DUNEDIN, Fla. – Under an unblemished sky where palm trees gently sway in a soft breeze, there is a freedom to be found in the sense of renewal so inherent to spring training, in the opportunity to replace past burdens with fresh hopes.
The Toronto Blue Jays took their first steps down that road Monday, holding their first official workout for pitchers and catchers at the Bobby Mattick Training Center. A long, long way from a bitter winter’s muck lingering up north – a mess left not only by the salt and slush lining the streets, but also the club’s 2013 misery – there’s little interest in reliving the nightmare over and over.
"Today," manager John Gibbons declared, "is the last day I’m going to talk about last year."
That will be easier said than done, as no matter how 2014 plays out for the Blue Jays, the 74-88 ordeal will be the prism through which much of what happens is viewed, in large measure because there’s been so little roster turnover.
Catcher Dioner Navarro is the only new regular position player from outside the organization, while general manager Alex Anthopoulos’s stated goal of bolstering the pitching staff – "If you add a starter or two in the off-season I think the rotation can turn around fast," he said before his club’s 2013 season finale – remains to this point unfulfilled.
Complicating things is that the Baltimore Orioles reportedly reached agreement with Ubaldo Jimenez – one of the free-agent right-handers the Blue Jays were looking at – on a four-year deal said to be worth around $48 million.
That leaves Anthopoulos at Ervin Santana or bust, barring a trade, and at best that’s been a tepid courtship.
The case for the Blue Jays to stand pat is that the return to health of Drew Hutchison and Kyle Drabek plus the development of top prospects of Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez in the Arizona Fall League gives them the kind of talented options and depth they lacked last year.
But there’s no arguing that this is a team stocked with more questions than answers right now, and that despite a significant level of talent all across the roster, this remains a difficult club to gauge.
"We said all last year we like this ball club," Gibbons said. "We still do. It was put together for a reason, to win. Last year didn’t end the way we wanted it to, not even close. But we still like it as a group. Keep them all on the field – (Brett) Lawrie, (Jose) Reyes, Eddie (Encarnacion), (Jose) Bautista, hopefully (Melky) Cabrera bounces back, Colby (Rasmus) if he has another good year – there are some pretty good players. The big question was what were we going to do with the rotation, and nothing has happened there, but the way it is stacking up right now, we really like the depth that we have and we have some guys to choose from."
Aside from Hutchison, Drabek, Stroman and Sanchez, the guys to choose from also include incumbents Esmil Rogers and Todd Redmond, prospect Sean Nolin, Dustin McGowan (who is being stretched out) and, if he can regain past form, Ricky Romero. That group appears to be fighting for the No. 5 spot behind R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow and J.A. Happ.
Whoever fills the final spot, the collective group must come out stronger than it did last April when, in the words of Morrow, "really, we pitched like garbage."
"The starting pitchers were awful for the first month, myself included," he continued. "None of us were pitching like we wanted to, whether it was just bad luck that all five of us were going through it at the same time or just putting pressure on ourselves. Then guys started getting hurt, knowing other guys were already barking and hurting. You were trying to keep it up and stay on the field. I think that was a big part of it, the slow start. Our pitching just didn’t give us a chance in that first month."
Their chances of avoiding a repeat of that scenario would improve if Anthopoulos makes a move. Santana is the top remaining free agent arm and while he has his flaws (like Jimenez, who has trouble throwing strikes, and a poor delivery) and the price tag remains much higher than the Blue Jays like, he offers a reasonable promise of solid to high quality innings without sacrificing a premium prospect.
A trade would probably exact such a price and opportunity may still arise there if extension talks between Jeff Samardzija and the Chicago Cubs remain stalled. Anthopoulos has made multiple attempts to trade for the right-hander but an asking price of Stroman and Sanchez quickly ended those discussions.
That’s why barring something unforeseen, which is always possible, the Blue Jays look more than willing to go with what they’ve got.
"We have enough competition for that fifth spot that someone is going to rise to the top and somebody is going to obviously pitch well enough to take that," Morrow said. "The competition’s good, it’s going to bring out the best in a lot of guys. I know that spot is up for grabs, and I think it’s going to be exciting to see who runs with it."
Sure it will be exciting, and it just might work out, too. Everything seems possible during spring training, a time to dream before the ifs play out and harsh realities begin to strike.
Notes: John Gibbons is tired of hearing how last year’s spring training was too lax, and that the Blue Jays’ troubles with fundamentals started there. "Did that all happen from camp? No, I’m not buying that and I never will. I put together the camp. But the bottom line is you have to perform on the field. My big belief still is that we didn’t have all the guys together during camp and that hurt our start. I think it’s a big part of it, when you inject so many new guys into a ball club. It not only happened in our sport, but other sports you see it all the time. But until we prove that wrong, a lot of people don’t buy that. But today’s a perfect example, you have four fields, we have 20 pitchers doing (same thing), they’re getting a lot of work, getting a lot of reps. I think everyone is wondering what went wrong and that jumped out at a lot of people." … Brandon Morrow has caught his manager’s eye in more ways than one so far. "The thing I’m most impressed with, you look at him, he has put on a lot of weight, muscle," said Gibbons. "He looks strong, he looks like you’re supposed to look, and last year he didn’t look like that. He looks like a good strong, durable starting pitcher." … At this point the Blue Jays don’t expect Dioner Navarro to catch R.A. Dickey leaving whoever wins the backup job – either incumbent Josh Thole or newcomer Erik Kratz – to handle the knuckleballer. "We’ll look at the total package," said Gibbons. "Kratz caught (Dickey) today. He went and visited him over the winter. He spent a week familiarizing himself with him but it’s not an easy thing to do. He handcuffed him a few times today, that’s to be expected. We’ll see how it all plays out. We like them both but a big part of it is handling Dickey."