Saturday, December 15, 2007

Day 15: Toronto Blue Jays

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Toronto Blue Jays

2007 Regular Season Record: 83-79

Cost per Win: $81,942,800 / 83 = $987,262 per win

2007 Season Recap: I’ll start this off by honestly saying that I don’t know much about the Blue Jays and I don’t think I saw them play a single time last season. They really aren’t on TV at all and they just kind of get lost in the mix when they are in a division with the Yankees and the Red Sox. I do however have plenty of stats at my disposal and I will try my best to paint a good picture of the Blue Jays 2007 season.

The Blue Jays are in a bad place to try and build a team and succeed. When you play against the teams with the 2 highest salaries in baseball every year as many times as they do you are in trouble. The Jays have stepped up their own spending to try and stay competitive but it hasn’t translated into a playoff appearance since 1993 when they won the World Series. In 2007 they ended up 13 games back in the AL East and 11 games back of the wild card berth.

The majority of the Blue Jays salary goes to starting pitching and they had mixed success with their starters in 2007. Their highest paid player, A.J. Burnett, went only 10-8 but missed a portion of the season due to injury; he also had a 3.75 ERA. Their second highest salary earner was another starting pitcher, Roy Halladay. Halladay led the team in wins with 16 and also had an ERA of 3.71.

Offense was something of a problem for the Jays. They didn’t have anyone hit over .300 and Frank Thomas led the team in home runs with 26. The Jays third baseman Troy Glaus made $10.5 million in 2007 and in exchange for that he hit .262 and had 20 home runs. For that amount of money the Jays would certainly like better offensive numbers. Overall the Blue Jays averaged 4.65 runs per game which is a pretty decent number but for comparison the Red Sox averaged 5.35 runs per game. The numbers wouldn’t be that bad since they did post a pretty good record it’s just a matter that they need even better numbers to keep up in that division.

Key Free Agents: SP Josh Towers; To call Towers a key free agent is a serious reach. Last season he had a record of 5 wins and 10 losses and had a 5.38 ERA so he won’t be missed too much they will just need another arm to take his place in the starting rotation. Other than Towers the Blue Jays didn’t actually lose anyone besides a utility infielder.

Offseason Needs: The Jays don’t have any major off-season needs unless they want to spend some big bucks to try and become contenders in their division. They have already added David Eckstein to their roster so he will provide a solid leadoff hitter and a good defensive player at short stop. If they want to contend they will have to spend a good chunk of money on big time bats. If they don’t want to go that route then they need to add a 3rd and 4th pitcher in the rotation that can shut down opposing line-ups. Both routes will be very expensive and the addition of some bats would be a much easier way to do that.

Prediction for the 2008 season: It will be more of the same next season for the Blue Jays. They will beat up on the Tampa Bay Rays and the other teams in the AL they play because they do have a good lineup but it isn’t good enough to win a playoff spot in the AL next season. I expect a similar record as this year and they will finish 3rd in the AL East and be watching the playoffs in Toronto.

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