Looking a Little Ahead

With the first month of the season in the books, it seems as though every team is now beginning to settle into the grind just a little bit. After today’s tilt, the Jays have played 29 games – or, as some of us prefer to understand it, almost three-quarters of the way into the 40-game window that the team has said it’s allowing itself before making any significant lineup changes. Perhaps that’s unfair, given the relative success the team has enjoyed (they’re still three games over. 500 despite today’s result), but the gaps in the offensive makeup of this team are pretty glaringly obvious right now.

In this spirit of pessimistic impatience, I decided to take out my imaginary universal remote (people still have those, right?) and fast-forward things. But not just eleven more games; I wanted to talk to a bona fide expert on the team as it entered that elusive period of “meaningful baseball” in August in September. But you’d be surprised how hard it is to find an actual baseball expert with the ability to time travel. So I settled for a bit of a know-it-all who watched Back to the Future a lot as a kid – yours truly. Here’s the transcript of the conversation between present-day me and August 28th me.

Present Me: So… how’s it going?

Future Me: Meh. The usual. Lawn has weeds.

PM: But I took so much time this spring to get rid of those! Fertilizer, aeration, overseeding, the works!

FM: You’re stupid. That shit never works. Stop trying.

PM: Duly noted. I was really only interested in how the Jays are doing. Playoff spot in the offing?

FM: Looked pretty good there through the end of June. They’re sitting four back of a wild card right now, but young pitching will break your heart, and it’s starting to. Well, maybe that’s a little harsh. Drabek kept things rolling nicely for a while, but the season seems to have worn on him. Hutchison and Alvarez have pitched well enough, but they’re not even 23 yet, and they blow up occasionally in ugly ways. Those four McGowan starts weren’t particularly memorable either. Morrow will get some Cy Young votes with the season he’s having, though, and Romero has been his steady stuff.

PM: What about the bats?

FM: It’s all kind of evened out. Lawrie’s super-hot July seemed to peter out badly and he looked overmatched by some of the top AL arms into August. And our expectations of Bautista were so high, it’s hard for a lot of fans to accept that he’s *only* going to hit 30 or so home runs this year. Everyone else has been right about where you’d expect, with the exception of Encarnacion, who continues to be an offensive revelation.

PM: Right where I’d expect? That doesn’t leave me with a very warm fuzzy feeling, especially considering what my expectations for Adam Lind actually were.

FM: Well, that’s the good news. Things never picked up substantially for Lind after the dismal start to the season, but the team did begin to show some flexibility with him. It started with him moving down in the order, and drawing out of the lineup entirely about twice a week. It’s led to a few more at-bats for Ben Francisco (and you thought there was no reason to have him on the roster!). He isn’t a dominant force or anything, but he’s producing at least what Lind would have in the same spots. So score one for sanity and reason.

PM: Well, none of this sounds very inspiring, quite frankly.

FM: Dog days, I guess. But even as the season starts to really drag, there are still exciting things happening with the team. They’re better than they were last year. They’re better than some teams that were expected to be better than them.

PM: What about Snider? Did he make the jump?

FM: Thames never played badly enough to justify sending him down, and they didn’t just call him up to fill a roster spot when Rajai Davis missed 20 games. He wasn’t the only injury that required a fill-in for a while, but they seem to be committed to ensuring Snider has a full season of at-bats at one level. But he’s still raking. Twenty-two jacks and a .920 OPS. They’re going to have a hell of a time keeping him out of the majors next year, either with the Jays or someone else.

PM: Any other surprises? For the Jays or anyone else?

FM: Well, there’s that absolute runaway going on in the AL West, with Texas running 16 games ahead of the second place Angels. That’s really opened up the wild card race. And the fact that neither Prince Fielder nor Albert Pujols have put up the monster seasons everyone expected – that’s a surprise too. But the injuries may have had something to do with that too.

PM: Jeez, injuries, eh? Quite a rash of them?

FM: Well, zombie attacks will do that to teams. Rajai was lucky to only miss 20 games, and lucky they found a way to re-attach his right calf with no lasting effects. That was a tough July for everyone.

PM: I’m gonna go now. Maybe board up that busted screen door while I have it on my mind.

FM: Good idea.

Get Ready for the Future

Coming into this year, the notion of "The Future" for the Jays was a dreadful one.

We say this mostly because the future was some unattainable goal, far down the road and only in some sort of hypothetical world where the Jays budget suddenly increases, and all of the draft picks pan out and the Yanks and Sox decline and the Rays return to the mean and the Orioles continue to suck. Once you start using that many cards to build your house, it's easy to see how it falls apart before you even have it built.

But the past week has been an interesting one for us. Maybe we've dropped our rationalistic guard a bit, or maybe we're just a little more attuned to what's going on inside. Whatever it is, we have to admit to feeling very differently about this team. Much of this new, weird feeling likely comes from the lead up to the non-waiver trade deadline, and what the action (and lack thereof) says about the direction that's being taken, and the current state of the franchise.

As the Jays moved from the spring to the summer months, the conventional wisdom held that the team would eventually stop competing and sell off just about everything that wasn't nailed to the turf. It's the sort of thing that signals to the fans that you've given up, and that you're just trying to make the most of whatever shit sandwich platter you have in front of you. But the moves made through Alex Anthopoulos' inaugural season at the helm have shown exceptional foresight, and an ability to recognize that moving early in some situations and standing pat in others can remove you from the perfunctory urgency brought on by the arbitrary dates on the baseball calendar.

Acquiring Fred Lewis early in the season and Yunel Escobar well ahead of the trade deadline helped set the Jays up to a point where they didn't need to move near the deadline. Moreover, the decision to move Brett Wallace - heartily criticized by yours truly on Twitter in the moments after it was announced - was facilitated by the fact that the Blue Jays have a plethora of corner infield and outfield options that are under control and reasonably priced. Even without Wallace's high ceiling bat (and fat ass) next season, there's a full cupboard for now and next year, and something (in Anthony Gose) for down the road.

As we've been moving the tiles in the slide puzzle around, it amazes us how many premium pieces there are already on the Blue Jays roster, and how little room there will be next year for new faces in new places on the 25 man roster. The Blue Jays could legitimately not pick up a single piece in the offseason, and still assemble a roster that has the potential to win 90 or more games in 2011. J.P. Arencibia and Kyle Drabek may well shift into the big club's plans for next year, as will Brad Mills, Josh Roenicke, and Marc Rzpeczynski.

A new first and/or third baseman may need to be found, although the Jays won't need to shell out in free agency or the trade market to pull in someone, especially when internal options include moving either Aaron Hill or José Bautista to third and possibly Adam Lind to first. Or they can settle for a player who is posting a 106 OPS+ in the coming year. Say what you will: Edwin Encarnacion is not a bad option.

(And to drive home the point, as Wilner has through much of this season: EE's career OPS is 30 points higher than Aaron Hill's. Cover their names, and you'd almost certainly pick EE to be on your roster.)

Through all of this, we're finding something to grasp that isn't a vision of the Jays that we're talking ourselves into. (If you want examples of that particular mindset, may we suggest the 1500 or so posts on this blog.) To us, the future seems less like something tantalizingly out of reach, and more like something that's about to come sharply into focus.

It's truly an exciting time to be a Blue Jays fan.