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John Farrell Blue Jays

AL East Report: Four-Way Tie At The Top

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The AL East is tightly bunched up right now, with four teams tied at the top with 10-7 record and only the Red Sox having achieved some separation in the wrong direction.  Toronto and Baltimore are right there with the more heralded Yankees and Rays. TheSportsNotebook runs through all five teams to see how the first two and a half weeks of play have shaken out…

NY Yanks (10-7): I think what we’ve seen from this Yankee team is mostly what we’ll get. There’s a ton of offense, with Derek Jeter continuing to defy age and those of us who say he’s finished, as The Captain is hitting over .400 and has popped four home runs. Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson are swinging the bats well, and even catcher Russell Martin has a .400 OBP. While Martin had a hot start last year before declining, any fall-off from him will likely be picked up by Mark Teixeira, in his usual April deep-freeze, and Robinson Cano, who isn’t hitting badly, but hasn’t really found his All-Star caliber rhythm yet. The issue is going to be starting pitching. C.C. Sabathia, like Teixeira, has April problems that are well-documented, so his 5.27 ERA after four starts isn’t sending off any alarm bells. But in spite of last night’s good outing in Texas, Hiroki Kuroda has gotten roughed up and Freddy Garcia’s 9.75 ERA is showing that last year was probably his swan song as an effective major league pitcher. We can grant Sabathia’s resurgence, which moves the Yanks up into the 90-95 win category, which is probably enough to win the division, but it’s not the standards this team measures itself by, nor does it make them an undisputed frontrunner.

Tampa Bay (10-7): Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena have come out blasting, each with OBPs on the high side of .400 and slugging percentages in the high .500s. Matt Joyce is also sizzling hot and these three hitters have kept Tampa Bay in the top five of the American League in runs scored. They will need more depth to the attack and the best bets to come through are second baseman Ben Zobrist and leftfielder Desmond Jennings, the latter being a young prospect in his first full season in the majors. The top three of the rotation—David Price, James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson—is settled in, but highly touted Matt Moore is struggling. A big part of Tampa Bay’s presumed success this season was built on the presumed stardom of Jennings and Moore, based on very limited time last year. That’s a lot to presume and why I stand by my preseason prediction that this team would not win 90 games. One area that is getting cleared up is the bullpen, where Fernando Rodney has nailed all five of his save chances with a buck-23 ERA.

Toronto (10-7): The Jays are playing winning baseball and Jose Bautista has only hit one home run. The team’s meal ticket has taken 14 walks and with no one else in the lineup besides second baseman Kelly Johnson getting on base consistently, there’s no reason for anyone to give Bautista anything to hit. Johnson has been the team’s best offensive player in April, with a .395/.459 OBP/Slugging line. But while other players—Edwin Encarcion and Colby Rasmus—are hitting with some power, there’s a problem with table-setting. Either that gets fixed, or there will be some long offensive droughts ahead, with Bautista getting bases-empty walks. Manager John Farrell’s expertise is pitching and he’s got a reliable top three right now with Ricky Romero steady, and Brandon Morrow and Kyle Drabek coming through early on.

Baltimore (10-7): Adam Jones’ contract situation is a topic of conversation in Baltimore, with the centerfielder coming up on free agency this offseason. He’s hitting .304 and has hit five home runs already. It was a mistake for the Oriole front office to leave him without an extension this long, and with him off to a hot start, his price tag only rises each day. The team must re-sign Jones and make him, along with Matt Wieters, the cornerstone of their rebuilding. Wieters, by the way, is hitting the ball almost as well as Jones and with improvement each year he’s been in the majors, has become arguably the American League’s best catcher. Pitching is the big concern in Charm City, and in that light, the solid April of Japanese import Wei-Yin Chen is heartening, the poor month of Brian Matusz disappointing, but the fate of the staff ultimately rests with Jake Arrieta and Tommy Hunter. Each have ERAs in the 4s and can swing either direction going forward.

Boston (6-10):  It’s not the offense that’s weighing Boston down, as last Saturday’s epic collapse against New York showed, when the Sox blew a 9-0 lead and lost 15-9. Not only is David Ortiz locked in early, along with Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez, but question marks like Mike Aviles, Ryan Sweeney and Cody Ross are making significant offensive contributions. The starting rotation is troubled—Felix Doubront’s 3.94 ERA is a nice story, but when it’s the best in your rotation you’ve got issues. That is somewhat misleading—Josh Beckett is at 4.56, with the ERA coming down rapidly as he’s pitched extremely well three straight times after a disastrous first outing. The issue is the bullpen. Daniel Bard made an appearance out of the pen on Monday in Minnesota, so it’s looking like the Red Sox might be coming to their senses and putting Bard back where he belongs. In a division where there’s no clearly great team and in a playoff format that now has two wild-cards, Boston certainly has time to turn it around, but they have to demonstrate they can get through the last nine outs of a game without giving New England a collective heart attack.

MLB March Report: Toronto Blue Jays

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The Toronto Blue Jays have been a steady, winning franchise for several years now. Four times in the last six years they’ve won more than they’ve lost. Of the two non-winning seasons one was last year’s 81-81 campaign and they only losing season was 75-87. Not bad. But in the rugged AL East it hasn’t gotten them within sniffing distance of the playoffs. Now the MLB has added an extra wild-card to the postseason format, perhaps that can change. TheSportsNotebook sizes up Toronto’s chances in 2012 based on their ability to get on base, hit for power, starting pitching and relief pitching.

ABILITY TO GET ON BASE: In a division renowned for lineups that grind up starting pitchers with long at-bats and good walk totals setting the stage for power surges, Toronto has question marks when it comes to players who can set the table. The answers to the questions hinge on four players—second baseman Kelly Johnson, third baseman Brett Lawrie, shortstop Yunel Escobar and centerfielder Colby Rasmus.

Johnson played at an All-Star level for Arizona in 2010 and had a good year in Atlanta in 2008. Each ensuing year he was terrible. If the pattern of new city/even-numbered year continues, then manager John Farrell will have someone who can put up good OBP numbers. At the very least, Johnson shouldn’t be the complete liability he was in Arizona last season. Lawrie is being given the third base job at the tender age of 22, and he had a .373 OBP in 150 at-bats a year ago. Escobar had the best year of his career at 29 last year, thanks mainly due to a sharp increase in his batting average. Even if he doesn’t hit, he’s still patient enough at the plate to at least be respectable. If he continues to hit, he becomes a major asset. We’re now waiting to find out if 2011 was a one-year wonder or a player taking his game to a new level. Finally we come to Rasmus, who had a great year in 2010, was off to a great start last year and then completely tanked. That was in St. Louis, and Rasmus fell out of favor with manager Tony LaRussa and was shipped north at the trade deadline. Rasmus is only 25 years old and I think the Jays got a great deal in picking him up. So all four of these players—Johnson, Lawrie, Escobar and Rasmus, have legitimate question marks and none is a slam dunk, it’s also very realistic to think that all four will play well in 2012.

POWER: It’s all built around Jose Bautista. The rightfielder has hit 97 home runs over the past two years and last year showed his ability to put the ball in play, as he lifted his batting average forty points and past the .300 threshold. Lawrie and Rasmus are expected to be supporting players in this area, and catcher J.P. Arencibia hit 23 home runs last year. Arencibia needs to be more consistent when he’s not going deep, but at 26 and with just one year of starting in the big leagues, there’s every reason to think improvement is on the way. A couple other contributors could be DH Edwin Encarcion, who is an above-average offensive player, but given he does nothing other than hit, it seems fair for Farrell to want more than that. And Eric Thames slugged .456 in part-time duty as the leftfielder a year ago.

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STARTING PITCHING: Unless you play in a deep Fantasy League you may not have heard for Ricky Romero, but the 27-year-old Toronto lefty is a pitcher steadily on the rise. He’s had three years in the majors and has improved in every major category every single year. The wins have gone from 13-14-15. ERA has dropped from 4.30 to 3.73 to 2.92. Innings pitched have jumped from 178 to 210 to 225. At this rate, he’s one small step from winning the Cy Young Award. And that’s what he’ll have to do—or at least get very close—if his team is going to push for a spot in the wild-card game. Brandon Morrow and Brett Cecil are right behind him, and while both are still young, at 27 and 25 respectively, neither has given signs of imminent development. Dustin McGowan hasn’t been healthy consistently since 2007. Toronto’s best bet after Romero is 21-year-old Henderson Alvarez who posted a 3.53 ERA in ten starts last season.

RELIEF PITCHING: Farrell has fantastic depth in his bullpen this year, giving him plenty of options for covering the weaknesses of the starting rotation. At the back end Sergio Santos is expected to be the closer, after showing he could handle that role with the White Sox. But the Jays also signed Francisco Cordero. While he’s 36 years old, Cordero has been going strong as a closer for several years now, including 37 saves with a 2.45 ERA in Cincinnati last year. One way or the other, the 8th and 9th innings look to be in very good hands.

The depth in front of these two is imposing. Jason Frasor has become a reliable middle man, and can also handle a heavy workload. Darren Oliver is 41 years old, but has been a vital part of playoff bullpens with the Mets (2006), the Angels (2007-09), and the Rangers (2010-11). He still gives you 60-70 innings of work and his ERAs are in the 2s. Casey Janssen is as reliable as anyone in the American League if you need to get through the seventh inning. Carlos Villanueva had a 4.04 ERA last year in extensive work that included some crossovers into the starting rotation, a circumstance I would imagine will continue this year.

LAS VEGAS OVER/UNDER WIN TOTAL—81: I really like this Blue Jay team and the 81 number has to be more reflective of the strength in their division—playing 54 games against the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox doesn’t help anyone’s win totals. Still, I strongly think this team will win more than it loses and that a run at the wild-card game is at least an outside possibility. Take the Over.