Let’s start with the micro view and get the details out of the way: Yes, there’s a lot at stake for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014 and if things go awry again, a lot of people are sure to lose their jobs. Very little was done over the winter to upgrade a team that finished in the American League East basement last year at 74-88, and there’s a vocal portion of the fan-base that isn’t happy. The other clubs in the division, meanwhile, appear to be better than they were a year ago. Things could get ugly.
On the flip side, the Blue Jays may be positioned to surprise and bust out big. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are an intimidating 1-2 punch at the heart of a batting order few can match. Jose Reyes and Brett Lawrie are catalysts with both their bats and their gloves. Relievers Steve Delabar, Brett Cecil and Sergio Santos shorten games on the opposition in a hurry, as will Casey Janssen once he returns from the disabled list. And an oft-maligned rotation might be pretty good if Brandon Morrow stays healthy, if Drew Hutchison is ready to take off, if Dustin McGowan can hold the fort until either Aaron Sanchez or Marcus Stroman is ready, if R.A. Dickey can repeat his second half for a full year, and if Mark Buehrle can squeeze out another solid year.
So that’s the short-term gist: Realistically, this Blue Jays team can go either way. For what it’s worth, the odds-makers apparently liked what they saw during spring training, with Bodog upgrading their odds of winning the World Series to 25/1 from 33/1.
But while the micro will be the focus in the days and weeks ahead, fans shouldn’t lose sight of the macro view on where this franchise is at, and what the 2014 campaign says about where it’s headed.
Beyond serving as a judgment day on the work of manager John Gibbons and the organizational construction of Alex Anthopoulos, this season may also be the final chance for this core to try and end a post-season drought stretching back to 1993. Already the current group – led by Bautista, Encarnacion, Morrow, Janssen, Adam Lind, Colby Rasmus and Brett Lawrie – has taken three unsuccessful runs at the promised land, and with several key decisions looming next fall, they may not get a fifth chance if No. 4 doesn’t work out.
You can’t call mulligan forever.
Over the past three seasons, a Blue Jays team that had been trending younger has suddenly gotten old, with Lawrie, at 24, the only position player on the team under 25 and one of just four regulars under 30 (Melky Cabrera, 29; Rasmus, 27; and Ryan Goins, 26). When you factor in that Cabrera and Rasmus are both eligible for free agency at season’s end and there are no blue-chip prospects waiting in the wings, the picture becomes even more troubling.
Bautista is 33, Encarnacion is 31 and Reyes is 30 and if the Blue Jays can’t put a suitable supporting cast around them this season, there’s little chance they’ll be able to do it in 2015. Janssen is also eligible for free agency, while the club holds options on Morrow, McGowan, Lind, Santos and J.A. Happ. Should the performance of three of those five decline to the point that their options cease to make sense, the roster would only be thinned out further.
At the same time, the trade value of Bautista, Encarnacion, Reyes, Dickey and Buehrle will only erode as they age, which makes holding on to them beyond this season pointless if they aren’t adequately supported on the roster.
That’s why if the Blue Jays don’t make the playoffs this season, or at least come really, really close to it (at which point a call has to be made on whether the group merits another chance, with the Philadelphia Phillies offering a cautionary tale on waiting too long), turnover will be inevitable.
Drawing upon their internal options, the Blue Jays could build the guts of a new core around Lawrie (under three more years of club control after this one), Goins, catcher A.J. Jimenez, outfielders Moises Sierra, Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar and Kenny Wilson, and starters Sanchez, Stroman, Sean Nolin and Kyle Drabek. They could potentially augment that group with players acquired for Bautista, Encarnacion, Reyes, Dickey or Buehrle, and eventually with a wave of impressive kids in A-ball right now who are coming fast.
Such a reset would certainly hurt, but it’s no more painful than watching assets devalue on flawed and expensive rosters that make futile attempts at the post-season (again, think Phillies, or Los Angeles Angels).
The hope, of course, is that things don’t reach that point, and rather than looking to swap out elite talents like Bautista, Encarnacion and Reyes, the Blue Jays could try to further extend them, and others.
In many ways, all of the permutations hinge on how the starting rotation performs, and whether Sanchez and Stroman, two potential rotation cornerstones for years to come, can deliver on their potential.
The thing that’s made and kept the Tampa Bay Rays among the AL East elite is their ability to churn out young starter after young starter. Consider that they phased out both Matt Garza and James Shields and remained a post-season club, and may be in position to do the same with David Price at the end of the year.
In both instances they cashed out at the right time – Chris Archer was among the return for Garza from the Cubs while Wil Myers was part of the return for Shields from the Royals – while also incorporating the likes of Matt Moore, Jeremy Hellickson and Alex Cobb into the starting staff.
The Blue Jays must establish a similar pipeline and their hope is that Sanchez, Stroman, Kyle Drabek and Sean Nolin provide the first such wave of talent. The Blue Jays need that group to help bridge an organizational gap between the farm system’s upper levels and the bevy of A-ball talent opening eyes, a list that includes Daniel Norris, Roberto Osuna (who’ll miss most if not all of 2014 recovering from Tommy John surgery), Alberto Tirado, Tom Robson, Chase DeJong and Matt Smoral.
All of that is why whether enough of those arms will time with and contribute to the current core is as pivotal a question to be answered in 2014 as where the Blue Jays will finish in the standings.
One of the reasons Anthopoulos was willing to deal premium prospects like Noah Syndergaard, Justin Nicolino and Travis d’Arnaud after the 2012 season was because they wouldn’t have been ready in time to leverage the prime years of Bautista and Encarnacion in the middle of the lineup. The blockbusters with the Marlins and Mets that landed Reyes, Buehrle and Dickey established a window of opportunity.
How long will it stay open? No one knows right now. The Blue Jays’ buildup didn’t work the first time around, when the focus was squarely on the here and now, and the assessment is only getting trickier in Round 2, when the scene will be surveyed through a much wider and more comprehensive lens.