2013 Toronto Blue Jays thread

[flames_fan_down_under]

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.

[KelVarnsen]

I hope AA just lets go of JPA. I don't care if he is cheap, he is useless.

[flambers]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

I hope AA just lets go of JPA. I don't care if he is cheap, he is useless.

Jays can not afford to release a player like JPA as they have no one in the system who could take over as the every day Catcher.

AA will need to make a trade if he wants a different solution.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

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.

I wouldn't call JB's year awesome at all. He is still a very productive bat but he's definitely regressing.

IMO it starts and ends with starting pitching. I suspect after a full season in the AL East/hitter friendly parks, Dickey will continue to make adjustments and be his 2nd half self. If Buerhle is able to duplicate (which you have to assume at this point in his career) then that's a capable number 4 starter. I guess you have to bank on a return to health from Brandon Morrow and Hutchison/Drabek can battle for a spot alongside Happ. That's a pretty scary proposition from a 'contending' team standpoint, but there aren't many great options in this free agent class.

At this point I don't see how they can tender Johnson. Pie in the sky, I would love to see Brian McCann and Matt Garza but there's no way either player is going to Toronto. Another option could be Shin-Soo Choo and possibly dealing from outfield depth to fill other holes. Sigh...it's going to be a long off-season.

[KelVarnsen]

Pillar looks lost at the plate, even more then JPA.

[KelVarnsen]

#umpshow. Buck is right, umpire wanted to toss Reyes.

[flames_fan_down_under]

You wouldn't think it would have been possible to replace Bonifacio with a worse hitter, but they did!

[flames_fan_down_under]

That is about as classic a Dickey start as there is. Cruise...cruise...cruise...strikeout...strikeout.. .strikeout...HR allowed...Jays lose.

[KelVarnsen]

Shi Davidi ‏@ShiDavidi 3m
Hearing #BlueJays will call up SS Ryan Goins from triple-A Buffalo tomorrow and place Maicer Izturis on the DL with left ankle sprain

[Where ru Chris O'Sullivan]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Shi Davidi ‏@ShiDavidi 3m
Hearing #BlueJays will call up SS Ryan Goins from triple-A Buffalo tomorrow and place Maicer Izturis on the DL with left ankle sprain

Some injuries are a godsend!

I know Maicer was signed because this team was likely heading to the World Series, and it was a good idea to have a veteran glove when someone needed a rest etc.

But I can't stand him on this team at all now, same for Melky and that's not even considering the PED stuff.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

I hope AA just lets go of JPA. I don't care if he is cheap, he is useless.

I hope AA is let go as part of a houscleaning from top to bottom. Complete disaster from his signings to his manager hire. There is still some talent and a new vision is needed to steer it in the right direction.

[KelVarnsen]

So according to Barry Davis, Wang is likely to start tomorrow(and by start I assume he means pitch the first 2 innings).

[KelVarnsen]

LOL such losers.

[REDVAN]

"good" game last night- but this whole season lately seems like getting kicked while you're down.

[Where ru Chris O'Sullivan]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I hope AA is let go as part of a houscleaning from top to bottom. Complete disaster from his signings to his manager hire. There is still some talent and a new vision is needed to steer it in the right direction.

I don't think its fair to blame AA, the trade was good.

It's fair to think that JJ shoulda/woulda/coulda been at least a .500 pitcher who pitched deep into games.
Reyes would have put up good numbers had he not missed 1/2 the year.
Buehrle has been better than I expected a good #4.
Dickey has been underwhelming, but not terrible
Melky has been simply terrible.

We Can't blame him for Morrow's injury or Romero's demise - these things happen.

However, from where I sit, AA is going to need to pull a lot more rabbits from hats than he was expecting I'm sure....It's going to be a grueling off-season if this is the same team heading into next year.

[moon]

Originally Posted by Where ru Chris O'Sullivan

I don't think its fair to blame AA, the trade was good.

It's fair to think that JJ shoulda/woulda/coulda been at least a .500 pitcher who pitched deep into games.
Reyes would have put up good numbers had he not missed 1/2 the year.
Buehrle has been better than I expected a good #4.
Dickey has been underwhelming, but not terrible
Melky has been simply terrible.

We Can't blame him for Morrow's injury or Romero's demise - these things happen.

However, from where I sit, AA is going to need to pull a lot more rabbits from hats than he was expecting I'm sure....It's going to be a grueling off-season if this is the same team heading into next year.

He may not have been able to predict exactly what happened but a lot of what has happened to the Jays this year is not that unexpected. People questions Johnson arm problems prior to the deal and, although not clear if that is causing all the issues, it does seem that his lack of faith in his fastball has played a big role in his struggles. Dickey was thought by many to take a step back because a. he wasn't as good as last year's numbers showed, b. he's older and c. moving to the AL. Reyes has had injury issues in the past. Melky was a 4th outfielder for most of his career pre-roids. The team had played "stupid" baseball for at least 2 years prior to this season.

I don't think he would have known all those things would go wrong but many of the issues this team had were brought up pre-season.

I think the biggest issue I see with AA is that he has been so overrated by Jays fans and media and his deals immediately billed as great deals (when looking back they didn't turn out that great at all). I don't think he is a bad GM or should be canned but I think that some re-evaluation of what he has done since taking over and how success his moves have actually been should be done.

[Where ru Chris O'Sullivan]

Originally Posted by moon

He may not have been able to predict exactly what happened but a lot of what has happened to the Jays this year is not that unexpected. People questions Johnson arm problems prior to the deal and, although not clear if that is causing all the issues, it does seem that his lack of faith in his fastball has played a big role in his struggles. Dickey was thought by many to take a step back because a. he wasn't as good as last year's numbers showed, b. he's older and c. moving to the AL. Reyes has had injury issues in the past. Melky was a 4th outfielder for most of his career pre-roids. The team had played "stupid" baseball for at least 2 years prior to this season.

I don't think he would have known all those things would go wrong but many of the issues this team had were brought up pre-season.

I think the biggest issue I see with AA is that he has been so overrated by Jays fans and media and his deals immediately billed as great deals (when looking back they didn't turn out that great at all). I don't think he is a bad GM or should be canned but I think that some re-evaluation of what he has done since taking over and how success his moves have actually been should be done.

Yup, I'm one of them, but his honeymoon is near about over, he'll have to do some tweaking in the off-season. That, or some of these guys will have to produce above expectation next year - something I'm not very confident in.

We can't blame him for doing this, we "stood pat" last season and expected a lot of kids to arrive and impress- they had their shot and most were below underwhelming with very little signs of what we had hoped.

Now were kind of stuck in the middle and with the age of EE and Joey Bats, really have no choice but to try and go for the playoffs again.

[KelVarnsen]

I like this Goins kid.

[KelVarnsen]

http://deadspin.com/officer-who-arre...sti-1228610640

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Go away if you want to be a troll.

I am not being a troll the guy is soft! Sorry for being right, he is done for the year but will be 100% for spring training.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseba...or_season.html