HOUSTON – The problem for the Toronto Blue Jays is not in their failure to acquire David Price or Jon Lester ahead of the non-waiver trade deadline. Look at the returns the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox received in those deals – Alex Anthopoulos didn’t have the chips to play at those tables.
No, the real issue is in the general manager’s inability to simply make even a few clever complementary fortifications to the pitching staff in the mould of Monday’s deal for infielder Danny Valencia, the kind of moves that when done right tend to pay off big in the clutch moments to come.
How much better would the Blue Jays look right now with San Diego Padres right-hander Joaquin Benoit helping bridge the gap to closer Casey Janssen? Or with Andrew Miller giving manager John Gibbons another way to eliminate left-handers, keeping the southpaw from the Baltimore Orioles, who used lefty Eduardo Rodriguez, a top-100 prospect according to Baseball America, to entice the Boston Red Sox?
Sure the glitz and glamour guys are nice, but sometimes it’s the players who get their hands dirty that make the difference.
Yet barring an August waiver deal addition – a possibility Anthopoulos has publicly harped on for so long it shouldn’t be dismissed – the Blue Jays are banking on Janssen, Aaron Loup, Dustin McGowan and Aaron Sanchez to lock down the late innings, and continued health for the starting rotation lest, brace yourselves, Brad Mills be needed.
Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchison have never pitched in September before you say? Since their largely stand pat off-season the Blue Jays have needed everything to break right, and it’s no different now.
“You don’t make a move just to make a move,” said Janssen. “But at the same time, doing something, even if it’s a small improvement, I think it gives the room some excitement that hey, they’ve got our backs, they’re trying hard, they’re doing everything possible to make this club better. To sit down and say which piece we need is not my job to do. We got Valencia, hopefully he does a great job for us and is a valuable asset to us down the road, and I guess we’ll go from there.”
There’s no choice on that front, although Anthopoulos will surely have some explaining to do to his players when he joins the team Friday in Houston.
Frustration at the inactivity was evident in all corners of the clubhouse, and Jose Bautista spoke for many of his teammates when he said: “Of course it’s a little disappointing that we somehow weren’t able to get anything done, but everybody around us that’s in contention – and even some teams that aren’t in contention, like the Red Sox – somehow figured it out. But there’s still time to get stuff done.”
Later, he added: “We’re in striking distance with not many games left and we could’ve used a little boost, just like some of the other teams that went out and got some additions. It’s not that you don’t feel your team is good enough; it’s just that everybody does that at the deadline, figures out a way to improve the roster. We just somehow didn’t.”
Janssen used words like “disappointing” and “frustrating” to describe the team’s inactivity while wondering if perhaps other teams “value the player or the opportunity to get into the playoffs more.”
In that sense some of the fence-mending needed in the clubhouse is reminiscent of 2012, when the Blue Jays were on the fringes of contention despite losing three-fifths of their rotation to injury in a four-game span, and only added relievers Steve Delabar and Brad Lincoln at the deadline.
Then manager John Farrell became so concerned that he called a meeting with the team’s veteran core to try and reassure them that management hadn’t pulled the cord on the season, and that August additions were still possible. It didn’t matter, the air was let out of a team fighting tooth and nail to hang in, and a painful collapse followed.
This Blue Jays team has plenty more incentive – not only do they currently hold the second wild card, Brett Lawrie (who could start rehab games Saturday), Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Lind should provide a major boost upon their return.
Still, with what’s likely the club’s best opportunity to win the AL East for the first time since 1993 at hand, much more was expected.
“You hope it doesn’t affect anybody,” said manager John Gibbons. “Remember, too, you make some moves there are some guys in that room that it affects their jobs. The guys we brought up have been pretty productive for us, you can’t dismiss that. While we’re winning and playing pretty good baseball, you ride that out, so I don’t think it will be a problem. …
“There’s naturally a lot of bitching and moaning in this game anyway, you know?”
That’s human nature, and whether the Blue Jays want to admit it or not, the vibe ain’t right, even though, as Anthopoulos explained on a conference call, “the prices for us on the players we inquired about, generally speaking, I think everybody would be happy we didn’t do those deals.”
“I know everyone would like to make a splash, add players,” he added, “but to add players just to make the team worse just to say you did something wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense for us.”
That won’t help reconcile the fact the so many other teams were able to find something that did make sense for them, and that the Blue Jays were once again left on the outside looking in.
Whether it’s because the farm system isn’t deep enough, ownership tied Anthopoulos’s hands despite protestations otherwise, or most likely a combination of the two, the Blue Jays continue to have minimal margin for error in pursuit of the post-season happiness they so desperately seek.