I usually don't write a lot of MLB blogs but I was thinking about the Blue Jays and now I can't understand how the Jays are expected to compete over the next few years. Now when I see the Jays roster I wanna punch myself In the face it's so bad compared to the other teams in our divisions, are best offensive players were horrible last year, and our pitching was always injured.
On a positive note we do have Aaron Hill, Casey Janssen and Jeremy Accardo coming back from being injured for all/most of last year but that has nothing on the Yankees adding Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett or Boston adding Smoltz, Baldelli and Penny or even Tampa Bay adding Pat Burrell. The only thing the Jays did in this off-season essentially was add non-factor minor league players, great response.
Now I feel for the Orioles in this situation as well, they've done as little as us and are screwed like us but at least they have a lot of quality young players so they can be good in the future, the Jays have like Travis Snider and J.P. Arencibia. Now think about it, seriously think about it, what other divisions have three world series contenders in it. Boston has a great pitching staff, and a above average outfield/infield not to mention a lot of young talent in their system, the Yankees have the power of buying any free agent they want (at least it seems that way) and Tampa Bay simply has a great team who's only going to get better due to David Price's development and the veteran addition of Pat Burrell. Now I was thinking to myself, what could the Blue Jays do to help the team and here are a few of my first thoughts. They could fire the crap out of J.P Riccardi, he's probably one of the worse GM's I have ever seen in pro-sports and he doesn't even seem interested in looking at free agents we need. We should also ship Adam Lind somewhere because he'll likely only get DH time with Snider/Wells/Rios in the feild and we could get a decent starter or an actual designated hitter for him.
After having (in my opinion) one of the best pitching rotations and bullpens in the league over the past few years it seems to have gone to hell. In the rotation we have one quality pitcher (Roy Halladay) and the bullpen is always hurt. A move I would make immediately if I was Riccardi is trade B.J Ryan, a lot of teams are looking for a experienced closer and we have Brandon League and Jesse Carlson waiting for their chance to close. Even though Ryan is very injury prone we would likely get a few picks or a decent bat or even a few prospects because his salary is a reason we didn't make a lot of moves in this off-season and why were going to suck shit next season.
If the season ended today this is what the team would look like..
The rotation next year looks like this..
1. Roy Halladay (20 wins, 11 losses, 2.78 ERA)
2. Jesse Litsch (13 wins, 9 losses, 3.58 ERA)
3. Dustin McGowan (6 wins, 7 losses, 4.37 ERA)
4. Shaun Marcum (9 wins, 7 losses, 3.39 ERA)
5. Casey Janssen (DNP, Injured)
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Total: 48 wins, 34 losses, 3.53 ERA.
Spares: Davis Romero, Bryan Bullington, Bill Murphy, Ricky Romero, Robert Ray, Luis Perez, David Purcey, Dirk Hayhurst
The Bullpen will look like this..
CL - B.J Ryan (60 games, 2-4, 32 saves, 2.95 ERA)
SU - Jeremy Accardo (16 games, 0-3, 4 SV, 6.57 ERA)
RP - Brandon League (31 games, 1-2, 1 SV, 2.18 ERA)
RP - Jesse Carlson (69 games, 7-2, 2 SV, 2.25 ERA)
RP - Scott Downs (66 games, 3-5, 0 SV, 1.78 ERA)
RP - Jason Frasor (49 games, 1-2, 0 SV, 4.18 ERA)
RP - Scott Richmond (5 games, 1-3, 0 SV, 4.00 ERA)
RP - Brian Tallet (51 games, 1-2, 0 SV, 2.88 ERA)
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Total: 16 wins, 23 losses, 3.35 ERA
Spares: Shawn Camp, Fabio Castro, Reid Santos.
The Starting lineup will look like this..
1. SS - Marco Scutaro (145 games, 7 HR, 60 RBI)
2. OF - Alexis Rios (155 games, 15 HR, 79 RBI)
3. OF - Travis Snider (24 games, 2 HR, 13 RBI)
4. OF - Vernon Wells (108 games, 20 HR, 78 RBI)
5. 3B - Scott Rolen (115 games, 11 HR, 50 RBI)
6. 2B - Aaron Hill (injured, missed season)
7. DH - Adam Lind (88 games, 9 HR, 40 RBI)
8. 1B - Lyle Overbay (156 games, 15 HR, 69 RBI)
9. C - Rod Bajaras (104 games, 11 HR, 49 RBI)
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Total: 126 Home runs, 681 RBI's.
Spares: Curtis Thigpen, Jose Bautista, Joe Inglett, Russ Adams, Buck Coats John McDonald.
Across the board those numbers look pretty good to me, but how can those numbers even compare to the Yankees, Rays or Bo-Sox? There's basically nothing the Jays can do to push themselves into a playoff position and as a Jays fan it makes me angry, and even with the Jays best season I still don't think we can beat the money the Yankees spent or the talent the Sox and Rays developed, and it just sucks being a Blue Jays fan right now.
That's all, thanks for reading!
Riley
