As hinted at last week in this space, it is time to wrap up the Toronto Blue Jays season.
Overall, the season unfolded, at least in terms of wins and losses, as was expected. The team flirted with 100 loses, ending up with 95, against 67 wins. They were among the dregs of baseball this year, with only four teams having a worse winning percentage.
That said, 14 teams finished under .500, and four teams did lose 100-games. It is only the second time that has occurred.
Conversely four teams won 100-games, a MLB first.
It was one of those years. With what has clearly been a ‘juiced’ baseball, MLB set a new record for home runs this year, with 6,685 homers in the majors, almost 600 more than the previous record of 6,105 set in 2017.
The league also set a record for strikeouts, with batters whiffing nearly 43,000 times in 2019.
But, back to the Jays, where fans knew going into the season this was a major transition year, and that is exactly what transpired.
In terms of position players all went about as well as you could have hoped.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Reese McGuire and Danny Jansen have all looked solid, and create a definite core to build around moving forward. Watching this group emerge saved a season where wins were in short supply, and yes I watched a lot of Jay’s ball. Thanks to my better half liking the Jays, and the DVR feature allowing for flipping past advertising to trim an hour-plus out of most games, baseball was often on the tube in the house, to the tune of about 120-games this season.
What was missing was starting pitchers to provide the same hope for the future as the aforementioned position players.
Anthony Kay, Jacob Waguespack and Trent Thorton showed flashes that suggest they can pencil into the backend of a rotation, but there is no ‘ace’ among the myriad of pitchers the Jays sent to the hill this season – including Marcus Stroman, who was the only real stumble the team made when they traded him away.
This year the losses were allowable in my mind because you knew the young players were arriving and for the most part that went well.
But, in 2020, the Jays need to take a step. That sadly will be difficult.
It would be good to see the team at least flirt with .500, but they will need at least a couple of pitchers to top-off the staff, and the young arms can’t falter, although they have half a dozen hurlers who could factor at the backend of a starting staff.
The Jays also need to avoid the dreaded sophomore jinx, which seems a real thing, as players often take at least a small step back in their second year. The core group are all basically rookies, so even one, or two stumbling, and it is likely to be another 65-win type season, and that will make watching the team more frustrating than this year.
