Toronto Blue Jays 2019 Season Preview

Opening Day is almost here! Is there anything greater than the optimism that abounds at the beginning of a Major League Baseball season? Thankfully, this long, cold hellscape of ice and snow is beginning to thaw, just in time to enjoy a few cold ones while watching the Blue Jays play.

Okay, let’s be honest: there aren’t a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the 2019 Toronto Blue Jays. Yes, yes, “anything can happen”, “we still have to play the games”, and whatever other platitudes you feel like throwing out there about every team having a chance, but the sad reality is that there’s virtually no chance of a Blue Jays playoff berth this season, and if it wasn’t for the woeful Baltimore Orioles, it’s likely that the Jays would be staring a last-place finish right, straight square in the eyes.

Aside from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s impending callup – set for sometime after his recovery from an oblique strain and when the Blue Jays’ brass decides his defence is up to snuff (which will, in a near-miraculous coincidence, happen within a few days of when the Blue Jays gain another year of control of the 20-year-old wunderkind) – what is there to look forward to ahead of this woebegone season?

That preamble isn’t to say it’s all doom and gloom though! There are a few things on which we should keep our eyes, a couple glimmers of hope for this season and beyond. And maybe – just maybe – a reason or two to head out to the ballpark amid mounting losses. Here are a few of them:

Roy Halladay's Three Goodbyes

In 2010, Roy Halladay said goodbye to the city of Toronto and to his Blue Jays teammates.

Longing for a chance at a World Series after playing on 12 wholly uninspiring Blue Jays teams, Roy forced a trade to the City of Brotherly Love to pitch for the contending Phillies. How beloved must a player - in any sport - be to be cheered after forcing his or her way out of city? As beloved as Halladay was and continues to be. He was showered with applause in 2012 ahead of his return start in Toronto. A start he won - of course - by throwing a complete game.

That was a difficult goodbye because it was Roy Halladay. Roy Frickin' Halladay. holder of a prime position on the Blue Jays' Mount Rushmore and one of the primary reasons I love baseball to the degree I do today.

Get the ball, throw the ball. Change speeds. Throw strikes. Pitch to contact. No deep counts.

If you went to the bathroom during a Halladay start, you were liable to miss three innings. To love Halladay was to love baseball, and vice versa. He was everything there was to love about baseball. Hard work and talent commingled into the perfect pitching machine.

Did David Price Actually Want to Sign with the Boston Red Sox?

If “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase taught 10-year-old me anything, it's that a sleeper hold could get me out of any physical altercation with limited damage. If he taught me anything else, it’s that "everybody has a price."

To that end, I’ve been wondering recently to what degree that idiom affects free agency in the sporting world.

The reason I bring this up is because of the saga of everyone's favourite Blue Jays trade-deadline rental, David Price. As we all know, the Jays acquired Price in exchange for a huge haul of prospects, and he in turn helped guide the Jays to their first playoff appearance since the halcyon days of the early 1990s. Subsequently, Price signed the largest free-agent contract for a pitcher in MLB history with - in a quasi-surprising move - the loathsome Boston Red Sox. The numbers are staggering: $217 million over 7 years, which works out to a tidy $31-million per season, and roughly $1-million per regular-season start.

An Open Letter to David Price

Dear David,

Can I call you David? I think we've reached a point in our relationship where we're on a first-name basis. I'm definitely okay with you calling me Andrew, or a nickname of your choosing. Or Bob, or Tony, or Bridget. In short: call me whatever you like.

Now that you're officially a free agent, I feel it's time to address the elephant in the room: are you re-signing with Blue Jays? Are you? Are you? Are you? Are you?

(And FYI, the second elephant in the room - the Alex Anthopolous-shaped one - will be addressed at a later date)

Like much of baseball-loving Canada, I'm still trying to come to terms with the end of the Blue Jays' season - as I'm sure you are too - but the business of sports never rests, so onto the business at hand. I'm going to take this opportunity to implore you to re-sign with the Blue Jays.

As you're surely well aware, there's untold teams currently on their way to court and woo and throw absolutely obscene amounts of money at you. You're also going to be on the receiving end of promises and sales pitches the likes of which I can't even fathom. But hear me out, the info below may help clarify things for you a little.

Baseball's Top-6 Unwritten Rules

There are unwritten rules everywhere. They pervade almost every aspect of life in some way: at work, while driving, in line at the grocery store, and of course, in sports. And in the sporting world, I'd wager baseball has more unwritten rules than any other.

Initially, this was going to cover all of baseball's unwritten rules, but then I started researching, and frankly, I don't want to write (you definitely don't want to read) 50,000 words about arcane - and ultimately stupid - ungovernable rules that most people don't even know about. (For example: "Don't walk over the mound". Seriously, that's an unwritten rule. Sometimes baseball has to GTFO.)

Therefore, here are the top six unwritten rules that seem to pop up more often:

5(ish) players who should be in the Hall of Fame, but (likely) won't make it

The 2015 National Baseball Hall of Fame honoured its newest inductees this past weekend, with bronze masterpieces bearing the likenesses of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio - worthy recipients all - now lining the hallowed halls.

However, despite 314 inductees filling the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, there are still players who should be enshrined, but due to a number of factors likely won't find themselves among the luminaries.

Here are five(ish) such cases:

Why the 'pitcher wins' stat is outdated & pointless

Like most sports, the baseball decision-makers are an old-boys club who are slow to accept change - if they accept it at all. Hence, there's a reticence to employ, look at, learn, or acknowledge new or advanced statistics. At best, useful and indicative stats like WAR, BABIP, OPS+, FIP, UZR, wRC+, etc are accepted at a glacial pace.

Case in point: pitcher wins. During baseball broadcasts and in many written pieces, a pitcher's won/lost record is displayed before any other stat. The colour commentator and the analyst always lead their roundup of the pitcher with the number of wins he's accumulated, or losses he's endured.

The dichotomy of the situation is incredible; is there a more prominent stat that's as pointless as pitcher wins?

Mulliniks’ Moustache #19 – Anthony Gose

Anthony Gose - Blue Jays centrefielder of the future?

If Winston Churchill was a baseball fan* – and alive in 2014 – surely his famous quote: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” would have been used to describe Anthony Gose. *My five seconds of Wikipedia research tells me he wasn’t. THEREFORE IT IS FACT!

Much has been made about Gose, the young speedster and he of the tantalizing baseball skills. On July 29, 2010, he was one of then-new-wunderkind-GM Alex Anthopoulos’ first acquisitions, swapping slugging first baseman Brett Wallace to the Houston Astros for a then 19-year-old Gose (as a maybe-only-interesting-to-me aside, Gose was actually traded with his current Blue Jay teammate J.A. Happ from the Phillies to the Astros before immediately being sent to the Blue Jays for Wallace).

Mulliniks’ Moustache #18 – Pitch: Talks on Baseball #3

As I mentioned in my previous entry, Pitch: Talks on Baseball #3 was held last Monday night. My Rain Man-like math skills tell me that I’m almost a week late with this recap. Oh well.

This most-recent edition, the third in a series of baseball speaker events, was jam-packed with presenters, featuring Richard Griffin and Brendan Kennedy from the Toronto Star, Cathal Kelly from the Globe & Mail, Scott MacArthur from TSN Radio 1050, Alexis Brudnicki from the Canadian Baseball Network and Cashew Mirman Videos.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #17 – Monday Musings (PitchTalks, Stroman, Gose & MORE)

Just some random food for thought on this sunny Monday, with the Blue Jays sitting in first place, enjoying a 3.5 game lead over the New York Yankees. Just let that sink in for a minute. First place on June 2^nd. Okay, onto the musings:

1. How much fun is it watching the Blue Jays play right now? As I mentioned in my last entry, they’re firing on all cylinders – the line-up top to bottom, no matter who is in the starting line-up, both starting and relief pitching, the defence. Jeez, it even seems like their TWEETS are improving recently. I, for one, can’t really remember a time they’ve played so well. Sure, there was that magical 11-game win streak last year, but that always seemed like a mirage (and the 151 games that book-ended those 11 games prove that it was). John Gibbons mentioned that he was the manager when they went 20-10 in May of 2009 (after which he was fired three weeks later). The 2003 team was pretty solid and stacked with offensive juggernauts (Carlos Delgado in what should have been his MVP season, a still-productive, on-the-rise Vernon Wells, plus Eric Hinske, Shannon Stewart et al and the team ace was, of course, Roy Halladay). There had to have been some solid play during “Vietnam Vet” Tim Johnson’s lone year of 1998, which is still the Blue Jays high-water mark for wins in a season in the past 20 years with 88. I can’t really explain it, but this year’s version of the Blue Jays just seems…different. More real? More dominant? Who knows? I’m open to theories as to why I feel that way; assuming others have the same (warm, fuzzy) feelings as I do. My happy-go-lucky, unicorns and rainbows and fluffy kitten feelings may be a little bit too much sentimentality and grasping for straws because there’s still four months left in the season and it could all go south really quickly, but I’m enjoying the hell out of watching these guys play. 

Mulliniks’ Moustache #16 – Firing on all Cylinders

Is this finally the Blue Jays team we all hoped, and thought, we would see last year? It’s Monday, May 26^th, 2014, and our Toronto Blue Jays are sitting atop the American League East, with a two game cushion over the venerable New York Yankees. This a position the Blue Jays, and many of us long-suffering fans, haven’t enjoyed in many moons.

Over the past two weeks or so, the Blue Jays have won six in a row, nine of ten and have climbed from the basement of the AL East all the way, via express elevator, to the penthouse, compete with mirrored ceilings, a 360 degree view of the city and multiple heart-shaped bathtubs (yes, I’ve spend far too much time thinking about what it would be like in a MLB penthouse). Incredibly, the Blue Jays are still only 13-11 at home, so there’s lots of room for improvement in that regard. Just to be a naysayer for a quick second, there are as always many “buts” involved that have to be considered, such as:

• It’s still insanely early to be getting too excited
• Everyone else in the AL East is playing terribly. Horribly, awfully, terrible. Like, on par with the Houston Astros. Yes, that bad.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #15 – Dustin McGowan & the Catch-22

It appears as though the Blue Jays have created an awkward situation for themselves: Dustin McGowan was a key, stabilizing force in their bullpen last year – one of the few bright spots in a disaster of a season. And now in 2014 they’re in desperate need of him to move from the starting rotation back to the bullpen to solidify their current, far-more-shaky version. However, with Brandon Morrow possibly out for the year with an injured finger, they’re even leaner at starting pitching than originally thought. Further complicating the issue is that McGowan, complete with his new fatigue-busting in-game insulin pump, has strung together a couple of really solid starts. The sad reality is that no matter where McGowan pitches, the other side will be left lacking. Dustin McGowan: 2014 Toronto Blue Jays Team Lynchpin, who would have thought that?

If McGowan was struggling and still only able to throw 65 effective pitches at a time then the decision would be easier, but it doesn’t make sense to move an effective starter to the bullpen and in the process weaken an already weak rotation. It would be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s simply not the right time to play around with rotation/bullpen members.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #14 – The Case for Optimism

Yes, it’s been a difficult first month of the 2014 Blue Jays season, but only in the sense that every baseball fan wants “their” team to go undefeated. There have been a few injuries (Jose Reyes, Casey Janssen, Maicer Izturis) and the starting pitching we all knew would be a red flag has turned into….a red flag. There’s been too much inconsistency and too many walks.

But the season is not lost! Ignore the naysayers; embrace optimism. The Rogers’ Centre is not yet filled with the hellfire and brimstone that some people think every time the Blue Jays lose. Sure, there’s the aforementioned and ever-present starting pitching struggles and general inconsistency that we all find so frustrating, and even the bullpen – one of the team’s supposed strengths – has started to scuffle a little bit of late, although that is due to overuse (and Alex Anthopoulous’ misguided and stupid decision to keep out-of-option pitchers over better options).

In any event, I digress. Today is a day for optimism! I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the bright spots of the Blue Jays season thus far, five Beacons of Hope, if you will. Sure, it’s only been 25 games, but there are a few things to be excited about, namely:

Mulliniks’ Moustache #13 – Blue Jays Music

My apologies, gentle readers, this week’s entry is a bit of a quicky. I’m pressed for time because I’m heading to Cleveland to the watch the Blue Jays play the Indians (amongst other fun and frivolity).

Shemp Kardashian

How about this topic for a bit of a change of pace: My suggestions for selected Blue Jay players’ walk-up/entrance music.

At the very least, this will surely open up an interesting, thought-provoking debate! Don’t you think? Of course it won’t. That was clearly sarcasm. Is it possible that this is the least-important debate almost ever? Now that I think about it, the only thing that comes to mind that’s less important is: Which is Your Favourite Kardashian Sister? In case you’re wondering, I’m a bandwagon-jumper in this regard and like everyone else, my favourite is Shemp.

So, with that pointless preamble out of the way, for no reason whatsoever I present the following for your reading pleasure:

Mulliniks’ Moustache #12 – Pitch Talks #1

On Monday night, I had the opportunity to attend an interesting event, called Pitch Talks. It was, in essence, a baseball panel program where baseball fans have the chance to listen to people in the baseball industry talk about…baseball, and more specifically, the Toronto Blue Jays.

Pitch Talks #1 was hosted by comedian Jordan Strofolino, who even got a dig in against my patron saint, ‘ol Rance Mulliniks, claiming that he got a bunt base hit by hitting the ball off his Adam’s Apple, but it was unconfirmed because it was long time ago and stats weren’t kept back then.

First out of the gate was a comedian – Dylan Gott, who warmed the crowd up for a couple of minutes. Is a baseball forum the ideal place for a comedian? Probably not, but Gott at least focused on a subject that was near and dear to his rotund heart: the oddly-shaped baseball stars we all know and love. From David Wells to Rod Beck to Prince Fielder, and his father Cecil Fielder, then finishing with the obvious target: Babe Ruth. Gott held his own and elicited a couple of laughs.

Soon enough, though, the focus was on one of the first of the main attractions: Jared Macdonald from JaysProspects.com, who is an expert on Blue Jays prospects and claims to have seen every one in person.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #11 – First Week Musings (10 Things to Think About)

Just a few things I’ve noticed now that we’re a full week into the season:

1. Much as we thought to begin with, the much-maligned starting rotation seems to be the Achilles Heel of this team. The good starts have been pretty great, especially Mark Buehrle’s first and RA Dickey’s second starts of the year, but the still-sluggish offense hasn’t been able to cover the sub-par starts thus far (compounded by the absence of Jose Reyes and slow starts by both Edwin Encarnacion and Brett Lawrie).

2. I’ve been super-impressed with Melky Cabrera’s quick start right out of the gate. Hopefully he keeps it up all season. Just imagine if he was able to get the game-winning hit at yesterday’s game, with chants of “MEL-KY! MEL-KY!” raining down from the 34,067 fans in attendance. Fans looking for an early-season hero would’ve found one pretty easily after that. Oh well.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #10 – Beer & The Blue Jays

Allow me, if you will, to paint a picture:

Imagine a sunny, warm summer afternoon. The sun is high in the sky, bathing you in brilliant sunshine. You’re watching your beloved Blue Jays, surrounded by a friendly, well-mannered and unnervingly quiet crowd. In your right hand is a hotdog, topped with your favourite condiments – ketchup, mustard, sauerkraut, onions. In your left hand is another ballpark staple – peanuts in the shell. You settle into your seat. You decided to wear short-shorts today, so your upper thighs are a tad raw due to the warm seat. That won’t dampen your spirits though!

You delicately devour your food as the first pitch is thrown – a strike on the outside corner. Enjoying the first inning, you realize your salty treats have made you thirsty. What’s the tried-and-true, time-honoured way to remedy such a situation? The third piece of the baseball food Holy Trinity – a cold, refreshing beer. You know you’re going to pay through the nose for it, but that’s just the accepted way things are done when you’re taking in the ol’ ballgame.

“HEY! Beer guy! Gimme two!” you bellow to the man doing the Lord’s work.

He saunters over.

Mulliniks’ Moustache #9 – Toronto Blue Jays 2014 Opening Day Lineup

For better or for worse, below is your Opening Day 25-man roster for the 2014 Toronto Blue Jays.

Starting Pitchers

RHP R.A. Dickey

RHP Drew Hutchison

LHP Mark Buehrle

RHP Brandon Morrow

RHP Dustin McGowan

Bullpen

RHP Casey Janssen

RHP Steve Delabar

RHP Sergio Santos

LHP Aaron Loup

LHP Brett Cecil

RHP Esmil Rogers

RHP Todd Redmond

RHP Jeremy Jeffress

Starting Players

C Dioner Navarro

1B Edwin Encarnacion

2B Ryan Goins

SS Jose Reyes

3B Brett Lawrie

LF Melky Cabrera

CF Colby Rasmus

RF Jose Bautista

DH Adam Lind

Bench

INF Maicer Izturis

OF Moises Sierra

C Josh Thole

(This was straight up stolen from torontosun.com http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/26/your-2014-blue-jays-roster)

Mulliniks’ Moustache #8 – The Bench; The Bullpen

A baseball team’s bench and bullpen are inexplicably and intrinsically linked. Backup position players and (in essence) backup pitchers. In many people’s brains, the bench and bullpen are mere afterthoughts. In reality, though, they play a large part in the fortunes of baseball teams.

Hell, even when a manager throws in the towel and calls on a position player to pitch an inning of mop-up duty during particularly terrible blowouts, he usually calls on a bench player (Jose Canseco notwithstanding) to ply his new trade and float batting-practice-perfected knuckleballs at seasoned major league hitters.

A major league baseball team’s bench is a motley crew of three to five not-quite-everyday-players that spend most of the season seated on – you guessed it – the bench, just waiting for a slow runner to get on base late in the game, or for an everyday player to require a sporadic day off.

We’re motoring towards the end of Spring Training, so as of this point, the 2014 Blue Jays version of The Bench is looking as such:

1. Back-up catcher (RA Dickey’s best friend Eric Kratz)
2. Back-up infielder (the Blue Jays $3-million man Maicer Izturis)
3. Back-up outfielder (out-of-options Moises Sierra)

Mulliniks’ Moustache #7 – Ricky Romero & The Yips

No, that’s not a band…although, it’s a pretty awesome name for one! I CALL DRUMS!!

Anyway, to the task at hand: Blue Jays’ fans sixth-favourite* left-handed pitcher – Ricky Romero. We've all had a front-row seat to watch the fall and rise and fall of Ricky Romero, from first round draft pick, to near-bust, to All-Star on the cusp of ace-dom, all the way back down to (barely) a AAA pitcher.

Personally, it’s been difficult to watch. Romero was a lefty bulldog, taking the ball every fifth day without fail. Even when he was struggling, he never made excuses. Despite reported arm and knee issues, which were/are so bad that John Lott from the National Post reported recently that Romero had stem cells inserted into his knee to help alleviate the pain. Romero simply went to the mount and pitched – poorly at times – every fifth day and was always accountable, which is refreshing from a professional athlete.

From all accounts, the root cause of Romero’s problems are all mental – a kind of/sort of mild case of The Yips (see also: Sax, Steve; Knoblauch, Chuck; and Ankiel, Rick for more dramatic examples of The Yips). For the uninitiated, TheYips is baseball nomenclature for rare situations where players simply lose the ability to perform seemingly mundane, “Baseball 101”-type tasks – like throwing a ball from second base to first, or from the mound to home. It’s not easy to watch players suffer through The Yips. Case in point: Rick Ankiel, a 20-year-old lefty phenom who, in part, led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 2000 NLDS. In his first career post season start, he literally and figuratively fell apart. He threw six wild pitches in the third inning alone and had five walks overall. Incredibly, the Cardinals won the game, despite Ankiel’s struggles. He made a couple of subsequent appearances, but for all intents and purposes. Ankiel was done as a Major League pitcher.**