Never too early to dream
Jays enter 2017 with reason to dream of October — and smaller margin of error to get there
Before we consider the expectations for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2017, let us pause for a moment to acknowledge that, in April, no one has any idea what they are talking about.
Last season, the Blue Jays came into the spring with what was thought to be a wall-banging offence, a sturdy bullpen and a starting rotation that might look OK if you squinted at it in a certain light. Instead, the offence regressed, the starters were excellent and the bullpen was an earlyseason gasoline refinery.
The year before that, Toronto broke camp with a host of promising rookies on which their fortunes hinged. Most of them — Aaron Sanchez, Daniel Norris, Dalton Pompey, Miguel Castro — struggled in their planned roles, but the Jays turned into a powerhouse anyway on the back of a bunch of late trades.
The two years before that were full of promise and new blood, and all they returned were two more seasons of disappointment.
A lot can happen between now and October, is the point. But after an offseason that could best be described as underwhelming, the Toronto Blue Jays again enter a season where the playoffs are a distinct possibility. In 2017, though, the margin for error is smaller. It’s a team that’s still in win-now mode, but if it becomes clear that this season is no longer about winning, then — actually, we’ll stop there for now. April is a time for optimism and all that.
Speaking of optimism, fans can still feel that way about the offence, even with the loss of Edwin Encarnacion, who held out for a big-money deal and ended up in Cleveland after the Blue Jays preemptively replaced him. Kendrys Morales, the new DH, is poised for a big year in the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre after he put up good power numbers in spacious Kauffman Stadium last season. Steve Pearce, the other new import, should also provide a reliable bat and some pop in the bottom half of the lineup. If Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson are fully healthy they are a very potent top of the order, and with a very motivated Jose Bautista behind them the batting lineup has at least a whiff of the masher days of late-2015.
The starting rotation is as balanced as any in baseball, with the guy who might be their best pitcher, Sanchez, slotted in fifth, and the relief corps should be decent. It’s not the Bullpen of Doom of the sort employed in recent years by the Royals and Yankees, but it’s also the one area easiest to patch up if things go squirrely.
The careful reader will note that there are a lot of conditionals in the preceding paragraphs, and the challenge for the Blue Jays is that the ifs and maybes could go the other way, too. There is not a long line of prospects at the clubhouse door just waiting for their chance should someone in the majorleague lineup falter. There’s not even a small line. Pitching depth is an even greater concern, with team president Mark Shapiro acknowledging himself this spring that the drop off from fifth to sixth starter is a steep one, should one of the five end up hurt. Toronto’s offseason felt so meh in part because of the cautious approach taken with Encarnacion and Bautista but also because it was easy to believe there were bigger moves still to come. But when winter ended, the Blue Jays were left with some combination of Melvin Upton, Ezequiel Carrera and Pearce in left field, Justin Smoak and Pearce and first base and Bautista, at 36, as the everyday right-fielder. It’s the same situation as spring ends, minus Upton, and it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where one of those spots becomes a noticeable problem, especially because Morales is the full-time DH, which limits John Gibbons’ ability to move pieces around if someone struggles in the field (Bautista), strikes out all the time (Smoak/Carrera) or gets hurt (any of the above.)
Entering the second season of the Mark Shapiro-Ross Atkins regime, the most obvious changes have been to off-the-field stuff. The Jays have restructured ticket pricing, they’ve added a high-performance fitness team, they are moving ahead on upgrades to their Florida training facility, and the front-office staff, baseball and otherwise, has been overhauled. The roster has been approached more cautiously. Every contract, from Morales, Pearce and Bautista this winter to Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ last year, has been of a length and dollar figure that still allows management to keep their options open. If the team unexpectedly founders this season, there are many possible moves that could net the type of prospects that were shipped out of the farm system in recent years.
Management, taken at their word, is not thinking about anything like that. They just extended Gibbons’ contract by two years, giving him a security he has not normally had in Toronto and signalling that they intend to keep the veteran-laden squad intact. To use a phrase that Gibbons often employs: these are their guys.
It is April, and the Blue Jays have reason enough to feel optimistic. Sometimes, as recent years have shown, that actually works out.