Alex Anthopoulos has put his grand plan for the Jays into action and it's starting to yield results.
With the business of signing Jose Bautista now in the rear view mirror, the Toronto Blue Jays have all arrived in Dunedin, Florida, ready to take the next steps towards contention.
There are a handful of questions that will require answers before the Jays open the 2011 season on April Fool's Day against the Minnesota Twins, who they closed their successful 2010 season against with win No. 85.
Who gets that start with Shaun Marcum now in Milwaukee? Can Adam Lind handle first base on an everyday basis? Will Lind and Aaron Hill rediscover their strokes that yielded Silver Slugger awards in 2009? Can hotshot Canadian prospect Brett Lawrie break camp with the big club? After Jose Molina and John McDonald, who else will fill out the bench brigade? Of the 18 relievers in camp with major league experience, which seven will have seats in the left field bullpen? Is J.P. Arencibia ready for prime time? Will this finally be the year that potential crosses path with production for Travis Snider? It will take the next five weeks for those answers to be clarified.
But one thing is becoming apparent: it's been many springs since this level of optimism permeated the atmosphere around Canada's only remaining Major League Baseball team. And while it's not the type of optimism where the end-game is a playoff appearance for the first time since 1993, it is the optimism that general manager Alex Anthopoulos' grand plan is bearing fruit.
The farm system is sending a plethora of players on a path towards ‘The Show.’ The casual fan knows the names of Kyle Drabek, Travis d'Arnaud, Anthony Gose and Lawrie, all acquired by Anthopoulos via trades. But they also have the likes of catcher A.J. Jimenez, outfielders Darin Mastroianni and Eric Thames and pitchers Joel Carreno and Alan Farina turning heads and raising eyebrows, and not of the Spockian variety.
I played phone tag on Tuesday with Buck Martinez, who has been making the daily 15-minute trek from his Clearwater home to the minor league complex to take in the activities with everyone, save for non-roster outfielder Scott Podsednik, now in full workout mode. He had some interesting observations of what he has witnessed to date.
-- Mastroianni reminds Buck of a young Reed Johnson, while Thames is absolutely chiseled.
-- Jimenez and d'Arnaud both look solid in bullpen sessions catching major league arms for the first time.
-- Adeiny Hechavarria, in his first big-league training camp after Anthopoulos outbid several teams for the young Cuban shortstop's services, reminds Buck of a young Tony Fernandez. Very smooth fielding balls to either side and he has a strong, accurate arm. -- Bautista picked up where he left off last season and has been hitting rockets all over the diamond.
-- Lawrie has been going all-out since he stepped off the plane. Rookie manager John Farrell has been impressed with the 21-year-old, Langley, BC-native and wants to get a look at him playing third base once exhibition games start this weekend.
-- Left-hander Jo-Jo Reyes, acquired from the Atlanta Braves last July in the Yunel Escobar/Alex Gonzalez deal, has impressed both Farrell and pitching coach Bruce Walton, and is in the mix to fill the role left by the departure of Scott Downs.
-- Edwin Encarnacion showed up in excellent shape and has been hanging around a lot with Bautista, seemingly always hitting in the same batting practice group.
A big change in perception surrounds Bautista everywhere he walks. He is clearly the new leader of this young team with Vernon Wells having moved on. He does the most interviews and everything tends to stop when he steps into the cage.
While the skeptics all think he's a one-year wonder -- having hit 54 home runs after never hitting more than 16 in a single season with five different organizations before the age of 28 -- they are forgetting that he slammed 10 of those home runs in the final month of the '09 season to lead the majors, a sneak preview of the power he unleashed the following year. In fact, with 64 home runs since September 1, 2009, Bautista has hit a whopping 16 home runs more than any other major league slugger. Let's also not forget that he left spring training a year ago with a .439 Grapefruit League batting average, with an eye-popping OPS of 1.343, so this really has been more than Bautista being a one-year wonder.
The biggest change in perception, and the most important, is the way the Jays will now be viewed, moving forward, by the rest of baseball. While the foundation continues to be built through the draft -- the Jays have seven picks among the first 78 selections next June and a reported $20 million earmarked for that draft -- potential free agents will undoubtedly be aware of how Bautista was rewarded and start thinking about Toronto as a future destination once again.
It reminds me of how Pat Gillick finished off his master plan in the late 1980s and early 1990s when shrewd drafting and trades turned the franchise into a perennial contender before the likes of Jack Morris, Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor and Dave Stewart were brought in to put the Jays over the top.
I think we've seen this all before, haven't we?
