A couple interesting articles and clips as the season winds down.
First, Bautista and his perception. Given the classless trash talking from Ventura (nevermind him throwing at the heads of players), it's pretty clear that Bautista is in a different class.
http://thewalrus.ca/big-bad-bautista/
Tulo opened up about never being comfortable in Toronto, and trust issues going forward due to his time in Denver. His use of "they", still after a few months of being on the team, is interesting.
http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/...eling-betrayed
Who knows about next year, very hard to predict how things play out with the roster, and with results over 162 games, more than any other sport, its a marathon.
Slugs like Valencia, Coke, Delabar, Castro, Jenkins, Hauge, Doubront all played on the roster this year.
And remember, this game was a .500 team until end of July. The Jays have to keep the offense together, to prevent teams from pitching around guys. That's pretty likley to happen, the key has to to be pitching, obviously.
But AA has to remember what those first 3.5 months felt like, with the expectations falling short, and not on the magical post July run, when making roster decisions this offseason. That late run showed the potential if everything fell together, and the confidence that adding winning players does for the team psyche, and nothing taken away from that...but this team was average without that jolt of Tulo/Price (and Hawkins bringing the bullpen together).
Be interesting to see Shapiro coming in and what stamp he wants to put on the team, and if there's any egos that are going to parlay a playoff run into an opportunity to demand more (money, or playing time etc) that may cause team issues going into and through next year.
With baseball, once you get into the post season, anything can happen, but getting there is a monumental task with the shortage of playoff spots. The Jays going 13-6 vs the Yankees, playing them a few series in the backhalf of the year, was the difference in getting in. They didn't do much against the rest of the AL East, and the Boston, Yanks, and maybe O's will reload as they usually do. Not going to be an easy task, as the ace pitcher is going to be a big issue, but the middle of the bullpen is needing a serious upgrade, that was held together with twine after just one guy (Cecil) went down in the ALDS.