Post by Strategist on Jan 22, 2020 0:48:45 GMT
2018 Review:
Record: 104-58 1st in AL East. R/G Scored: 3rd (AL) R/G Against: 2nd (AL)
Finished with the best record in the AL. Won Div Series 3-2 of LAA. Won ALCS 4-1 over TEX. Lost WS 4-3 to WAS. Of note was down 0-3, won the next 3 games then lost game 7 in gut wrenching fashion 4-3 in the 14th.
Starting the Offseason:
Lineup: The defending AL champs were starting out with a solid lineup. It didn't have any superstars but did have solid above average contributers in SS Elvis Andrus, 1B Josh Bell, 2B Dee Gordon, and 3B Nick Castellanos. Defensive stalwarts C Austin Hedges behind the plate, and CF Billy Hamilton patrolling the CF. Did have a few holes in RF and LF with the loss of Andrew Mccutchen to FA. To fill one of these hole the Blue Jays went out and signed 3B Mike Moustakas and moved Castellanos to RF. Also Signed Jose Baustista to a small contract to see if maybe he could catch lighting in a bottle and have bounce back year. All in all like noted before no superstar just a lot of solid professional hitters.
Rotation: Lead by Clayton Kershaw who had finished 2nd in AL Cy Young and a candidate for best pitcher of his generation was back. Followed by a very good Marcus Stroman and solid Micheal Fulmer. A bit of a fall off after those 3. Kyle Gibson, FA signing Lance Lynn, Jordan Lyles and Robbie Erlin were going to be in contention to fill the final 2 spots in the rotation.
Bullpen: Had an awesome back end of the rotation with the triumphant of Dellin Betances, Trevor Rosenthal, and Carson Smith. Probably could have used a little bit of depth bot those 3 could compare to the best 3 of anyone else in the league.
Early/Mid/Late Season:
Started out 7-0 and looked like they would be one of the teams to beat. Unfortunately that was about the high point of the season for the Blue Jays. Going 10-15 in Apr and 13-15 in May the Jays made a move to fill in their LF hole and boost the bullpen trading for RP Ken Giles, and LF Yeonis Cespedes. That did not spur a turn around. The Jays would go 9-18 in June and decide to make some more moves that were focused more towards the future. Trading away Kershaw, Stroman, Moustakas, Hedges, Smith, and Betances. Would finihsed with losing records the last 3 months of the seasons as expected with the move towards a rebuild.
Conclusion:
The team would finish 64-98 finishing 5th in the AL East. Hard to look at the end of the season stats and rankings and get a good sense of what went wrong in those first 3 months because with all the trades they would finished at the bottom of most offensive and pitching categories.
Lineup: 13th (AL) runs scored. Bell was their best hitter that they had for the full season going .264/.341/.474 27 HRs and a 116 OPS+. Another noticable offensive performance was from Hamilton who would steal 76 SBs in just 117 GP which would have been 103 over 162 games. Castellanos was solid but most others were below average offensive players for 2019.
Rotation: 13th (AL) starters' ERA. After all of the trades Lance Lynn was the only SP to finish the season with the team and have an ERA under 5.00. Kershaw did pitch awesome while with the team going 10-5 with a 2.81 ERA in 18 GS.
Bullpen: 15th (AL) Bullpen ERA. Surprised that the bullpen didn't preform better. Smith pitched awesome in a half of a season but Betances and Rosenthals struggled mightily along with several of the other depth bullpen pieces.
After coming within 1 win of winning the World Series it was quite a shock at how every facet of the Jays under performed the first half of the season. I wouldn't have thought they would have won 104 games again as that is very hard to do but I thought they would have been right there competing for the division again. Likewise the computer generated preseason projections had them finishing with a 83-79 record and within 3 games of 1st place. So obviously got quite unlucky. The Jays didn't just rest as they made several moves to improve their future.
Trades Overview:
RP Emilio Pagan, 1B Rowdy Tellez, and 3B Ryder Jones to SEA for LF Yoenis Cespedes, and RP Ken Giles - Cespedes contract made his value very low but with Giles added in some value. Pagan was a very good RP this season IRL but was mostely below average to average before that. Tellez is a mid tier prospect and Jones at this point is mostly a non prospect. Overall didn't give up a ton of value trying to boost their lineup and bullpen.
SP Clayton Kershaw to SEA for 3B Kris Bryant, SP Daniel Lynch, and SP Ryan Weathers - Starting pitching prospects are volatile but still getting off of Kershaw's long term contract and getting 2 very good pitching prospects along with Bryant I think was a great move for next year and the future.
SP Marcus Stroman to SD for SP Alex Young, SS Mauricio Dubon, 2B Danny Mendick, SP Daniel Ponce De Leon and CF Juan Lagares - Young wasn't much of a prospect after struggling much of the past 2 season in the minors but did get 17 starts for the DBacks and pitched ok. Dubon and Leon also played in the major this season and held their own. Lageres was a salary dump. Mendick is a low end prospect in the White Sox organization. Overall a lot of usable pieces that have some upside for Stroman who only has 1.5 years of control left.
3B Mike Moustakas to NYM for RF Yusniel Diaz, SP Blaine Knight, and Sam Delaplane - I think this was good value for Moustakas as Diaz is a top 100 prospect who performed well in AA this season. Knight and Delaplane are low tier prospects. If the Jays were looking to compete next season a middle of the lineup combination for Bell, Bryant and Moustakas would have been a very good starting point. So this trade makes me wonder if more moves will be made this offseason to either compete or further rebuild.
C Austin Hedges and RP Carson Smith to TB for C Matt Wieters, RP Marshal Kasowski, 2B Isiah Kiner-Falefa and SP Corey Oswalt - With how Hedges hit IRL his future value was very near rock bottom. Carson Smith has only pithced in 29 games over the last 4 seasons. His time of getting elite RP projections and ratings has to near. The value got back wasn't much as neither of the 3 are really much of prospects anymore. This whole trade is doesn't really move the needle 1 way or another for me.
RP Dellin Betances to CLE for SP Bruce Zimmerman, 3B Will Toffey, and SS Nick Maton - Of course I was a part of this trade and honestly looking back might have paid too much with Betances being a rental. So likewise I think the Jays did a very good deal especially if you compare it to other deals for RP that were moved around the deadline. All 3 prospects are in the top 15 of their organizational lists.
FA Overview:
3B Mike Moustaskas 4 yr 80 Mil - As noted on the NYM writeup I think this is a very fair value for Moose. Hit like crap with a .216 average for TOR in a half of a season and then shipped of to NYM for a good return. B+
RF Jose Bautista 1 yr 1 Mil - .211/.345/.391 98 OPS+ in 53 GP before getting hurt for the rest of the season. Ok production from a transaction that had no risk. C
SP Lance Lynn 1 yr 1.4 Mil - 8-9 4.41 ERA in 28 GS. A little better than average SP production at a very low cost and had no risk. C+
Overall: B. Good signing with Moustakas and 2 little signings. Money well spent.
Future:
Salary Cap: 140.1 Mil. Next year's cap doesn't look great but the following year after Cespedes and probably Gordon contracts come off the books looks a lot better with the only player signed past 2021 is Elvis Andrus. Castellanos is the only real FA of note and will probably be someone that the Jays look to bring back.
Needs: I am not sure what their plan is for next season. They have a very good minor league system but most of the top talent is a few years away from contributing. If they wanted to compete they would have to move a lot of their minor league depth to fill in the holes in their rotation. If not looking to complete I could see them making some more moves like trying to moving Andrus, Cespedes, Rosenthals, Giles and others for even more prospects.
Record: 104-58 1st in AL East. R/G Scored: 3rd (AL) R/G Against: 2nd (AL)
Finished with the best record in the AL. Won Div Series 3-2 of LAA. Won ALCS 4-1 over TEX. Lost WS 4-3 to WAS. Of note was down 0-3, won the next 3 games then lost game 7 in gut wrenching fashion 4-3 in the 14th.
Starting the Offseason:
Lineup: The defending AL champs were starting out with a solid lineup. It didn't have any superstars but did have solid above average contributers in SS Elvis Andrus, 1B Josh Bell, 2B Dee Gordon, and 3B Nick Castellanos. Defensive stalwarts C Austin Hedges behind the plate, and CF Billy Hamilton patrolling the CF. Did have a few holes in RF and LF with the loss of Andrew Mccutchen to FA. To fill one of these hole the Blue Jays went out and signed 3B Mike Moustakas and moved Castellanos to RF. Also Signed Jose Baustista to a small contract to see if maybe he could catch lighting in a bottle and have bounce back year. All in all like noted before no superstar just a lot of solid professional hitters.
Rotation: Lead by Clayton Kershaw who had finished 2nd in AL Cy Young and a candidate for best pitcher of his generation was back. Followed by a very good Marcus Stroman and solid Micheal Fulmer. A bit of a fall off after those 3. Kyle Gibson, FA signing Lance Lynn, Jordan Lyles and Robbie Erlin were going to be in contention to fill the final 2 spots in the rotation.
Bullpen: Had an awesome back end of the rotation with the triumphant of Dellin Betances, Trevor Rosenthal, and Carson Smith. Probably could have used a little bit of depth bot those 3 could compare to the best 3 of anyone else in the league.
Early/Mid/Late Season:
Started out 7-0 and looked like they would be one of the teams to beat. Unfortunately that was about the high point of the season for the Blue Jays. Going 10-15 in Apr and 13-15 in May the Jays made a move to fill in their LF hole and boost the bullpen trading for RP Ken Giles, and LF Yeonis Cespedes. That did not spur a turn around. The Jays would go 9-18 in June and decide to make some more moves that were focused more towards the future. Trading away Kershaw, Stroman, Moustakas, Hedges, Smith, and Betances. Would finihsed with losing records the last 3 months of the seasons as expected with the move towards a rebuild.
Conclusion:
The team would finish 64-98 finishing 5th in the AL East. Hard to look at the end of the season stats and rankings and get a good sense of what went wrong in those first 3 months because with all the trades they would finished at the bottom of most offensive and pitching categories.
Lineup: 13th (AL) runs scored. Bell was their best hitter that they had for the full season going .264/.341/.474 27 HRs and a 116 OPS+. Another noticable offensive performance was from Hamilton who would steal 76 SBs in just 117 GP which would have been 103 over 162 games. Castellanos was solid but most others were below average offensive players for 2019.
Rotation: 13th (AL) starters' ERA. After all of the trades Lance Lynn was the only SP to finish the season with the team and have an ERA under 5.00. Kershaw did pitch awesome while with the team going 10-5 with a 2.81 ERA in 18 GS.
Bullpen: 15th (AL) Bullpen ERA. Surprised that the bullpen didn't preform better. Smith pitched awesome in a half of a season but Betances and Rosenthals struggled mightily along with several of the other depth bullpen pieces.
After coming within 1 win of winning the World Series it was quite a shock at how every facet of the Jays under performed the first half of the season. I wouldn't have thought they would have won 104 games again as that is very hard to do but I thought they would have been right there competing for the division again. Likewise the computer generated preseason projections had them finishing with a 83-79 record and within 3 games of 1st place. So obviously got quite unlucky. The Jays didn't just rest as they made several moves to improve their future.
Trades Overview:
RP Emilio Pagan, 1B Rowdy Tellez, and 3B Ryder Jones to SEA for LF Yoenis Cespedes, and RP Ken Giles - Cespedes contract made his value very low but with Giles added in some value. Pagan was a very good RP this season IRL but was mostely below average to average before that. Tellez is a mid tier prospect and Jones at this point is mostly a non prospect. Overall didn't give up a ton of value trying to boost their lineup and bullpen.
SP Clayton Kershaw to SEA for 3B Kris Bryant, SP Daniel Lynch, and SP Ryan Weathers - Starting pitching prospects are volatile but still getting off of Kershaw's long term contract and getting 2 very good pitching prospects along with Bryant I think was a great move for next year and the future.
SP Marcus Stroman to SD for SP Alex Young, SS Mauricio Dubon, 2B Danny Mendick, SP Daniel Ponce De Leon and CF Juan Lagares - Young wasn't much of a prospect after struggling much of the past 2 season in the minors but did get 17 starts for the DBacks and pitched ok. Dubon and Leon also played in the major this season and held their own. Lageres was a salary dump. Mendick is a low end prospect in the White Sox organization. Overall a lot of usable pieces that have some upside for Stroman who only has 1.5 years of control left.
3B Mike Moustakas to NYM for RF Yusniel Diaz, SP Blaine Knight, and Sam Delaplane - I think this was good value for Moustakas as Diaz is a top 100 prospect who performed well in AA this season. Knight and Delaplane are low tier prospects. If the Jays were looking to compete next season a middle of the lineup combination for Bell, Bryant and Moustakas would have been a very good starting point. So this trade makes me wonder if more moves will be made this offseason to either compete or further rebuild.
C Austin Hedges and RP Carson Smith to TB for C Matt Wieters, RP Marshal Kasowski, 2B Isiah Kiner-Falefa and SP Corey Oswalt - With how Hedges hit IRL his future value was very near rock bottom. Carson Smith has only pithced in 29 games over the last 4 seasons. His time of getting elite RP projections and ratings has to near. The value got back wasn't much as neither of the 3 are really much of prospects anymore. This whole trade is doesn't really move the needle 1 way or another for me.
RP Dellin Betances to CLE for SP Bruce Zimmerman, 3B Will Toffey, and SS Nick Maton - Of course I was a part of this trade and honestly looking back might have paid too much with Betances being a rental. So likewise I think the Jays did a very good deal especially if you compare it to other deals for RP that were moved around the deadline. All 3 prospects are in the top 15 of their organizational lists.
FA Overview:
3B Mike Moustaskas 4 yr 80 Mil - As noted on the NYM writeup I think this is a very fair value for Moose. Hit like crap with a .216 average for TOR in a half of a season and then shipped of to NYM for a good return. B+
RF Jose Bautista 1 yr 1 Mil - .211/.345/.391 98 OPS+ in 53 GP before getting hurt for the rest of the season. Ok production from a transaction that had no risk. C
SP Lance Lynn 1 yr 1.4 Mil - 8-9 4.41 ERA in 28 GS. A little better than average SP production at a very low cost and had no risk. C+
Overall: B. Good signing with Moustakas and 2 little signings. Money well spent.
Future:
Salary Cap: 140.1 Mil. Next year's cap doesn't look great but the following year after Cespedes and probably Gordon contracts come off the books looks a lot better with the only player signed past 2021 is Elvis Andrus. Castellanos is the only real FA of note and will probably be someone that the Jays look to bring back.
Needs: I am not sure what their plan is for next season. They have a very good minor league system but most of the top talent is a few years away from contributing. If they wanted to compete they would have to move a lot of their minor league depth to fill in the holes in their rotation. If not looking to complete I could see them making some more moves like trying to moving Andrus, Cespedes, Rosenthals, Giles and others for even more prospects.