Toronto Blue Jays!!

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

1994 was the strike year and the World Series was cancelled so we held the championship for an extra year.

I never really understood what Wades' bicep tendinitis was but wondered if he blew something out. In any case, trading Henke wasn't the greatest move the Jays made because then didn't have either of them.

It should be a decent team this year but I'm always leery of players who have served long suspensions.

I don't know if you've ever taken PED's but they make a difference. I've taken some of them with Chemo and could almost, but not quite, feel like climbing tall buildings. When coming off them it can be a big letdown.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I seem to recall for the big teams of the early 90's the starters didn't have to go more than 7 innings. Ward would come in for the 8th for the setup and Henke would close it out in the 9th. After Henke went to Texas (?) in 1993 they tried Ward for closing but other than in 1993 it never seemed to work as well as they seemed to hoped.

Ward was great in 93, but was injured - badly - in 94 I think. He was never able to regain his form after the injury and retired rather than being sent to AAA to continue struggling at working things out.

One thing the early-90s teams were also good at was taking the castoffs of other teams and making them stars, or at least solid contributors.

[Duncan Smith]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I think the team is actually significantly stronger then most casual fans would guess; after years of disappointments people are afraid to put any faith in them. The disappointments are actually most of the 19 years, with the Clemens years they were competitive but not deep enough clubs to win at the end and they never pulled the trigger on mid-season trades or signings.

This could be a powerhouse, even if some of the injured players completely fail this season they will still be one of the better teams in baseball. The AL East is tough so there are no guarantees, but its looks extremely promising. The offence looks on par with some of the best Yankee teams of recent memory.

Most teams would love to have a guy like Happ pitching fifth starter. I forgot about Lincoln; their middle relief is probably way better then I stated in my earlier post. It will have to be because they can't stretch out these oft-injured starters . They've got a lot of arms stockpiled now. Later in the season there are injured guys like Santos in the mix. Buerhle is a perfect addition, a guy who logs 200 ininings year after year.

Izturis is almost redundant now they didn't necessarily need him but that means they'll have two veteran bats/speed on the bench every game ( probably some platoons ). Last year their bench guys were very weak. Early in the season, there will be pitchers and hitters that sit out games that would be regulars on most teams. I think the juries out on Lind he may lose his job and the other guys share DH. If Lind comes out smoking in the spring there will be some tricky decisions.

I think Lawrie will have a break out year. Everything you've said is correct I share the optimism this is a lineup even an out of town baseball fan would drool over.

[Duncan Smith]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I may be wrong, but it has seemed that for many years the Blue Jays have begun each season full of promise, but every year many key injuries contribute to dashing their post-season hopes. In spite of being a long-time Blue Jays fan, it has become sadly predictable to me that they'll be out of contention by the end of July in a given year. Last year they surprised me by going farther than that into the season before oblivion had clearly arrived for them.

I wonder if something is wrong with the astroturf at the Skydome...

The 1983-1993 period they were different, making the playoffs or narrowly missing every year. Since then the payroll changed substantially, starting with when some Belgian brewery bought the team and got real cheap. They operated like a mid-tier team fiscally in a big market. At least one year they had a small market payroll.

For the most part, they haven't made decent free agent signings or traded for veteran stars. They tried once and chose the wrong guys ( overpaying for two solid pitchers who had zero star potential ).

Injuries are not the problem, last year in isolation yes but it was their lack of depth that made this a disaster. Great farm system but the top youngsters were 2-4 years away from being major league ready. Note that their depth now is perhaps unrivalled in baseball. That's what acquiring 6 veteran above average players will do to a 25 man roster.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I may be wrong, but it has seemed that for many years the Blue Jays have begun each season full of promise, but every year many key injuries contribute to dashing their post-season hopes. In spite of being a long-time Blue Jays fan, it has become sadly predictable to me that they'll be out of contention by the end of July in a given year. Last year they surprised me by going farther than that into the season before oblivion had clearly arrived for them.

I wonder if something is wrong with the astroturf at the Skydome...

Well, the each season full of promise thing only kind of started since 2008? I think one of those years they had something like a 37-25 record or something of that sort before crashing down. Every year since then, they've been like 5 games over 500 at one point but because the team was never that good on paper, it's hard to over-perform unless some of their rookies stepped up to the plate. Of course, they never had everything go right for them like Tampa Bay or Baltimore of last year but the difference between those years and 2013 is that on paper, they should be right up there with New York and Tampa. They have a strong core of guys and they lack any type of major weakness on the roster.

The bullpen is actually very strong - yes AA traded for some guys not on anyone's radar but their k/9 rates and other advanced statistics are generally very good. Their worst bullpen guy at this point would probably be Delabar or Lincoln and even those guys are still legit set-up guys on most teams. They essentially don't have any middle relief guys who plainly suck (i.e. Brian Tallet)

The lineup is probably the best I've seen in a long time. They have Jose and EE batting behind Jose and Melky, two guys that get on base at .350+ With the 30-40 home run power behind that, there should be tons of runs. Before Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus were expected to be the 3rd and 4th best hitters but now they're most likely hitting 6th and 7th, definitely easier to play when the pressure isn't on them. Added on top of that is the positional flexibility of Izturis and Bonafacio and you have a really complete team with tons of speed and power.

The starting rotation is probably the team's biggest question mark in terms of how well they will finish. If you imagine a healthy Johnson and a healthy Morrow with come-back Romero and a solid Buerhle, that's pretty much one of the best starting rotations in all of baseball. However, Buerhle has spent most of his time pitching in the AL Central and there's the obvious issue of facing stronger lineups and so forth. Romero was awful last year... Enough said. Morrow was fantastic last year but got injured. If he can pick up where he left off, he should garner some CY Young votes. And lastly, Johnson is an ace when he's on, but has been injured recently and his 2012 year wasn't the greatest (sub 4.00 era but his fip and xfip were around the same) If they can add another pitcher - i.e. Marcum as a 5th or 4th guy, that would be wonderful. Right now, I don't know if I trust J A Happ to be that last guy yet.

I mean, this rotation has the potential to pitch on a slightly worse level than the 2011 Phillies with Doc, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt. Obviously, there's a lot of potential downside too but at the very least, I doubt any of the Jays starters can pitch worse than the young guys we sent in (Hernandez, Drabek, etc. etc.)

Yeah, this team should be able to win 90 games with a range of 80-100. AA's job is probably on the line too since he picked Gibbons over other veterans as his coach so this is definitely the year to see if it pays off or not.

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

Toronto FC don't play in the Dome :)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I may be wrong, but it has seemed that for many years the Blue Jays have begun each season full of promise, but every year many key injuries contribute to dashing their post-season hopes. In spite of being a long-time Blue Jays fan, it has become sadly predictable to me that they'll be out of contention by the end of July in a given year. Last year they surprised me by going farther than that into the season before oblivion had clearly arrived for them.

I wonder if something is wrong with the astroturf at the Skydome...

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I seem to recall for the big teams of the early 90's the starters didn't have to go more than 7 innings. Ward would come in for the 8th for the setup and Henke would close it out in the 9th. After Henke went to Texas (?) in 1993 they tried Ward for closing but other than in 1993 it never seemed to work as well as they seemed to hoped.

[Duncan Smith]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

Yup they definitely are putting money where their mouth is. For a long time, I didn't think they would have the guts to put it all on the table once again (after their mini-disaster in 2006) but it seems like AA has put a winning product on the field and with increased interest in the team (rising tv viewership and 3500+ fans per game in 2012 as compared to 2011) it seems that ownership agreed that this is the right time to make a push.

As of right now, after the Melky signing, I believe they have 10-1 Vegas odds of winning the world series. Compare with before all the major signings at a 100-1 odds, it's clear that there's actually a contending team. Most experts believe the norm would be 85-90 wins with potential for many more. The over/under projection I believe is at 87 wins but I'm not sure if that was before or after the Melky signing. I'd put the Over/Under at 90 but that's just me. But ya, I'm super excited. Right now the only thing that would be even more awesome would be to get another reliable starter. There's a huge standard deviation in how their starters will perform this year with all the possible injuries and transition and comeback candidates. (this includes all 4 main starters)

Also, they just hired John Gibbons. Personally I think he is the right choice for manager although many casual fans will probably disagree.

Blue Jays are a team of generations; most young fans might not realize that they were a "big money" team most of the years from 1983 roughly to 1993
( think Yankees now ). They also led baseball in attendance for several years at 4 million, filling the Skydome every game including some cheap seats they don't even sell anymore.

They are almost a sure fire contendor next season. They only need another starter if someone gets hurt and none of the disabled guys help at all. I think the most obvious candidate is Shawn Marcum; he's already indicated interested. Bringing back Villeneuva would fit if the guy was willing to swing back to the middle bullpen and start if someone gets hurt ( word is he's not interested ). They might move a catcher as well to get more pitching. But assuming some form of fiscal restraint they really only need to ensure their middle relief is sufficient for now; they've signed a lot of journeyman guys and I'm not sure who the go to guys will be in middle relief ( might be a weakness ). A great middle guy will allow the manager to restrict his starters to less innings early in the season and possibly prevent injuries.

I think their biggest key to success is how Bautista and Romero rebound,
and possible huge upside potential for any one of Rasmus/Lawrie/Arencebia given that there will be more players on base this season.

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays and Climate Change

Hi Zeljko:

Gold Star - my chuckle for the afternoon - good one!!:):D

Bob A

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!! Not!

This whole thread is off topic. Let's get back to discussing climate change like we are supposed to.

Nope :p :p :p :p :p :p

:D

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!! Not!

This whole thread is off topic. Let's get back to discussing climate change like we are supposed to.

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

And what would be even more awesome is to bring back the Expos :)

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

Yup they definitely are putting money where their mouth is. For a long time, I didn't think they would have the guts to put it all on the table once again (after their mini-disaster in 2006) but it seems like AA has put a winning product on the field and with increased interest in the team (rising tv viewership and 3500+ fans per game in 2012 as compared to 2011) it seems that ownership agreed that this is the right time to make a push.

As of right now, after the Melky signing, I believe they have 10-1 Vegas odds of winning the world series. Compare with before all the major signings at a 100-1 odds, it's clear that there's actually a contending team. Most experts believe the norm would be 85-90 wins with potential for many more. The over/under projection I believe is at 87 wins but I'm not sure if that was before or after the Melky signing. I'd put the Over/Under at 90 but that's just me. But ya, I'm super excited. Right now the only thing that would be even more awesome would be to get another reliable starter. There's a huge standard deviation in how their starters will perform this year with all the possible injuries and transition and comeback candidates. (this includes all 4 main starters)

Also, they just hired John Gibbons. Personally I think he is the right choice for manager although many casual fans will probably disagree.

[Jordan S. Berson]

Re: Toronto Blue Jays!!

I don't know if anyone has heard, but the Jays just got WAY better this past week, 12 player trade, melky cabrera signing, John Gibbons manager, etc. etc. It's freaking awesome. I've never been this excited about baseball since 2006.

Looks like Rogers is finally starting to spend some real dough on their beloved failing Jays... It's about time considering how much the media super-giant is worth.

Maybe they'll break 90 wins for the first time since their back-to-back World Series victories in 1992 and 1993?