Playoff prospects look good
After 20 years, Blue Jays loom as post-season contenders. We take a look at two potential outcomes of the 2013 season
Time is always the enemy of optimism. Recall your initial feelings when the Blue Jays made their 12-man trade with the Marlins, then signed free agent Melky Cabrera, then traded for Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey. The surge of optimism was palpable and contagious. But as time went by, Jays’ fans have been allowed the luxury of imagining everything that might go wrong.
HOW THE JAYS COULD WIN 100 GAMES
Not since 2008 have the Blue Jays had as solid a rotation in terms of 1-5, all having the possibility of starting 30-plus games. That ’08 Jays’ rotation — Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Shaun Marcum, Jesse Litch and Dustin McGowan — combined to make 139 starts, the most by any Toronto rotation in the past eight years.
In the past 20 years, four Jays rotations have had 139 or more starts by their Top 5 starters, including 1993 with 146 starts, 1998 and 1999 with 140 starts and ’08 with its 139. That list includes a World Series winner with 95 wins, plus teams that won 88, 86 and 84 games. Good health to a Blue Jays’ rotation has guaranteed a winning season. Start the winning formula from there.
The current five-man Jays rotation combined to make 148 starts in 2012, despite the oblique injury to Brandon Morrow causing him to miss over two months. Just a repeat of that games started total would seem to historically guarantee the Jays win total will be in the mid-to-high 80s.
Over the past three seasons, 2009-12, American League bull- pens have averaged 23 wins each. The Jays’ pen has averaged 24 per season. If you add six Ws to the bullpen total, that give the Jays 30 wins, leaving 70 victories required from the starting five to reach the century mark.
Consider that the career-high win totals for the Jays’ current rotation is Dickey (20), Morrow (11), Mark Buehrle (19), Josh John- son (15) and Ricky Romero (15). That adds up to 80 wins. Now it’s not likely that all five will match their career highs, but Morrow is on the career upswing, a healthy Johnson is in a free-agent year and needs to impress, Dickey’s totals have gone up each of the past three years, Buehrle is consistently in the teens and Romero is looking to rebound. Seventy is a possibility, plus the six more from other starters and 24 from the pen. That adds up to 100.
HOW THE JAYS COULD WIN 75 GAMES
What would happen to Blue Jays catching if J.P. Arencibia was injured? In trading away Jeff Mathis and then John Buck, the Jays traded away the two receivers that could possibly pick up a 100-game load at the major-league level. Josh Thole and Henry Blanco were brought in for their ability to catch the knuckleball. The inexperienced A.J. Jimenez is not yet ready for the majors. That would be a problem. In similar fashion, what would happen to the Jays’ infield if Jose Reyes went down? He has had a history of leg issues and the artificial surface at the Rogers Centre, no matter how much people say it simulates real grass, is tough on the legs. The Jays stripped away Yunel Escobar and Adeiny Hechavarria to the Marlins and the next level of shortstop is neither on the current roster or at the higher levels of the farm system. Defensively, the loss of Reyes would be devastating. Then there’s the back end of the bullpen. GM Alex Anthopoulos acquired Sergio Santos of the White Sox in December, 2011 to be the closer of the future. When he was injured, John Farrell installed Casey Janssen to be the closer of the present and he was up to the challenge. However, Janssen had a minor shoulder procedure at the end of the year and Santos is trying to rebound from shoulder surgery of his own. What if neither man is available? There are power arms in the bullpen, but the Jays do not have the luxury of experimenting or trial and error when every game is important. Then there’s the inexperience of the coaching staff. Competing in a division of heavyweights, John Gibbons’ last MLB managing gig ended halfway through the ’08 season. Pete Walker has never been MLB pitching coach. Chad Mottola has never been an MLB hitting coach. The last time Luis Rivera coached third was as a Double-A manager in 2010. The Jays won’t sneak up on anyone.
WHAT’S THE VERDICT?
This Blue Jays team should make it to the post-season for the first time since 1993, when they went on to beat the Phillies capturing a second straight World Series title.