4:53 PM Eastern

I arrived in Florida yesterday, and spent the evening getting settled, finding my place (a 45-minute drive from Florida Auto Exchange Stadium as it turns out, but what can you do?) and this morning checked into camp for my first day of the 2012 baseball season.

The first thing I noticed was all the blue – it’s everywhere!  Paul Beeston wasn’t kidding when he said it was time to put the “blue” back in Blue Jays.  The new logo is all over the place, from the outer facade of the minor-league complex to the walls, the rugs, road signs, everywhere you look in Dunedin you see the new logo, and it’s fantastic.

But really, it’s just great to be back and be immersed in baseball once again.  Watching batting practice, baserunning drills, infield practice, catchers taking sky-high pop flies off the pitching machine, it’s terrific – you should all come down and spend a few days at Spring Training if you get the chance.

There was news in camp, too, the biggest being that Adeiny Hechavarria is going to start getting some work in at second base.  The young Cuban has been a shortstop his entire career, but with the Jays’ dearth of second-base prospects close to the big leagues, they need some insurance other than Luis Valbuena and Mike McCoy if Kelly Johnson goes down with a long-term injury.  Hechavarria is going to be that insurance, though he’ll still play shortstop most of the time both in the spring and in Las Vegas.  I asked Omar Vizquel about the differences between short and second, since he played every inning but one of the first 20 years of his big-league career at shortstop before getting 14 starts at second in 2009.  Here’s what Vizquel had to say:

Download

With Kelly Johnson going into a free agent year, it’s quite possible that the Jays want to see if Hechavarria is capable of being a big-league regular at second.  With him there, Yunel Escobar at short and Colby Rasmus  in centre, the up-the-middle defense would be spectacular.  The question is – can Hechavarria hit?  So far, he hasn’t done so at any level save for Las Vegas, where everybody hits.  I’m looking forward to seeing him get a decent amount of playing time this spring.

John Farrell announced the pitching rotation for the Grapefruit League season.  Brett Cecil will start Saturday’s opener, home to the Pirates, and he’ll be followed by Henderson Alvarez, Drew Hutchison, Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow.  Dustin McGowan will step into Hutchison’s spot the second time through the rotation and, presumably, for the rest of the spring and into the season.

There will be a six-inning intra-squad game on Friday, and we will find out line-ups and stuff on Thursday – keep an eye on my Twitter feed @Wilnerness590 for the info as soon as it’s available.

News also came out today about the impending announcement of a second wild card team in each league, beginning this season.  It’s an exciting thing for the Blue Jays, who are stuck in the toughest division in pro sports, though with each wild card team merely earning a berth in a one-game, do-or-die playoff, it’s not as great as getting a whole extra round of playoffs would be.

Looking back over the wild card era (which began in 1995), the Blue Jays would have made the playoffs only in 1998 – the Tim Johnson year – had the new system been in place.  They would have fallen three games short of the White Sox in 2006 , missed out by the same three games to the Yankees in 2008 and been four games shy of the Red Sox in 2010.  But the extra spot makes everything different.  Teams that haven’t been in the race in July will now be in it by virtue of the extra spot, which changes the trade deadline, and in fact changes all sorts of in-season decision-making.  There will be meaningful baseball late in the season in Toronto this year for the first time in a long time, even if the Blue Jays ultimately fall short (which Las Vegas, at least, thinks they will).

One other thing – in looking at how the players have been grouped here in the early part of Spring Training, there’s no question that Eric Thames has the early lead in the “Battle For Left Field” against Travis Snider.  In live batting practice, Thames hit with Jose Bautista and Colby Rasmus, while  Snider was grouped with Rajai Davis and Ben Francisco.  Things could change in a hurry, though, when the games begin.

Here’s the audio of John Farrell’s daily chat with the media, for your listening pleasure:

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Thursday is a complete day off for the pitchers – nobody throws at all – but the hitters will work out at the Bobby Mattick Minor League Complex in the morning and I’ll be there to get you all the info you could possibly want.

I’ll be joining Rob Wong at 7:00 PM Eastern on Sportsnet590 The Fan Wednesday evening, so make sure you tune in for that!

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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11:07 AM Eastern

This is one of those years where you don’t have to try to look through the snow  to imagine the sight of green grass again, but we do know that the cold, crisp air is on its way out and the sights of dull, gray skies and bare trees will soon be gone because of those five magical words:  ”Pitchers and catchers report today”.

It’s a beautiful thing, the official opening of Spring Training.  It means that a long winter is just about over and that shortly we’ll be hearing the joyful crack of bat on ball and baseball will begin again.

I could get even more flowery and misty-eyed and talk about things like renewal, circles of life and the like, but I’ll stop here, I think, and just sit back and smile at the idea of the great game’s impending return.

The first official workout takes place tomorrow, though many players have long since made their way to Dunedin, and the position players are required to report by Friday.  The first full-squad workout will be Saturday and a week later, on March 3rd, the Grapefruit season opens with the first of a home-and-home against the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Will A.J. Burnett get the start for either of those games?  I’m not sure, but I sure hope so.  Whether he does or doesn’t, we’ll be broadcasting both – and every weekend game this spring, as well as the March 27th night game against the Yankees – along the Blue Jays Radio Network!  I’ll be heading down to Dunedin a week from today, Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby will be there a day earlier, and we can’t wait to bring you another season of Blue Jays baseball on the radio!

Backdating the rotation to set up with Ricky  Romero pitching Opening Day, followed by Brandon Morrow, Brett Cecil, Henderson Alvarez and Dustin McGowan, and accounting for the off-day after the first game of the season, I would expect that Morrow will get the nod for the Grapefruit Opener, followed by Cecil, and that Romero will see his first action on Tuesday, March 6th, at home against the Phillies (and Roy Halladay?).  That March 6th game just happens to be one of three that we’ll broadcast – audio only – on mlb.com.  One of the other ones is a game against the Yankees on my birthday, which should be a blast!

I’m looking forward to a fun spring and a great season, and I’ll cover it all for you on a daily basis beginning on February 28th.  Until then, I’ll post as I have most of the winter – sporadically and when news breaks – but I suggest you keep an eye on Shi Davidi’s work over at sportsnet.ca; he’s already down in Dunedin and is staying through that first Grapefruit League game.

Maybe as a send-off to the off-season, I’ll do one more mailbag before I leave for the sunny south, so feel free to leave your questions in the comment sections and I’ll choose a few out of which to make another mailbag.

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, if you’re not already – you can find me @wilnerness590.

My apologies for not having been on much the last few days, I took my family on a lovely last vacation-before-I-have-to-work-every-day-for-eight-straight-months.  To Florida, yes, but to the other side (my cousin has a condo she let us borrow).  We had planned on seeing a rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center, but the vagaries of standby flying led to us getting bumped off an Atlanta-Orlando flight by a tour group of 55 Brazilians who missed their connection, which was supposed to have been the flight before ours.  After missing out on later flights to Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach, Sarasota, Fort Myers and Daytona Beach, we wound up renting a car and driving from Atlanta all the way to Miami, where we enjoyed a lovely couple of days that included me getting messed up either by too-crisp bills sticking together or American money all being the same colour and leaving an extra $50 as a tip at some Italian restaurant in North Beach.  At least I made some waiter’s night – that never happened to me when I worked at Lime Rickey’s.  We missed the rocket launch, but the kids had a great day at the Nickelodeon Suites hotel in Orlando as a consolation prize – breakfast with Dora The Explorer and such!

It’s a good idea to follow Shi Diggity on Twitter as well, you can find him @ShiDavidi.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and reply to most, and remember, you could wind up in the mailbag!

6:51 PM Eastern

The first hint came out on Twitter this morning, when Casey Janssen told his almost 7,000 followers “Looks like I’ll be sticking around a little while longer”, adding the cute hashtag “#pujolstype” which implied that he was signing a long-term, huge-money contract extension with the Blue Jays.

Janssen won’t be pulling in close to $25 million a year, nor has he been locked up to a ten-year deal with an added personal services contract that will take care of the decade after that, but the two-year contract (with a club option for 2014) that Janssen and the Blue Jays have agreed to is an awfully big step nonetheless.

Showing his confidence in the 30 year-old righty who shares a birthday with my oldest daughter, Alex Anthopoulos made Janssen the first-ever relief pitcher to whom he’s given a contract that’s guaranteed for more than one season.

Anthopoulos has long spoken of the volatility of relief pitchers, how their performances can drastically vary from one year to the next, and how reluctant he is to guarantee a reliever more than one year.  A year and an option?  Sure.  He’s signed relievers to those deals before, but he’s never  given a two-year guarantee.

Why Janssen?  It’s a good question.  The answer is probably this:  Janssen doesn’t have as much mileage on his arm as your typical 30 year-old reliever, and in his two healthy seasons pitching out of the bullpen, he’s been one of the best in the game.  Also, he’s a terrific athlete, having been an infielder in college, and a tremendous character guy – two things Anthopoulos values very highly.

You might remember Robert Casey Janssen’s beginning as a Blue Jay.  He came up as a starter in late April of 2006, replacing A.J. Burnett, who had gone on the disabled list for the second time already that season.  Janssen’s first two starts, home and home against the Orioles, weren’t terribly impressive, but his next came at home against the Angels, broadcast back to his Southern California home, and Casey put on a show.

Janssen took a no-hitter into the 6th inning before it was broken up by a one-out line single to centre by Chone Figgins.  He then retired the next six hitters (running his streak to 18 of 19) before Howie Kendrick’s slow roller was charged hard by Russ Adams at short but left on the ground for an error.  Janssen handed it over to B.J. Ryan  for the final five outs after needing just 86 pitches to throw 7 1/3 innings of one-hit, one-walk shutout, picking up his first major-league win.

I understand if your first reaction to that was “Wow, Figgins and Ryan used to be good?”, but the bigger story was the brilliance of that effort by Janssen, and he basically equaled it ten days later, this time pitching in front of his family and friends right there in Southern California at The Big A in Anaheim.

This time, Janssen was perfect through 5 1/3 before Robb Quinlan broke it up with a ground single past the glove of a diving Lyle Overbay.  He retired the next seven in a row, running his streak to 23 of 24, before giving up a two-out single to Dallas McPherson in the 8th.  Janssen then got Quinlan to ground out to end the inning, and Ryan took over to close out a 3-0 win with a hitless 9th.  This time, Janssen needed 88 pitches, but he did have to get two extra outs.

He stayed in the rotation until early July, only putting together a couple more terrific starts – one in Baltimore and one against the Phillies, and was finally sent down at the end of July.  The next spring, the Jays decided that Janssen deserved a look as a reliever, and after B.J. Ryan went down with the back injury that would later require Tommy John surgery, Janssen took the bull by the horns and emerged as a huge part of the relief trioka that helped the Blue Jays have one of the best bullpens in the majors.

Janssen, Scott Downs and Jeremy Accardo were a phenomenal trio, with Casey and Snakeface doing the set-up work for Accardo’s 30-save season.  For his part, Janssen  posted a WHIP of 1.197, and held opponents to a sparkling .247/.303/.351 mark.  He went to Spring Training the next year determined to return to a starting role, and his shoulder exploded.

He had said it had been bothering him since the year before, but the final straw actually snapped while I was on the air, doing a phone interview back with the mid-morning show.  It was at the Bobby Mattick minor-league complex and I can still see it in my head, Janssen not answering the bell for his simulated-game start against Dustin McGowan.  Looking to the bullpen, we saw Casey standing there with a couple of trainers and a general air of grave concern.  It was a torn labrum, and he would spend the better part of the next three years rehabbing it.

Most pitchers don’t recover from such an injury – just look how long it has taken McGowan, and how many setbacks he has had along the way – but Janssen made it back to the bigs as a starter 15 months later.  After getting knocked around in five starts, the decision was made that his future was as a reliever, and he got knocked around a bit in that role too that year, then had an up-and-down 2010 as the shoulder regained strength and re-emerged in 2011 as one of the best.

Janssen was a longshot to even make the team out of Spring Training last year, but March injuries to Octavio Dotel and Frank Francisco opened the door and he pushed his way through, even though he had to spend four days in Vegas in early April when Dotel came back.  Once Janssen returned, the fact that he had options left weren’t ever considered again, as he held opponents to a .599 OPS in April and got that down to an incredible .430 in May.  His numbers for June and July are pretty ugly, but that was because of only one outing in each month – getting beat up by the Red Sox in a game in which Jays’ pitchers combined to allow 16 runs, and an 8th-inning against Seattle in which he didn’t record an out while giving up hits to all three batters he faced – the first of which was a Grand Slam by Miguel Olivo.  It was one of only two blown saves by Janssen all season, a year in which he recorded career lows in WHIP (1.096), ERA (2.26) and OPS against (.594).

He’s been rewarded for that season, his perseverance, his general greatness when healthy and, of course, the fact that he’s a top-shelf character guy, with a two-year deal worth $5.9 million.  Janssen will earn $2 million this coming season, which is exactly the mid-point between what he asked and what the Jays offered when they submitted their arbitration figures, and he’ll almost double that to $3.9 million in 2013.  The Jays hold a club option for 2014 which will pay Janssen $4 million if it’s picked up.  If the Jays choose not to exercise that option, there’s no buyout, and Janssen would become a free agent.

With the signing, the Blue Jays once again avoid arbitration with all their eligible players.  They haven’t seen the inside of a hearing  room since Gord Ash was in charge and they beat Bill Risley, back in 1997.

Please follow me on The Twitter, you can find me @Wilnerness590.  You can follow the first reliever ever signed by Alex Anthopoulos to a multi-year guarantee @CaseyJanssen.

Comments are welcome, I read them all and reply to most!

1:50 PM Eastern

With pitchers and catchers reporting to Dunedin in less than a fortnight, it’s been a slow news week since the Blue Jays’ State of the Franchise get-together, so I figured I’d grab some questions from the comments section of the ol’ blogaroo and take some time to give more expansive answers than I usually do.

So here’s a mailbag for your reading pleasure!  Stoeten, feel free to co-opt at your leisure:

Mike,

When I look at Kelly Johnson I don’t see a player with the potential of becoming the Jays best player, like was the case with Erin Hill. Take into consideration that he most likely was the best player on the team after the vernon trade, even if it was only for a short period of time and I know the team has changed and improved a since then but still for Erin Hill I saw his potential to once again become that sort of player.

If Kelly doesn’t pan out what other option are out there for the jays at 2nd base?

Hab

Hab,

First of all, it’s Aaron Hill, and while Hill had a phenomenal year for the Blue Jays in 2009 and was quite good to that point in his career, he’s never been the best player on the team.  Adam Lind was better that year (and so was Roy Halladay), and since then, it’s been all Jose Bautista.  I’m not sure how you saw Hill’s potential to once again become one of the team’s best players, since he’d been just awful since that big year (.213/.271/.359 as a Blue Jay in ’10 and ’11).  That’s not to say he can’t come back, but he certainly didn’t show any signs until he left for the desert.  You’re not alone in your reticence to embrace Kelly Johnson, most Blue Jays fans just simply don’t seem to like him.  The only reason, I think, is because he cost the Jays John McDonald and Hill, two much-loved players.  Johnson isn’t Johnny Mac, and he’s not Hill, but he’s a better hitter than either one of them.  He’s only 30 years old (turning 30 at the end of this month) and has had three years with an OPS of .795 or better out of the last five.  Hill has had an OPS over .795 just once in his entire career.  Johnson, for his career, has an OPS+ of 104, which means he’s been 4% better than the average big-league hitter.  That’s no great shakes, but it’s strong for a middle infielder.  Hill’s career OPS+ is 92, which means he’s been 8% worse than the average big-league hitter.  In his five weeks with the Blue Jays, Johnson put up a line of .270/.364/.417.  I expect more of the same from him in 2012, though with more power. The Blue Jays aren’t looking for other options at second base, nor should they be.

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Mike,

One of the items on the Jays wishlist was a big bat for the middle of the order. I’m thinking there’s a bargain to be made… Manny Ramirez.
He’s reinstated but must serve his 50 game suspension first. My thoughts are he is a great hitter and has fared well at Rogers Centre through history. The 50 games would have him out until middle of june-ish. I can’t see him making an astounding amount of money because of his shenanigans over the last couple years.
Why not try to get him on a one year low-guaranteed base salary that is very incentive based. Obviously, there would have to be a “behaviour” out clause to keep him singing in Farrell’s choir.
Why I find this appealing is that Manny wouldn’t have asked to be reinstated if he didn’t have something to prove. He will be out to murder baseballs and show no mercy. If the Jays are in contention, he brings a much needed bat to an inconsistent lineup and hopefully gives them that needed push to make the playoffs.
If the Jays aren’t in contention, he can be trade-bait for a team that is and maybe bring aprospect or two back this way.
Yes, the steroid scandal makes it less appealing to have him but I think that drives his prices way down.
I’d take a chance and take a flyer on ManRam. What’s your thoughts

Ted

Ted,

You’re right, Manny has a 50-game suspension to serve once he signs with a team, and if he were to sign with the Blue Jays, that would have him eligible to play at home against the Orioles on May 30th.  Interestingly, the Orioles are one of the teams pursuing Ramirez, and their 51st game of the season would be the day before, also at Rogers Centre.

I do believe that even after missing the better part of the last two years and that despite the fact that the May 30th reinstatement game would take place on his 40th birthday, Manny can still hit.  I just don’t think the Blue Jays will provide him his best opportunity to do so, and I don’t know that Alex Anthopoulos would be all that interested in him.  After all, coming into the 2011 season, Ramirez was just as much a free agent, the Blue Jays had arguably a bigger hole at DH and Manny signed with the Rays for $2 million.

Anthopoulos wants athletes, he wants character and he wants versatility out of the DH spot.  Ramirez provides none of those things.  Despite that, I think he’d be a swell fit for the Jays as a DH against left-handed pitching (with Edwin Encarnacion going to first and Adam Lind to the bench), but the Orioles and even the A’s would be able to offer him an everyday job.  I think he’ll wind up in one of those two spots.

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Cheap owners, playing on carpet, no premium free agent signings, 5 year policy equals 4th place finish again people. Sorry but that is the sad stat Jays fans find themselves in

Kenny

Kenny,

This I don’t get. There has been a chorus of Blue Jays “fans” that have been rushing to proclaim endless doom for the ballclub, that since they didn’t sign Prince Fielder or Yu Darvish and didn’t trade for Mat Latos or Gio Gonzalez that the end is nigh.  They’ll be stuck in fourth place forever – if they’re lucky – and will probably wind up moving out of town in five years.  Honestly, if you really feel that way, why not go root for the Yankees?  They’re the only team in the majors that tends to solve every problem it has by throwing money at it, and they’ve spent the better part of a decade throwing good money after bad and making the playoffs.

I don’t expect most fans to pay attention to what the Blue Jays are doing as closely as I do, it’s my job, after all, but if you’ve been following the Jays at all this winter – actually listening to what Alex Anthopoulos has been saying – or following me, you would know that they’re firm in their belief that the right way to put together a perennial championship contender is to build a strong core of elite-level, controllable talent and augment it when that talent blossoms.  That’s exactly the way they did it in the early ’90s, exactly the way they’re trying to do it now and exactly the way the Texas Rangers have done it to reach the World Series two straight years.

Pining for the huge free agent signing is only going to lead to disappointment, but part of that is because most of those huge free-agent signings wind up being disappointments.  Lots of fans are absolutely sure that Prince Fielder will be an elite player over the life of his nine-year, $214 milllion deal, but lots of fans were also sure that Mark Teixeira’s eight-year deal was a good one, and the same for Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, Barry Zito, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez et al.  Really the only ones that have actually worked out were the ones handed out to Derek Jeter and Manny Ramirez in 2001 (Rodriguez opted out of his first one, which also worked out nicely, but the subsequent one looks to be pretty terrible).

Also note that of the eight teams that were in the playoffs last year, St. Louis and Detroit each had ONE player signed to a free-agent contract longer than five years, five other teams had none, and the Yankees are the Yankees.

Going into the 2012 season, the Blue Jays have a starting rotation full of young, incredibly talented pitchers with fantastic stuff, a bullpen that’s as good as any in the majors, and a group of position players that has a potential all-star at every spot on the diamond.  And not a single one of the starters is over 30, except for the guy who happens to have been the best player in the game the last two years.  If you can’t get excited by that, you’re not a baseball fan, you’re a front-runner. You’ll be welcomed back onto the bandwagon as soon as the Jays start competing for a playoff spot – or, you know,  if they start the season 3-0.

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I don’t understand why the Jay’s don’t take a “flyer” on one or two of Manny Ramirez, Hideki Matsui, Vladimir Guerrero, Johnny Damon, Derek Lee either on a 1 year 1-3 million dollar deal or spring training invites. We’ve given all of these veteran pitchers 1 year deals to improve our pens (this year and last year), yet we can’t attempt to improve our DH? We are paying Edwin the same length and term (1 year, 3.5 million) and there is no valid reason to say Edwin has earned a every day DH job. Why the hell not bring in a vet at DH?

The scenario is low risk and high reward potential.

Thoughts?

Jays&Rangers

Interesting handle,

See the discussion about Manny Ramirez above, but I don’t know why you’d be so anxious to see the Jays go after a veteran player on the downside of his career rather than giving an opportunity to a 29 year-old whose career could still be on the rise.  Encarnacion hit .296/.361/.494 in his half-season (294 plate appearances) as the Jays’ DH last year, and there’s not a thing wrong with that.  Those numbers are better than those of any of the other players you mentioned above.  It should be noted, too, that Edwin started to really rake as soon as the Jays decided that they were moving Jose Bautista back to third base at the end of June, meaning Encarnacion wouldn’t have to worry about embarrassing himself on defense on a regular basis.  From Bautista’s first game at third through the Jays’ final home game of the season (after which Edwin tweaked his wrist), Encarnacion hit .295/.370/.516 – an OPS of .886 that ranked behind only Bautista and Brett Lawrie.  In fact, his full-season OPS of .787 was third on the club, too.  Of the group you mention, the highest 2011 OPS belonged to Lee. and his .771 was still worse than what Edwin managed over the full season, including his awful first half (.255/.290/.388 prior to June 28).  And since the youngest of the group you mention is the 36 year-old Lee, none of them are going to be getting any better.  Try not to get caught up in the names and the resumes.

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There’s rumblings that the Reds could look to trade Homer Bailey to make room for Roy Oswalt.

Do you think the Jays would be interested? He’s an interesting case, in that he was a top prospect who hasn’t yet panned out, but like Brandon Morrow, he also seems to have performed better than his ERA would suggest.

At the same time, adding any pitcher at this point would mean essentially giving up on one of Cecil or McGowan.

Thoughts, Mike?

Bret

Bret,

Homer Bailey is an interesting guy, to be sure.  Still just 25 years old, the righty has a ton of unrealized potential that seemed to begin to click last year with a drastic reduction in his walk rate, though he became more of a fly-ball guy than he ever has been, which isn’t great news at Rogers Centre.  He is under control for three more seasons, was twice in Baseball America’s top-10 prospects in all of baseball, and if you look on baseball-reference.com’s list of similar pitchers, you’ll find Dustin McGowan in third place.  So picking up another potential McGowan, who happens to be five years younger, would definitely be something the Blue Jays would be interested in doing.  The problems are that Bailey has had shoulder issues the last couple of seasons, so his durability may be an issue.  The Jays certainly don’t want another McGowan in that respect. The key, if Bailey is available, is what the Jays would have to give up, and their minor-league system is well-stocked.

I don’t see making a move on Bailey – or any other starting pitcher for that matter – to mean that the Jays would be giving up on one of Cecil or McGowan (or Drabek, for that matter).  There’s an old, old saying in the game:  You can never have enough pitching, and Jays fans learned that the hard way in the last part of the last decade, watching pitcher after pitcher hit the disabled list on a regular basis.

That said, Mark Sheldon, who covers the Reds for mlb.com, tells me that Cincinnati won’t be signing Oswalt.

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Mike,

Based on the roster right now (Feb 7th) whats your Jays wish list for this year?

I am pretty happy with the roster as is, and wait for the current jays to continue the learning curve.

Therefore my wish list for 2012 is:
Snider to get it. Much better option than Thames all around.
Colby can hit and lead-off.
Lawrie JP stay healthy for the majoirty of the year to keep developing.
E5 is a great bench player (too streaky for everyday player on a good team…)
Thames /E5 hit out of DH.

Starters Drabek and McGowan are starters. (Romero, Morrow, Alervez, which leaves Cecil out) Not that Cecil is terrible but forgetting current stats I like the others potential versus Cecils.

My only prediction for 2013 is JP is the first baseman with D’ynaud our catcher. Solves both issues.

Moon

Moon,

Let’s start with the last one first.  I wouldn’t expect to ever see J.P. Arencibia playing first base for the Blue Jays on a regular basis.  He’s not a bad defensive catcher (though by all accounts, Travis d’Arnaud is much better), but the bigger issue is his bat.  Behind the plate, Arencibia provides all-star offensive production.  As a first baseman, his bat is well below-average right now, and projects only to be average at best.  His greatest value is as a catcher.  Also, we have seen so many can’t-miss prospects miss over the years that the lesson should have been learned by now – there is absolutely no reason to believe that d’Arnaud will be capable of being a productive major-league starter as soon as 2013.  He may wind up being great, but it could easily take him three or four years to get there, and he may well wind up being an average big-leaguer or worse when all is said and done.

As far as wish lists go, it would really be something to see every young Blue Jay play to his potential – you’ve got a 100-win team if that happens.  Personally, I would like to see Snider be given a legitimate chance to play every day and take advantage of it.  He has the potential to be a 30-30 guy who gets on base regularly and he plays above-average defense.  I’d like to see Rasmus get back to what he was in 2010, but I don’t want him in the leadoff spot, and I’d like to see Kelly Johnson get back to his ’10 form, too.  I’d like to see Lawrie not suffer too much of a sophomore slump and Adam Lind silence his critics by getting back to being an elite hitter again, as he was in 2009 and in the first half of last season.  On the mound, I’d like to see Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow and Sergio Santos continue to improve, healthy seasons out of McGowan (physically) and Cecil (mentally), continued steadiness from Henderson Alvarez and for Kyle Drabek to contribute to the big club in some fashion.

I don’t want Thames DHing, he needs to play every day in the outfield, either in the majors or in AAA.

I don’t believe for a second that all of the above will happen, but there will be surprises, both positive and negative.  What’s unquestionable is that the Blue Jays have an absolute tonne of talent on the 25-man roster, and that we won’t have to suffer through 800+ plate appearances of below-replacement-level production from guys like Corey Patterson, Juan Rivera, Jayson Nix, Mark Teahen, Dewayne Wise and Chris Woodward, or 24 starts from the likes of Jo-Jo Reyes and Brad Mills.

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Before I go, a quick note of congratulations to the newest inductees to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in beautiful St. Marys, Ontario.  The class of 2012 includes Le Grand Orange, Rusty Staub, Brewers’ GM Doug Melvin, 16-year big leaguer Rheal Cormier and the 2011 Men’s Senior Team Canada, gold-medal winners at the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.  Hearty mazel tovs to all, they’ve done this country very, very proud!  The induction ceremony at the Hall will be on the morning of Saturday, June 23rd – the Blue Jays are in Miami that afternoon.

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