The Blue Jays offseason is set to begin after a fantastic 2015 season. By now, you all know that the Toronto Blue Jays fell to the Kansas City Royals in game six of the ALCS, game that may leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the Blue Jays faithful for a while. It was a crazy game that featured two missed balks, a bad strike call on Ben Revere, and a fan who apparently interfered with the ball in play which lead to a Royals home run.
The Kansas City Royals were the feel-good story last postseason. This year they played like a team that aged more than five years. They had a wealth of experience and majority of their core from last year was still there.
The Jays had a chance in this series, but the Royals were a hard team to beat and knew how to hold leads and take advantage of the Blue Jays weaknesses. They played well, and we need to acknowledge that.
This postseason also showed many Jays fans that winning in October isn’t easy.
If there was one glaring issue for the Jays in this series, and there were a few, it was the bullpen. It had its holes in the first half of the season, but those holes were addressed with the additions of LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe. Unfortunately, Brett Cecil got injured early in the ALDS and manager John Gibbons only seemed to have confidence in Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna for majority of the games. Those two rookies were great, but when the Royals got to see them almost every game, it gave the batters a chance to figure them out. Gibbons’ management of his pitching was poor at best, and his lack of confidence in his pen was an unfortunate and a classic Gibbons moment.
Aside from that, the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans should be very proud of what they accomplished: they made the playoffs for the first time in twenty-two years, they won a playoff series for the first time since 1993, and they came back from a 2-0 deficit to win the ALDS in memorable fashion.
Now the Blue Jays will look ahead to the 2016 season and hopefully build off the success of 2015. Since the trade deadline, they were one of the best teams in the league and that offense should stay relatively the same. They will have potential MVP Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzky, Jose Bautista, and Ben Revere. The Jays should also have a healthy Michael Saunders and Devon Travis. They do have some contracts to work on, but they will have that great offense again next season.
This will also be Mark Shapiro’s first year as team president. His first tasks will be to extend Alex Anthopoulos and work on the team’s rotation and bullpen for next season. R.A. Dickey has a team option and Marco Estrada and David Price are set to be free agents. If this team wants to continue to be one of the top teams in the league, they need to make sure their rotation has a mix of home grown players like Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchison, and players like Estrada and Price. If not for Estrada, the playoffs would have ended even sooner. David Price did what he had to do in the regular season and wasn’t terrible in the playoffs.
It will probably cost a lot of money to keep both Price and Estrada, but hopefully the Jays can find a way to give these two players good deals. If they can only keep one that won’t be a problem, but if they lose both and fail to replace them with free agents or a trade, the team could be in a tough situation. That will be another interesting situation to monitor in the outset of Shapiro’s tenure. The Jays have that five-year limit on the contracts, but it remains to be seen if the new regime will retain that policy. It could cost the Blue Jays more money to keep this team strong, but all those sell outs at the end of the season will be worth it.
The Jays will have some time to figure out what their first off season move will be. Hopefully, it will be extending Anthopoulos. From there, they can find a way to make the next season as exciting and successful as the last.For now, Blue Jays fans, let’s all tip our caps or raise a glass to the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, because that was a lot of fun to watch.
Main Photo:
