Playing Pepper 2009: Toronto Blue Jays

As the players start getting themselves ready for another season, I thought it'd be a good idea to do the same.  I contacted a blogger for each major league team and posted them five questions.  This is the result.  You can find the tentative schedule of teams here and today's main post is right here.

For a while there, it looked like the Blue Jays were trying to become St. Louis North, what with Scott Rolen and David Eckstein manning the left side of the diamond.  A Canadian friend of mine told me at the time that there were shirts up that way that said "St. Toronto Blue Cards" or something similar to that.

Even this offseason, it has continued with Cardinal experiment Matt Clement signing a minor league contract with the Blue Jays.

So what do we know about out friends to the north, besides they play in an extremely tough division and probably here a lot of "eh" jokes?  I talked to the Jays blog uniquely title The Tao of Stieb to see how our old 3B was doing and how things were in the AL East.


C70: What's the latest on Scott Rolen's health?

ToS: We're not exactly in the loop as to Rolen's off season progress, but the undeniable and uncomfortable fact is that he's missed significant time in three of the last four seasons. It seems to us that you'd have to be a bit optimistic to think that the Jays will get more than 140 games out of him in 2009.

But while we're talking about optimism, it's worth noting that Rolen ended the season well, posting an .877 OPS in September/October after sitting out for most of August and rejigging his swing. In our happier moments, we assume this means that everything is going to be A-OK.

C70: What does the pitching rotation look like after Roy Halladay?

ToS: Thin. With the injuries to Shaun Marcum (Tommy John surgery, out until 2010) and Dustin McGowan (due back in May), the rotation lines up pretty much as Halladay and Jesse Litsch and a bunch of question marks. David Purcey could contribute if he improves on his control (29 walks in 65 innings and a 1.48 WHIP), but after him, there are a whole bunch of marginal fifth starters lined up to get innings.

Thank goodness for the bullpen.

C70: How difficult is it to stay optimistic playing in the AL East?

ToS: We tend to do a lot of "glass-half-full" preaching on our blog, but the truth is that as a Jays fan, you spend a lot of time hoping that all manner of cataclysms befall the Red Sox and Yankees. It seems unavoidable that some sort of spectacular failure or convergence of major injuries has to happen for the Jays to squeeze past one of them to win the division of grab the wild card.

What's doubly frustrating is that the Jays brain trust assembled teams that were better than some playoff participants over the past five years, and yet all we hear from the talkerazzi in Toronto is how they are a fourth-place team. If only they could play in the NL West.

As a side note: Did you realize that the 2008 Cards and the 2008 Jays tied for the most wins (86) of any fourth-place team in the Wild Card era?

C70: What's the general consensus about ownership/management?

ToS:  It's not an opinion that we share, but the general consensus now is that Rogers Communications is cheaping out and slashing the payroll, and that J.P. Ricciardi is a BS-er who is running out the string before getting the heave-ho sometime in the next 12 months.

Ricciardi takes a lot of heat for some dubious reasons (He's too much of a Moneyball guy! Only he's really not a Moneyball guy! He makes Five-Year Plans! He doesn't have a plan! He doesn't live in Toronto 365 days a year and drink Tim Horton's coffee and know all of the lyrics to O Canada!)

As for us, we kinda like the guy. We don't always agree with his personnel decisions (David "Scrappy Doo" Eckstein, f'r instance), but we think that on the whole, he's done a good job.

C70: Is Travis Snider guaranteed a roster spot going into spring training, and, if so, what would you expect to see out of him in '09?

ToS: Well, nothing is guaranteed in this life, but we expect that Snider will be the starting left fielder when the team goes north. At most, we could see the Jays sending him to Las Vegas for the first month of the season, but he'll likely get more than 400 ABs this season.

As for what sort of numbers to expect out of The Great Big Giant Pasty White Hope^TM, we think that 20 homers, 80 RBI and an OPS around .840 are reasonable. He'll strike out a lot, which may portend some extended slumps, but ultimately, we see him settling in over the next few years as a Lance Berkman-type of run-producer. (You see, we told you we were optimistic!)

I appreciate the ToS braintrust taking the time to answer these questions.  I really didn't know the Cards and Jays had set that record, but I totally understand people blasting them as a fourth-place team when they were so far over .500.  It's not fair, but apparently it's the world we live in.