Jays should hang on to Osuna
STEVE BUFFERY
POSTMEDIA NETWORK
As one baseball insider recently suggested, trading away Roberto Osuna would be like The Louvre swapping the Mona Lisa for a couple of Andy Warhols to be named later. Do so at your own peril. Osuna’s a special player, beyond his ever-expanding arsenal on the mound. Ever since turning professional as a teenager out of Sinaloa, Mexico, Osuna has dealt with weight issues, arm issues (he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2014), mental health issues. And he’s bounced back every time.
Yet, there’s been talk by “experts” and “insiders” that the Jays should consider trading the young reliever if they choose to embark on a rebuild, the theory being that if they’re not a contender over the next couple of years, they don’t need an all-star closer.
But Osuna is 22. Barring an unforeseen injury, he has many great years ahead. Even if they rebuild wisely, Toronto will need a quality closer down the road, once they’re playoff contenders again. Jays manager John Gibbons has said that, while Osuna’s fastball might lose a tick or two going forward, the bottom line is, he’ll always have nasty stuff and he just simply knows how to pitch.
Anyone you talk to — from members of the Jays front office who were involved with scouting and signing Osuna in 2011 to his current teammates — all maintain that Osuna is special, someone you should never count out, or give up on.
A former Toronto front office talks about the time Osuna made his debut with the Class A Vancouver Canadians of the Northwest League in July 2012 after being promoted from the Bluefield Blue Jays of the Appalachian League. In his first game starting for the Canadians, on July 28 in Everett, Wash., Osuna pitched five innings and struck out 13 while giving up one hit and walking one.
“If memory serves me correct, eight of his 13 strikeouts were three-pitch strikeouts,” said Canadians broadcaster Rob Fai, who worked the game that night in Everett. “Slider, fastball, slider, fastball. I remember in the third inning the (Everett) broadcaster leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Well, you don’t see that everyday.’ And I said, ‘No you don’t.’”
Fai, a good Scarborough, Ont., boy who has been working for the Canadians since 1998, remembered that the fans in Everett were blown away by Osuna’s performance.
“It was palpable. If it was at home, it would have been nuts,” said Fai. “But the (Everett) fans were standing up when he came off the field. And they knew he was only going five because there was a guy warming up in the bullpen. Osuna was on a pitch count and he was at a certain limit.”
The guy warming up in the bullpen was Marcus Stroman, whose current stats suggest he might have been an all-star this season along with his old Canadians teammate, Osuna. Stroman took the mound in the sixth and pitched two scoreless innings before the Canadians collapsed late in the game with the AquaSox stealing a 7-6 victory over Vancouver. Osuna ended up going 1-0 with a 3.20 ERA in five games in Vancouver before moving up to Lansing in 2013.
Fai remembers Osuna as being “distant” from everyone in Vancouver, except for his teammates.
“They really loved him,” said Fai.
Fai said there was definitely a buzz around Osuna that summer, not all positive.
“There definitely was because his stuff translated into Major League stuff,” said Fai. “But, again, you’d look at the body and you’d think, something has to give here.”
“He also got overshadowed by Marcus Stroman, who came in at about three per cent body fat, who was the first-rounder, chewing the bubble gum, electric personality,” Fai added. “So that actually helped Osuna slide under the radar because everyone was so focused on Marcus that nobody really paid that much attention to (Osuna). If Roberto was here by himself, I think he would have been more a marquee guy. But with Marcus here, I think all eyes turned to him.
“Marcus was the big thing. He was not your prototypical firstrounder because he was 5-foot-8, but he had this unbelievable personality and, even though he was only here for a couple of weeks as well, the buzz when Marcus left was far superior to the buzz when Roberto left. Not even in the same league.”
Interestingly, five years later, at the Major League level, the buzz surrounding the two is still high. And for the Jays to have any chance of contending in the second half, they’ll need both Osuna and Stroman at their best — though, realistically, the Jays don’t have much of a chance.
It’s not just that they’re 8.5 games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox in the AL East and five games out of a wild card spot. It’s the number of teams they’d have to leapfrog to reach the postseason.
The Jays would have to pass seven teams to make the last wild card spot and it’s a certain that at least of couple of those seven will have a good second half. That’s the most daunting aspect of being 41-47 at the All-Star break, particularly for a team in the AL East. All that optimism you hear from players and broadcasters is more or less wishful thinking.
But, still, there’s a chance. And as long as there is a chance, it’s unlikely club president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins will start shipping out major assets for future pieces. As long as there’s reasonable hope, the fans will continue to flock to the Rogers Centre and watch the games on television and the last thing Shapiro would want to do is pull the plug on all of that.
So there’s a balancing act. Of course, if the Jays go completely in the toilet in the second half, Atkins can justify shipping out assets — perhaps even Josh Donaldson — for future gains. But, all this nonsense about Jays fans launching an uprising if the organization decides to do a rebuild is just that — nonsense.
But there is one positive going for the Jays as they head into the second half of the season that was a major thorn in their side in the first half. The Jays will be, by and large, healthy when they open face the Tigers in Detroit on Friday. Their entire starting rotation — No.1 in the AL last season — is finally at full health, which is a luxury they didn’t have in the first half.
As well, their star players — Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Russ Martin — are relatively healthy. And their bullpen, with Joe Biagini back from the rotation and Joe Smith due to return soon, is in great shape.
Which brings up back to Osuna. The Jays young righthander is pitching better now than ever. But it was his ineffectiveness early in the season that contributed in a major way to Toronto’s swoon. Osuna went 3-for-6 in save opportunities in April, with a 5.63 ERA. That added to the cold bats and injury problems put the Jays on their heels.
The 6-foot-2, 215-pounder has bounced back in extraordinary fashion, despite suffering from some undisclosed mental issues. Toronto needs him to keep rolling in the second half. The betting is he’ll continue to roll. You don’t bet against Osuna. And you’d be mad to trade him.
“I believe this all-Star game is the first of many for him,” said Gibbons.