Totally agree that this season has gotten worse and worse.
Being healthy and staying healthy will definitely factor in to next seasons success, as it does with every team.
Positives:Jose Bautista has had another awesome season, and Edwin is having another great season solidifying himself as one of the top hitters in the game. Rasmus's season was getting better and better and looked like he had figure it out before he got injured. Lawrie has really turned it around as well. Jose Reyes has been full marks for me this season as well however his health is a concern. Hopefully the offseason will give his ankle enough time to fully heal.
So the top of the batting order in my mind is not an issue at all. The bottom of the order is where things obviously need to be improved. We cannot have guys like Kawasaki, Arencibia, Izturis and Thole being guaranteed outs and this needs to be addressed. The top teams in the AL don't have these black holes at the bottom of their line ups.
Obviously R.A. Dickey hasn't been Cy Young worthy but he certainly has gotten better as the season has progressed and his contract is very cheap. I don't mind having R.A. on the team. Mark Beurhle has been exactly what you expected of him as well which is good. J.A. Happ has been mostly good as well. Other than that the starting pitching has been a disaster, Rogers, Johnson, Wang, Redmond. If Morrow can actually get fully healthy then he is a good pitcher but he basically missed the entire season this year which contributed to the mess.
Going in to next season the Jays needs a front of the rotation starter. They could throw some serious money at Matt Garza and Ervin Santana and that would really change things quickly. That is a very unlikely scenario however.
Catching needs to be addressed along with 2B. Again I feel these will have to be addressed via free agency as I can't see the Jays continuing to gut their farm systems, a la last year. Catching I don't think is that hard as anyone is an upgrade on JP. 2B will be difficult, but again a league average 2B will be better than the Izturis/Bonifacio/Kawasaki/Lawrie/DeRosa merry go round that was going on this season.
Bullpen will be fine.
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