Chemistry or alchemy?
Skeptics dismiss the all-star lineup as ‘good on paper, but the players themselves truly feel they are contenders
DUNEDIN, FLA.— Emilio Bonifacio, one of the many new faces on the Blue Jays this season, arrived at spring training bearing gifts.
He made T-shirts for all his new teammates, importing a catch phrase from his Miami Marlins’ days.
The image on the front of the shirts is of a giant eye, framed by two fingers in a V-shape. It’s the same gesture Bonifacio and Jose Reyes flashed each other last season in Miami when they made big hits.
On the back of the shirts are the words “Lo viste” — Spanish for “See that?”
Don’t worry, Emilio, everyone is watching.
After acquiring a slew of former all-stars and increasing their payroll by half, the Jays will be in the spotlight this season in a way they haven’t been in 20 years.
The club could have as many as 10 new faces in its opening day roster after GM Alex Anthopoulos orchestrated an unprecedented off-season overhaul that turned his team into overnight contenders.
The question now — and it was the underlying theme throughout spring training — is whether this team will become a team.
With so many new faces assimilating all at once, will this be an awkward season of adjustment?
Jose Bautista, for one, isn’t concerned.
“I’m not guaranteeing that we’re definitely going to go to the playoffs, but it’s hard to envision us not playing well this year,” said the Jays’ all-star slugger with his typ- ical nonchalance. “It’s hard for me to envision us being a .500 team or below. I’m not trying to jinx anything or sound cocky or like I’m not respecting other teams — because I do respect the sport and all the teams around the league — but we have a good team and we just have to go out there and play.”
The phrase “good on paper” has been used to describe the Jays ad nauseam this off-season.
It’s true: they are good on paper. When you add the pieces the Jays did this year, it’s hard to find many flaws.
But there is no shortage of good-on-paper teams that fail.
The Miami Marlins arguably won baseball’s off-season last year when they signed many of the players now wearing Jays’ colours. They had high hopes for their $100million team, but not only did they not make the playoffs, they ended up in last place and then burned their optimism to the ground by stripping their roster for parts.
The L.A. Dodgers made big splashes midway through last season, but still failed to make the playoffs.
Even this year’s well-documented NBA struggles of the L.A. Lakers is evidence enough that a collection of all-stars don’t necessarily make a successful team. Jose Reyes, who was a big part of the Marlins’ marquee off-season overhaul a year ago, said the Jays are different. For one, all the Dominican guys know each other. Secondly, he’s played with all the guys from Miami — Johnson, Buehrle, Bonifacio — and he knows Dickey and Blanco from New York. “I feel like I’ve known those guys for a long time, so that’s made me believe we’re going to have very good chemistry here.” Chemistry is a tricky thing. Most players believe it’s important, but its value is debatable. Teams don’t need to like each other to win and most managers would choose talent over camaraderie any day. But last year’s improbable postseason run by the San Francisco Giants suggest there is something to it. The last time the Jays spent as freely as they did this off-season was in 1992, when they acquired high-priced free agents like Jack Morris, Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor on their way to a division title and World Series championship. What was different back then was that the core of the Jays’ lineup and rotation was already in place. “They already had the nucleus on that team,” said Morris, who holds four World Series rings — two from his years with the Jays — and now works as a broadcast analyst. “They had a very, very good team. They were just close enough to try to add a couple ingredients. This year I think they’re adding a whole bunch of ingredients — granted they all have credibility — but I think it’s more difficult when you have so many new guys. There are just more ifs.” What’s definitely true is that most teams need to feel the sting of defeat before they taste the sweetness of victory. When the Jays won it all in ’92, they did so only after losing the ALCS in ’91 and ’89. Of the 18 teams who have won the World Series since the Jays last did in ’93, only four of them did so without appearing in the playoffs at some point in the preceding five seasons. The 2010 San Francisco Giants are one of the exceptions, winning the title after missing the playoffs for six years. The 1997 Miami Marlins are another, winning in the franchise’s first trip to the playoffs. The Marlins won again in 2003, their only other visit to the postseason, while the Anaheim Angels won in 2002 after a 15-year playoff drought. The other 14 teams all won after suffering some kind of post-season defeat. But that doesn’t bother R.A. Dickey, the Jays’ 38-year-old knuckleballing ace. “We’ve got a lot of mature guys in the clubhouse,” said Dickey. “Guys who have been on other teams, veteran guys. We’ve got a good mix. And I haven’t identified that that’s going to be an issue at all. And winning always spawns good chemistry. Hopefully we’ll be doing a lot of that and chemistry will be great.” One thing is certain: the Jays are handing the keys to their veterans. The young core of J.P. Arencibia, Brett Lawrie, Colby Rasmus, Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow are insulated by a group of experi- enced leaders. No longer will the 20-somethings be counted on to carry the team. The Jays now belong to the 30-plus crowd.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys in this clubhouse that have been around the game a long time,” said Lawrie, 23. “It’s not as though everyone has just been called up from the minor leagues or whatnot. We got guys that have World Series championships, that have been late into the playoffs and know what it means to get there and what it takes to build that team chemistry to get there as well.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Ricky Romero, last year’s opening day starter who now sits fifth in the starting rotation.
“Do I have confidence that this team is going to jell? Absolutely. Do I have confidence that this team is going to win the World Series? Absolutely. The way this team is pieced together top to bottom, it’s built to go to the World Series and I think anything short of that is going to be disappointing for this whole team.”
Romero attributes his confidence to the team’s unheralded but accomplished veterans like Mark DeRosa, Henry Blanco and Darren Oliver.
“Those guys that have been there, that have seen it, they’re here for a reason. They see something, they want to win. We’ve got those veteran leaders that are going to drive the ship and make sure all the young guys — I feel like I’m a young guy and I’m going into my fifth year — they’re going to make sure this team stays tight and stays together and I have no doubt that’s going to happen.”