Jul 7, 2017
There’s no reason for Blue Jays to rebuild
Despite the panic about the team’s performance and playoff chances, the franchise is in decent shape, Steve Phillips writes.
The Toronto Blue Jays are currently in the cellar of the AL East with a 40-45 record. They are 8.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the division lead and 4.5 games out of the second wild card spot. There are currently seven teams in front of Toronto for that second spot. Clearly, the Jays are in a fairly deep hole.
It’s a far cry from where the team expected to be at this point. The season began with big expectations. The Jays expected to be able to outpitch their opposition on most days and to outslug them on others. But the pitching has been a mess physically, between Aaron Sanchez’s blisters, J.A. Happ’s elbow, Francisco Liriano’s shoulder and Roberto Osuna’s neck. Underperformance by a couple of key cogs – Marco Estrada and Jason Grilli – has hurt as well.
Offensively, the Jays have been undermanned a good part of the year as Josh Donaldson has dealt with a recurring calf injury. The Jays need their best player to be great and he just hasn’t been physically capable so far. Devon Travis reinjured his knee, taking him out of the leadoff spot. Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin have all scuffled so far compared to their past performances.
Other than that, everything is going well.
At the halfway point in the season, clubs are not just hot or cold anymore. They’re good, bad or mediocre. Injuries can make the evaluation incomplete, but this deep in the season you are what your record says you are. Improved health may provide some hope for the second half, but teams can’t undo the results of the first half.
The Jays are a sub-.500 team because of injuries and underperformance. The lack of depth in the upper levels of the minor leagues has been exposed by the number of injuries. The Jays have talent at the minor-league level, but most of it is at Class-A Dunedin or below.
The Jays will either get things turned around or they won’t. Their starting pitching has a chance to settle in and rattle off quality start after quality start and help the team go on a winning streak. But it may not. Donaldson is due to get hot, and if he can keep it going the offence could explode. But he may not. So much has to go right for the Jays if they’re going to make up the ground necessary to play in October.
The Blue Jays are on the proverbial bubble; they are not really in it and they are not really out of it. So where are they headed, up or down?
One thing is clear: The Jays will not give up minor-league talent for rental players. They are not in a position in their farm system nor in the major-league standings to be that aggressive. They will likely sell and buy. They’ll make deals to improve the organization as a whole, not necessarily exclusively at the major-league level.
If they fade in the standings they may trade Estrada or Bautista, but only if it brings in talent in return. They won’t just dump salary. The front office has great respect for the fans that come to the ballpark each night and will be guided by that respect. They may also trade prospects for a player that can help right now at the major-league level, but only if that player can help next season as well.
Everyone thought the window was closing on the Jays last season because Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were impending free agents, but the roster was rebuilt in the off-season to try to win this year. The same logic that was used for this season will be used next year.
The Jays have three quality starters under control next season in Happ, Sanchez and Stroman. They have an elite young closer in Osuna. They also have an MVP candidate in Donaldson. They will be strong defensively up the middle with Russell Martin, Tulowitzki and Kevin Pillar. They should be a competitive team once again.
There’s no reason for Toronto to tear it down and rebuild. Sure, they have an older roster, but they can change that with a few small tweaks. Estrada, Bautista and Liriano are all free agents at the end of the season after making more than $40 million combined in 2017. There should be some money to spend this off-season to upgrade while getting younger and more athletic.
There is speculation that teams covet Stroman because he’s a quality young starter who can be controlled for three more years. The belief is that he will be traded because other teams like him so much. But the reasons other clubs like Stroman are the exact same reasons the Jays love him and won’t trade him. He’ll help the Jays continue to win this year, next year and beyond.
Every personnel decision the front office considers at the trade deadline will be about this season and next. The Jays may add a player or two, or they may trade a player or two, but no single deal they make will dramatically affect this season. There isn’t an addition they can make that will fix all that needs to be fixed. Unless the Jays’ good players play well, it won’t matter who they add.
The Jays have personnel problems not managerial problems. John Gibbons was the right guy to manage this team before the season and, based upon the continued direction of the club, he remains the right guy. He’ll need to be a bit more hands-on, holding young players accountable, as the roster skews younger.
Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro have spent their first couple years building the necessary organizational infrastructure that was lacking under the previous regime. They are fortifying their scouting and player development departments while upgrading their analytics group as well.
Despite the panic about the team and the season, the Jays are in decent shape. The roster has a core that gives hope that they can still win this year and certainly next year. They have players other teams covet. They have a management staff – both on the field and in the front office –that is more than capable. Their farm system is talented at the lower levels and should start to provide some impact in a couple of years. And there is a fan base that loves the team and remains hopeful that the success of the last two years will continue, if not this year then next.
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Spitting Seeds
- Red Sox starting pitcher David Price has had a few issues with the media in Boston this season. His latest run-in was with broadcaster Dennis Eckersley. There were reports that Price and Eckersley got into it on the team plane after a game. Initially, it was thought that Price was unhappy about something said the Hall of Famer said about him, but reports are Price was defending teammate Eduardo Rodriguez. Eckersley apparently groaned during a telecast when the pitching line of Rodriguez was shown on air. It was hardly worthy of a fight, but Price has built up a lot of resentment about his own coverage in Boston and is a bit defensive. Hopefully things will settle down for Price, otherwise it will be a long seven years there.
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- Umpire Angel Hernandez is suing MLB because he believes there is racial discrimination in baseball’s promotion and postseason assignment policies. He believes he has been passed over to become a crew chief and for postseason assignments because of race. He claims his evaluations started to plummet when Joe Torre took over as MLB’s chief baseball officer. Hernandez believes Torre’s evaluation of him stems from calls he made back when Torre was a manager. Hernandez was voted the third worst umpire in baseball in a players’ poll. I would tend to agree with the vote. From my experience, Hernandez always seemed to try and make himself part of the game in order to get noticed. The best umpires are the ones you don’t notice. The bigger question for me is who was doing the evaluating that actually scored Hernandez as a quality umpire before Torre took over? Also, you never want to get in a war over integrity with Torre. He has as much class and dignity as anyone in baseball.
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- It’s often said that baseball players need to have thick skin. I didn’t know they meant on their fingers. Blisters have become a big issue this year for pitchers. There have been at least eight different pitchers who have developed blisters on their pitching hands. The number is a bit high compared to previous years where there may be four or five guys who have problems. The Jays’ Aaron Sanchez has dealt with it all season and more recently Marcus Stroman has as well. Stroman challenged MLB to not stick their head in the sand and to investigate the issue. Baseball has already done testing and checked the production of the balls because of the increasing number of home runs. The result confirmed that the baseballs meet production parameters that have long been in place. In other words, there is nothing different about the baseball. Pitchers work with their hands. The baseball is a tool of the trade. They know when it feels different in their hands. There is enough anecdotal evidence that something is amiss. Certainly, it is worthy of another study as the game needs its best pitchers on the mound and not the DL.
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- On another note regarding the baseballs: Did you know the ball at the minor-league level is different than the ball at the major-league level? Rawlings produces both, but the major league ball is made in Costa Rica and the minor league ball at a factory in China. Team executives are noticing the difference in their evaluations of players. The spin rate on the minor league ball is much less for than the major league ball for the same pitcher. Also, the minor league ball doesn’t travel as far when struck with the same exit velocity and launch angle. It’s time to develop players at the minor-league level with the same tools as the major leaguers.
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- The All-Star balloting this year points out the growth and understanding of baseball fans. Advanced analytics are becoming accepted by the everyday baseball fan. The fact that players like Zack Cozart, Justin Smoak, Jose Ramirez and Corey Dickerson were elected by the fans is amazing. They aren’t household names or perennial stars. They’re just the best at their positions.
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- Believe it or not, there will likely be a few All-Stars traded at the deadline. I expect the Reds to trade Cozart. He’s having a breakout season at the age of 31 and is a free agent at the end of the year. He’s hoping for a big payday, but the Reds are wondering whether he has figured something out or whether he is just having a singular big season (.315/.394/.542). Twins starter Ervin Santana is a likely trade candidate as well. The Twins are not going to make the playoffs this year. It’s just a matter of time before they fade. Santana would make a solid No.3 starter for teams like the Dodgers or Astros. He would be a nice fit for the Royals, Brewers, Rockies and Yankees as well. There is speculation that the Marlins would consider trading their young stud outfielders. Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton are All-Stars, while Christian Yelich may end up being the best of the three. The Marlins will be sold before the year ends. It makes no sense for an outgoing owner to trade good young players out from under a new ownership group, but there is enough chatter out there that it seems real.
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- I’m excited for the Home Run Derby. The brackets are out and if everything goes as expected we could have Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the final. They are the game’s biggest and strongest sluggers. They hit the ball with extreme exit velocity. The crazy artwork in left field at Marlins Park could be in serious jeopardy. My sleeper pick for the derby is Miguel Sano. He has light-tower power and can hit the ball as far as anyone.
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Steve Phillips was general manager of the New York Mets from 1997 through 2003, helping lead the club to a National League championship in 2000 and its first World Series appearance since 1986. His analysis appears each week on TSN.ca, TSN Radio and SportsCentre.