BRADENTON, Fla. – Earlier this month when Randy Wolf auditioned for the Toronto Blue Jays, they offered him a pair of shorts. The 38-year-old lefty desperate for a chance, any chance, to show that he can still pitch, had arrived at the club’s minor-league facility decked out in joggers and a T-shirt and well, it looked a little odd.
No matter, Wolf declined, and went looking for the mound. Who cares about style when the only thing that needed to look good was how the ball came out his hand?
"I said, ‘You don’t pitch in shorts,’" he recalls. "I felt weird putting on a uni or baseball pants, and I’ll tell you what, the experience is beyond humbling to roll up in a golf hat and sweatpants, get up there and throw. But the only reason I did that is because I wasn’t this old guy going out there with a walker, throwing my AARP card pitches. I know how good I felt and all I really wanted was a chance to pitch."
On March 18 the Blue Jays gave him that chance, signing him to a minor-league deal, and while Aaron Sanchez, Daniel Norris, Miguel Castro and Roberto Osuna got everyone abuzz, Wolf has slowly become a potential depth piece that bears watching at minor-league camp.
Sportsnet Magazine’s MLB Preview:
Why the Blue Jays went all in with Russell Martin, and answers to the 12 questions that will define the baseball season. Download it right now on your iOS or Android device, free to Sportsnet ONE subscribers.
In his first Grapefruit League start Saturday, he allowed four runs on four hits and two walks over 2.2 innings with two strikeouts during an 8-3 split-squad loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He needed 62 pitches, 42 strikes, to make it that far.
But he was also consistently around the zone, started off nine of his 14 batters with strikes and had seven hitters either 0-2 or 1-2. With better location and more bite on his breaking pitches – he struck out Andrew McCutchen with a fine cutter and Charlie Morton on a pretty curve – it’s easy to envision him building into the type of organizational lifejacket the Blue Jays so desperately need.
"If I feel this way physically, I have no doubt I can get hitters out," says Wolf, making his second outing of the spring. "It’s a matter of sharpening up and throwing the ball where I want to. Physically, it’s weird how good I feel, it’s actually freaky how good I feel every day. …
"I really honestly haven’t looked at, ‘Well, their depth is this, if this happens then I have an opportunity.’ For me, I know I’m going to start the season in Buffalo, I need to go in there and have a good start and just do great every start. That’s my goal in playing, to get myself to the point where I know where I am."
Beyond Wolf, the Blue Jays won’t have any obvious starters waiting in the wings at triple-A Buffalo, the way they did last year when Marcus Stroman opened the season with the Bisons, a countdown to his promotion ticking away. Liam Hendriks, if he clears waivers, Jeff Francis, Andrew Albers and Juan Pablo Oramas are other possibilities for the rotation there, and with Norris, Castro and Osuna poised to make the team, there are no prospects imminently on the horizon.
This is where the secondary impact of Stroman’s season-ending knee injury is felt – not only is his production lost, but the safety net is gone, too.
So Johan Santana, who isn’t expected to even step on a mound before mid-April, gets signed to a minor-league deal and Wolf gets brought in. The Blue Jays are looking for any roster bubble fliers that may emerge, too, as teams finalize the 25 men on their club.
Given the situation, they must scratch every lottery ticket they can find because as exciting as Sanchez, Norris, Castro and Osuna are – they’ve earned their shot at the majors, by the way, and what they lack in experience they more than make up for in ability – the Blue Jays will inevitably need backup.
Wolf is certainly determined to be that guy if and when opportunity arises.
A veteran of 15 big-league seasons with 133 wins to his credit, he’s under no illusions about his place in the game after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2012, missing all of 2013 and then bouncing through the organizations of five teams – the Mariners, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Orioles and Angels – last year.
He pitched in six big-league games, four starts, with Miami, going 1-3 with a 5.26 ERA.
"It’s a ginormous difference between last year and this year," says Wolf. "I felt good for the most part but there were times I kind of felt dead, and some games were a battle. It wasn’t that I was hurt, it just felt like there was nothing there sometimes. …
"I know I have to start all over again and I have an understanding that I almost have to overachieve, I can’t do what I did when I was younger, I have to do more than that."
Important is that he’s embracing the challenge. Someone his age would be justified in walking away, content with a very good career in the majors. But not only was his desire to keep on pitching still there over the winter, so too was his desire to put in all the work and preparation needed to make it happen.
"When that goes away, it’s time for you to go away," Wolf says. "I don’t mean this as dark as it sounds, but I feel like retirement is somewhat like death – you’re retired a lot longer than you play, same thing with living, you’ll be dead a lot longer than you live.
"If I go out there and I can’t get anybody out and that’s the way it is, I can walk away from this game knowing I did everything I could and it didn’t work out. Yeah, it was a shot at the ego to pitch at minor-league camp, but an ego is something self-created and I can’t worry about that stuff. Looking back and thinking, ‘What was the harm in just pitching in triple-A and seeing what happens,’ that’s something I never want to do."
So Wolf is seeing what happens with the Blue Jays, who for their own reasons have a lot riding on his attempt at an athletic rebirth.