So we’re in the dog days of sports right now, the Jays are well out of the race after coming up short in a pretty good series against Boston. Now it’s all about whether AJ Burnett and Roy Halladay can each win 20 games. They will not, by the way, in case you were still wondering. Burnett shouldn’t even be at 16 with a 4.46 ERA and while Halladay has won his last four decisions, he might start wearing out with nothing to really play for. Oh, and because Cliff Lee has won 20 games not only is he the Cy Young winner but should also win the MVP, in both leagues, as well as the MacArthur Genius grant and a Nobel prize. I like pitcher wins too, I want both Burnett and Halladay to win 20 but it’s like an Academy Award: just as an actor’s performance in a movie is the same whether they win an award or not, so is a pitcher’s performance the same whether their team scores 10 runs or 2.
It’s kind of hard to be really optimistic about this team going into next year. Going into this season, we knew their bullpen and starting rotation would range from very good to excellent. It was. We knew their defence would be excellent and it also was. The question mark was about the offense; on paper it should have been pretty good but it was all based on the assumption they’d be healthy and play to their career numbers. Neither happened as Wells played very well when healthy but missed a lot of time with wrist and knee problems. Overbay and Rios both struggled; Overbay just hasn’t found his 2006 form where he hit .312 with 22 homeruns and 92 RBI’s while Rios’s power declined (on pace for just 12 HRs after 22 last year) and lack of patience (just a .339 on-base percentage) continued. Rolen was the big question mark because of a inability to stay healthy over the last few years, and the question was answered as he’ll likely only play 110 games and is on pace for 9 HRs. Frank Thomas was released early this year, Reed Johnson was released in the offseason to make way for Shannon Stewart, who was injured, ineffective, and then released as well. Matt Stairs and David Eckstein were just traded…man, that’s a LOT of offensive problems!
What do they do next year? The biggest need is at DH and maybe shortstop, depending on who the DH is. If they get Jason Giambi, Adam Dunn or Mark Texiera (none of that will happen, to be clear), then Scutaro and McDonald can platoon at short because you can’t sacrifice too much defence with such a groundball-heavy pitching staff. Then again, this team could probably use all the offense they can find. Hmm. They will get a full season of Adam Lind, and maybe Travis Snider, either of which can DH. After that though, the real promise of this team going into next season isn’t offensively, it’s pitching. Scott Downs has been incredible this season, posting a 1.25 ERA in 64.2 inning (going into tonight), Brandon League’s velocity is back around 98 mph, Jesse Carlson has been an excellent lefty specialist (1.99 ERA now!), and they’ll get Casey Jansen and Jeremy Accardo back for next year. BJ Ryan has made things interesting but has still converted 25 of 28 save opportunities. For the starters, Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum will be healthy, David Purcey has flashed some top-notch stuff (well, mostly that one start against Seattle, 8 IP, no walks, 11 K’s on 94 pitches. Seattle absolutely sucks though). Burnett will likely be gone but that money saved could go into getting a big DH bat, if there’s one out there. Offensively, that’s probably the best reason to optimistic going into next year since Rolen, clearly, isn’t going to ever be the player he was three years ago. The pitching and defense are just SO good, it makes the offensive display even more tragic this year since this should have been a playoff team. Another goal I probably won't keep is to work out what this team's winning percentage would have been with a league-average offence at the end of the year. That'll be depressing, so I won't keep it.
