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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.
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...
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer
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.
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.
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.
Last edited by Duncan Smith; Wednesday, 21st November, 2012, 06:29 PM.
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.
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.
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.
IIRC it was "Biceps Tendinitis" - with quotes. Which means they really didn't know what was causing the problem, only what the symptom was. And they didn't trade Henke, the Rangers vastly outbid the Jays for him as a free agent.
As for Cabrera... he tested positive in exactly the same way as Ryan Braun was last year (elevated and/or synthetic testosterone). Getting caught (and getting out of a 50 game suspension only on a technicality) didn't really seem to hurt Braun much this year - in fact, his numbers were remarkably similar to his 2011 MVP numbers, with even an increase in home runs.
IIRC it was "Biceps Tendinitis" - with quotes. Which means they really didn't know what was causing the problem, only what the symptom was. And they didn't trade Henke, the Rangers vastly outbid the Jays for him as a free agent.
Henke seemed to regularly have a hard time getting a satisfactory, for him, contract from the Jays. Seemed like they though he was easily replaceable.
In any case, I seem to recall Henke pitched longer than Ward. Maybe 1995.
It was a lot better team to watch than in the first Jay season at Exhibition stadium in the spring. Like sitting in the stands for Winnipeg Blue Bomber playoff games as far as cold went.
YES -- and he took some parting shots at Miami! :D
"I'm upset with how things turned out in Miami," Buehrle said in a statement issued Wednesday through his agent, Jeff Berry. "Just like the fans in South Florida, I was lied to on multiple occasions. But I'm putting it behind me and looking forward to moving on with my career."
I remember well those days at Exhibition Stadium (a local sportswriter, Dick Beddoes I think, used to call it names like 'Excruciating Stadium') I once attended a night game in early May. By the middle innings my butt was frozen from those chilly aluminum seats!
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