Little Blue Birds is a Toronto Blue Jays trial column that will look at some points during the Blue Jays’ spring training, regular season, potential post-season and off-season. Below will be four notes relating to news and opinion on the Blue Jays so far.
Spring training is upon us and the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to repeat last year’s magic, it will be a difficult task to repeat, but the players feel that they can make it happen. Here are a few notes regarding these Blue Jays.
Michael Saunders was already a motivated guy when it came to this year’s spring training after last season was derailed due to issues with his already injured knee. Now after he was almost traded to the LA Angels, which was part of a three team trade that would have seen Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jay Bruce become a Blue Jay, you have to think that the Canadian outfielder has gotten even more motivation to put last season’s injuries behind him. So far in five spring training games he has three homeruns, eight RBIs, a .385 average and a 1.505 OPS. If he can transfer this hot spring start to the regular season, then the Blue Jays may want to pretend that he was never even on the trading block. Let’s keep an eye on Saunders shall we.
Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, both want to stay as Blue Jays, however they both want to get paid what they think they deserve and won’t budge for now on the matter. The question is will both these players be in a Blue Jays jersey next year, or even by the trade deadline this season? The questions right now are how much is Rogers ownership willing to give these guys, will Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro give these guys what they want, will they explore trading one of them for a package that would help the Blue Jays win now, or will egos clash and will they lose more of the fans faith by potentially losing these star players? Both players have said they do not want the contract situations to be a distraction for the team while the regular season is going on. It’s easier said than done when a large media market like Toronto is breathing down their necks for stories. So fans, do yourself a favor and try not to get sucked into a lot of things that the sports media outlets might do to get the fans riled up.
Why is it that since Roy Halladay left for Philadelphia the same narrative happens with pitching, the Blue Jays still don’t have a Halladay, David Price type pitcher anymore, seeing as they didn’t try to sign Price, or bring in a top pitcher to fill that role? Marcus Stroman is set to be the opening day starter for the Blue Jays which is a good thing, R.A. Dickey and Marco Estrada are ready to go in the 2-3 spots and no, I didn’t forget about J.A. Happ he’s there too, but once again the Blue Jays are facing the same annoying issue they had last year.
Who will take the number 5 spot? Drew Hutchison, Aaron Sanchez and Gavin Floyd are just a few guys to name that have a shot at the fifth spot and frankly, one of those three will most likely take the spot, unless someone comes out of left field (no pun intended) and really makes a splash. The rotation still could use a boost and if the Blue Jays were to send Sanchez in the bullpen, that wouldn’t be so bad seeing as they would have Sanchez, Brett Cecil, Drew Storen and Roberto Osuna and that’s not bad company to be with. Let’s just hope for the Blue Jay’s sake that the top three pitchers have a good start, because if they struggle and the Blue Jays once again have a revolving door of pitchers in the fourth and fifth spot well, it could be a really long season, and after last year’s success no one wants that.
One final note to share with everyone, it was announced recently that the two exhibition games in Montreal between the Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox are almost sold out. It was also announced that there is a huge chance that over 100,000 people will be at the games and as always when you have attendance that big, for a game like this, it’s always good news for Montreal and baseball in Canada in general. There should also be a lot of Red Sox fans in that crowd which could make it an interesting weekend at the Big O.
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