Highs and lows
Blue Jays’ roller-coaster season started with promise, but failed to deliver
It’s to be expected that a team on pace for 90-plus losses would feature more lows than highs.
The Toronto Blue Jays are no exception here.
While there are several highs to celebrate, the season ended long before Wednesday’s final game.
Hope that the team could compete for a wild card was a believable theme at the start the season.
No one is downplaying the effect of injuries; they’ve been numerous and devastating. But the roster, outside of Edwin Encarnacion, hasn’t shown one player whose performance could be considered all-star worthy. There have been plenty of opportunities with those injuries, but it’s arguable that those opportunities were not grasped, at least not entirely.
HIGHS
EDWIN ENCARNACION: Carried the team for the first six weeks of the season until Jose Bautista found his stroke, then continued on an all-star tear that has seen him join the home run leaders and become one of the game’s most dangerous power hitters. That’s saying a lot too, given that one trend in the game is the increasing number of power hitters who are also hitting for average. And Encarnacion has so far proven he’s worth every penny of the contract extension he signed the day before the all-star break in July. He will easily be the Jays player of the year.
ATTENDANCE: Toronto has drawn more than 2 million fans this season, an average of just over 26,000 fans a game (23rd in the majors). That’s better than 2011’s average of 22,444 (25th in majors). The current level marks the highest attendance figure in the past four seasons. It’s the first time the Jays have surpassed the 2 million threshold since 2008 (2,399,786), which stands as the high water attendance mark since 1998. Every year since then, the Jays have been under the American League average.
SOCIAL MEDIA: According to a statistical partner to DowJones, the Jays rank ninth in major league baseball in terms of Twitter followers of major league baseball teams. The Yankees and Phillies rank highest. Time magazine ranked nine athletes among its top 100 people to follow, and the lone baseball player was San Francisco closer Brian Wilson. Nick Swisher is very popular this season, with over 1.3 million followers. The Jays are certainly worthy of mention in this important marketing phenom, especially with the cool, interactive idea behind J.P. Arencibia’s Team Unit feed (#teamunit). Arencibia (@jparencibia9) started a joint Jays-Leafs feed, and the inclusion of several Jays and Leafs in the feed not only became an instant hit, it opened doors to new fans and marketing opportunities for both clubs. Part of the increased attendance figures being seen in Toronto can be linked to the pioneering efforts of those Jays Twitter feeds. In the meantime, Brett Lawrie (@blawrie13) was one of the first people to tweet the Eaton Centre shooting in July.
OMAR VIZQUEL: Wrapped up 24 seasons in the major leagues when the Jays finished their season Wednesday. Vizquel, an 11-time Gold Glove winner, has been entertaining fans with his climb past Babe Ruth on the all-time hit list. For all the youth the Jays have featured this season, they have given baseball lovers a rare chance to witness the career close of one of the greatest shortstops ever.
CARLOS VILLANUEVA: He took the time-honoured route to becoming a bonafide starter by grinding through Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie, left, jumps for joy after clubbing a walkoff homer against the Texas Rangers on May 1. Lawrie w suspended after tossing a helmet that bounc off field and hit umpire Bill Miller in game against the Tampa Bay Rays May 15.
r was ced the swingman role. With 2012 going so wrong for the rotation, Villanueva became an anchor and arguably the most consistent arm on tap. He’s entering free agency, and you can expect he’ll end up somewhere else in 2013. But if he stays in Toronto, he also represents — along with JA Happ — a solid twosome to bid for the fifth slot in 2013.
CASEY JANSSEN: The definite saviour of the bullpen. That pen lost designated closer Sergio Santos and had to be rebuilt at the trade deadline. Janssen was given the role, partly by default, but took command of it and gave the club a reliable, ultra competitive arm to turn to in save situations. Janssen helped erase the blown saves memory of 2011 and prevent what could have been a total disaster after the loss of Santos.
JEFF MATHIS: Signed a two-year extension on Aug. 14, and it was a wise move from management. Mathis is everything you want in a backup catcher: great baseball sense, great receiver, calls a great game, really directs pitchers, great defensively and a solid athlete. His bat isn’t quite consistent enough to make him an everyday player, but he contributes offensively in key moments. A good piece for 2013, and he’s very marketable if a beneficial trade surfaces.
BRETT LAWRIE THE GOOD: Lawrie’s defensive game is among the best in the AL. He is among the league leaders in defensive runs saved. Could he get mention in Gold Glove talk?
MORE LAWRIE: Had a walkoff homer vs. Texas in early May, and the image of him leaping way up into the air as he landed on home plate made a lasting impression on Jays fans. But that may not have been the best thing to happen to him that day — he did a midday promo where he was interviewed by a Victoria’s Secret model.
DARREN OLIVER: delivered a sub 2.00 ERA amid the chaos in the bullpen. Like Villanueva, he’ll likely take the free agent route out of town this winter.
RAJAI DAVIS 45-PLUS SB: Davis is en route to the best stolen base season by a Blue Jay since Shannon Stewart in 1998. There’s plenty about his game to criticize , but his speed should make him a valuable option off the bench in 2013.
SPRING TRAINING RECORD: It seems like a century ago, but that 23-5 mark out of spring training was the best spring winning percentage by any team since 1997.
16-INNING OPENING DAY WIN: Arencibia’s extra-innings homer in Cleveland was a wonderful way to start the season, and a moment that seemed to, at the time, justify all the high expectations for a wild-card berth back in Toronto.
SELLOUTS: Jays sold out opening day and June 17 vs. Philadelphia (45,060), the only sellouts this season.
LOWS
YUNEL ESCOBAR: Homophobic slur marked the low point of the season. With the team in the midst of a seven-game losing streak, the incident sparked reports of dissension in the dressing room and criticisms of John Farrell’s leadership.
INJURIES: Losing three young pitchers — Drew Hutchison, Kyle Drabek and Luis Perez — was bad enough. Ultimately, the club would place 17 players on long-term DL — 11 of them either core regulars or major league pitchers. The biggest blow, the one that essentially drained all hope out of the season, was the loss of Jose Bautista just after the all-star break. The club is studying what it can do to prevent such a miserable rash of setbacks in the future; the larger portion of the blame, though, rests with the players. Many of them simply are not in top shape and do not manage their bodies at the levels required for the grinding MLB season. This must be addressed in the off-season.
AA: Reviews of Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos’s tenure remain positive. But he cannot escape blame for this disaster of a season. Consider: the risk, and ultimate failure, of trying to establish three young, raw starters at the major league level; pulling back from Gio Gonzalez last winter (he’s now a Cy Young candidate in the NL); this was THE year to acquire a front end starter, given Boston’s demise (and that was obvious once Bobby Valentine took over as manager); two years of bullpen rebuilds that spiralled away from original visions. AA did do a good job in trading away Travis Snider and Eric Thames, deals he used to do an instant, and successful rebuild of his bullpen in July. But some of the key organizational directions for this season missed the mark entirely.
JOSE BAUTISTA: He was lost midseason, but he wasn’t out of touch. He admonished management to get pitching at the deadline. Some critics rightly wondered if Bautista was actually ticked off as the season started sliding out of control. Nonetheless, the Jays have a true elite player on hand. A similar situation existed with Roy Halladay, and he left after giving more than a decade of his career waiting for the Jays to field a winner. The Jays can’t repeat that
failure with Bautista. BRETT LAWRIE THE BAD: The helmet tossing incident, the injuries, the falloff in home runs and power numbers and the base running
blun- ders — Lawrie deserves mention in Gold Glove conversations, but he also deserves a strong reprimand from management this off-season. With a minor tweak on game focus, he could be an all-star in the making.
YOUNG GUNS: The big three — Adeiny Hechavarria, Anthony Gose and Moise Sierra — have certainly given the impression they are all major leaguers in the making. The question is do the Jays carry any of them next year? Can they afford to nurture raw rookies in everyday positions when the plan is, or should be, to qualify for a wild card (minimum)? It’s even arguable now that starter Chad Jenkins, who won his first big league game Tuesday, has surpassed all three as the most promising prospect on tap at the moment. When it comes to the big three, those kids must hit consistently. They can possess all the speed and defence in the world, but hitting is what keeps you in the major leagues. And right now, none of them has shown enough offence to justify them as legitimate 25-man roster players for 2013.
TRADING SNIDER: Was this the end of an unfulfilled era, or just a needed change of scenery? It’s debatable whether Snider was a cornerstone of the franchise. He certainly fingered Cito Gaston and Gene Tenace for mismanaging his talents and creating an untenable career situation for him. For certain, Snider has yet to prove he can hit consistently at the major league level, and that’s what it’s all about.
THIS AND THAT: Colby Rasmus’ inconsistency at the plate; J.P. Arencibia’s walkoff error in Atlanta in June; numerous blown saves in the first two months of the season; Francisco Cordero’s unexpected collapse when called upon to pick up the closer role with Santos injured.