DUNEDIN, Fla. – Amid the inherent romanticism and alluring escapism spring training offers there are decisions to be made for the Toronto Blue Jays, who opened camp Monday with their first official workout for pitchers and catchers.
It will be weeks before any of the lingering questions hanging over the team move toward resolution, and searching for meaning in what happens during the early days is, much like resisting the Borg, futile.
Really, the best thing players can do right now is not get hurt.
Still, with jobs in the bullpen, the rotation, at second base, the outfield and on the bench up for grabs, it’s always judgment time for the Blue Jays’ many hopefuls. The challenge for the front office, of course, is in making real determinations based on some workouts and 30 Grapefruit League games.
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“Spring training can be a little deceiving,” said manager John Gibbons. “It’s funny, if it’s a guy an organization really likes and he has a good spring, he’s a good player. If it’s a guy that the organization is so-so on and he has a good spring, well it’s just spring training. That’s kind of the way it works.
“But you can’t really rely on all statistics. What we’ll look at, if it’s a pitcher, he may be getting hit around a little bit, but if he’s locating the ball, maybe giving up some bleeders, some cheap hits, that kind of thing, bad defence behind him, that may lead to some of his numbers. A hitter, too, you can tell if he looks good in the box, his timing is good, he’s seeing the ball, taking good cuts, he’s hitting a lot of balls at guys. You can tell. What you look for is if a guy is overmatched. That answers the questions.”
Complicating matters for the Blue Jays is that in certain cases, and Aaron Sanchez immediately comes to mind, one player can be used to plug two different holes and it’s far from obvious which hole he fills best.
Sanchez is the prohibitive favourite to fill the fifth spot in the rotation, but should Daniel Norris or Marco Estrada deliver really convincing performances, the electric right-hander could very well slide into a late-inning bullpen role.
Conversely, should Steve Delabar regain the velocity and command that made him an all-star in 2013 or another reliever emerge from the boat-load of candidates, locking Sanchez into the rotation may make more sense given the substantial upside his rare skillset can potentially provide there.
With Sanchez, at least, the Blue Jays have a small but not insignificant sample of big-league work to help them reach a decision. With guys like Norris, centre-fielder Dalton Pompey, second base prospect Devon Travis, and bullpen candidate Miguel Castro, to name a few, there’s a lot of projection involved.
“Oh yeah, especially with the young guys who don’t have much of a track record, you’re doing a lot of guessing,” said Gibbons. “You have to do that sometimes.”
The process can be all the more vexing when it comes to the bullpen, the place where front offices tend to make most of their mistakes.
Brett Cecil (who missed Monday’s workout with an illness), Aaron Loup and Todd Redmond appear to be the only relievers locked in at this point, with Estrada and Sanchez set to join them as long as they’re not in the rotation.
The candidate line behind them is a long one, Chad Jenkins, Kyle Drabek, Rob Rasmussen, Wilton Lopez and Gregory Infante among them, and the separation from one to another can often be ever so subtle.
“It’s a combination of the ability and the attitude,” said catcher Russell Martin. “Obviously you have to have good stuff. Then it’s your competitive nature, how do you do in the heat of the moment? How do you do when there are runners on base? How do you do when there’s a runner in scoring position? How do you cope with a couple of balls hit in the gap? How they react with failure and tough moments. Just the competitive nature of people, I think that’s probably the most important thing. Between the ears is what’s important.
“Obviously you can’t get somebody that’s throwing 60 miles an hour and try to get Miguel Cabrera out. It’s not going to happen, the guy’s going to hit it 500 feet. You have to have ability but it’s how you deal with it mentally and how you prepare and how you deal with failure and things like that.”
Context also really matters once the spring schedule begins, which for the Blue Jays is March 3 against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates.
For example, is a double off an all-star pitcher working on his slider as relevant as a walk worked off a bubble-pitcher grinding to make a team?
“It’s kind of hard to compare,” said Martin. “And often veteran guys are going to get their work in, working on stuff in particular. If they’re working on a pitch they’re more apt to get beat working on something they’re not best at in spring training. But I think the closer you get to the season the more guys tend to dial it in. …
“My situation, I understand that I have a full season ahead. I’m going to be smart about how I go out there. I’m not going to try and steal eight bases the first game type of thing. But there are other guys who are in situations where they’re trying to impress, they’re trying to make a team. They’re going all-out right from the beginning.”
For the next six weeks or so, the Blue Jays will be trying to make sense of it all, sifting through the optimism, pressure, expectations and stakes to try and find the right mix.