow is in the process of finding the balance between striking everybody out and laying up a bit and pitching to contact. A serviceable offspeed pitch will go miles in allowing him to go deeper in games and pitch more effective in general. From what I read he has acknowledged he needs a breaking ball to be better and has been working on it all spring, so here’s hoping. I don’t think his walks is all that atrocious, needs to come down, but, it’s of less concern to me then how many pitches it takes him to usually get to the 6th.
RevRollie
ummm….Halladay ALWAYS had Ace potential, it just took a bit to work out some kinks. I like Drabek, but any scout will tell you he has almost no Ace potential. He projects to be a good #2 or very good #3 starter.
vilifyingforce
Best draft ever? He was the 9th pitcher taken his draft. I can’t imagine a draft with 9 pitchers having ace potential written all over them.
HerbertAnchovy
Took me a minute to realize you were saying AL East Starters. I thought you were refering to the two having a strong liking to beer.
Just got done work… must need a break!
Coollet
What will be more important to the Jays’ success this year? The back end of the rotation or the left handed batters in the line up?
Encarnacion's Parrot
Not blowing 25 save opportunities. Not sure how many of those turned into losses, but 25 is more than double of what you should have in a season regardless.
Coollet
I thought that issue had been fix, but let’s assume that it is. What is the Jays weak point if it isn’t the bullpen?
Encarnacion's Parrot
Well they still have to play the games to say it’s a fix–we said it was solved last off-season too.
The Jays had 3 weak LH bats in their line-up half of last season in Johnson, Lind and Rasmus, and one semi-weak bat in Thames and Snider combined, and still finished 6th in runs.
The Jays’ biggest weakness is the last 3 rotation spots, though it could easily become a strength. McGowan needs more time to get his command and control back, Alvarez needs more time to get his slider to the plus-potential it has, and Cecil is, well, Cecil.
In fairness to these though, Cecil has appeared to have better control of the strike-zone, Alvarez’s slider has greatly improved since last year, and McGowan is slowly coming around.
When you’re finishing 6th in runs scored, I personally don’t really care if they’re right-handed or inverted right-handed. 3/5 of the rotation is a question mark, and their defense will need to improve. In terms of defense, Lawrie > all else that played 3B, Rasmus > Davis, and Johnson = Hill.
Bombastic_Dave
I remember hearing “stop-gap” used in the same sentences as Rauch, Francisco and a bunch of others, though I doubt anyone expected them all to play so poorly…
All the Jays need to win is to score more runs and give up less runs. Oh, and play good baseball.
Super helpful.
shockey12 2
IMO the reason the bullpen has been bad is the lack of innings from the starters. If your relievers are pitching 3-4 innings every day then they’re bound to be tired and put up bad numbers. Unless the starters go farther into games I doubt the bullpen will improve much, especially with older guys like Oliver, Cordero.
diesel2410
Ok although I like where the Jays are headed, I don’t think they will be making the playoffs anytime soon. The Yankees, Sox and Rays are all around better teams, and the Jays pitching staff would have to have a spectacular season just for them to make the Wild Card. I can possibly see it in 3-5 years, but not yet.
When they do contend, I hope it starts another losing spell for the Sox. Sorry had to do that lol
ellisburks
The thing that makes me think that they won’t be making the playoffs this year and will be about 85 wins is that they have only one starter that is reliable in Romero. They don’t have one other starter that could go 200 innings. I am including Morrow in this as he is a 6 inning starter. Until he pitches a bit more to contact he will never go more than 180 innings. The rest of the staff will be young and on innings counts and with that you will have to have not just 5 starters but 7 or 8 of them to make up the innings. They just don’t have the major-league ready depth.
They will be an exciting team to watch and they will be contending soon, just not 2012.
NorthYorkJays
There’s no reason why Morrow, Cecil, and Alvarez can’t be 200 inning pitchers. Cecil has basically done it the last 2 years, Alvarez threw 160+ last year on a standard innings increase, and Morrow would have thrown 200 innings if the Jays didn’t force him onto the DL to open the season in a smart ploy to limit his innings for the season.
Nick Wernham
Pretty much this. Obviously the rotation is the biggest question mark on this team, but it’s a bit defeatist to say that none of these other guys are 200 inning starters.
I don’t think that this is a contending team this year, but if they do contend it will either be due to some combination of break out years from one or two young pitchers and a really dynamic offense. This team has the potential to lead the league in runs scored if things break right. Even if they don’t then the offense should be good enough to prop up an above-average pitching staff if a couple of the starter due take steps forward.
Overally, I’m saying between 84 and 88 wins with some helium. I think this club wins over 90 in 2013 without making any major, external additions.
Morley C
I’d have to agree, and add that when you say things “break right” it could also help to have one or more of the Yankees, Sox or Rays take a bit of a tumble – the Rays young starters could be caught up to, the Sox could be derailed by injuries, half the Yankees lineup could have age catch up to them or their starting pitchers behind Sabathia could falter. Not that anything is likely, but there are no sure things.
vilifyingforce
Cecil threw a third of those innings in AAA though. Morrow started the year out on the DL because of inflammation in his elbow and would have been shut down at the end of the season instead of the beginning due to an innings limit, but, it was no smart ploy and nothing was forced. A lot has to go right for Cecil reach 200IP because he throws as hard as Brad Mills now and Alvarez is still going to be on an innings limit(right around 190 this season). Morrow averaged 6IP per start last season, so he could hit 200IP if he starts 34 games or becomes more effective with his offspeed stuff (I think it’s a curve ball he’s been working on this spring).
bluejaycountry
Excellent summary. Thanks, Ben.
Willie13
I saw Drabek in 2007 as a member of the single A BlueClaws in Lakewood NJ he had some nice command of the ball really helped the team that year
BrettLawrieBiggestFan
Brett Lawrie. Nuff said
Coollet
I think you might bias