Blue Jays' depth has been tested - and it's failed
Entering the 2017 season, there were a few things we felt confident we knew about the Toronto Blue Jays. The team was supposed to feature a strong rotation, some veteran pop, and a sturdy defence. These were the elements that were going to make the team a wild-card contender.
Sitting at 19-26 ahead of May’s finishing stretch, each of those three assumption has proven shaky to different degrees, but it’s hard to render a verdict because of a brutal rash of injuries that has seen Josh Donaldson, Aaron Sanchez, J.A. Happ, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin, Francisco Liriano, Steve Pearce and Roberto Osuna all spend time on the disabled list.
These maladies make it hard to evaluate the Blue Jays’ rough start with anything but an “incomplete” grade. They simply haven’t been able to field the team they imagined when the season began – or really anything close to it – for any meaningful stretch.
On the other hand, injuries happen – especially to veteran outfits – and contingency planning is an important aspect of team building. Due to an upper minors devoid of MLB-ready talent, the Blue Jays entered this season as a group thought to be low on depth both among position players and pitchers. An over-stuffed med bay has put that notion to the test – and so far it’s looking more accurate than any other preseason prognostication.
The problems begin on the position player side, where the Blue Jays’ offensive core has been hit hard and the reinforcements have had trouble filling in. Although players like Ryan Goins have managed the odd timely hit, the production hasn’t been there day-in and day-out.
On Opening Day the Blue Jays ran out a lineup with some pretty significant firepower, and brought guys like Justin Smoak and Darwin Barney off the bench. Not all of those players have excelled, but with Jose Bautista and Devon Travis starting to come around, that group has been about about average. The rest of the hitters Toronto has been forced to use have struggled mightily. Here’s how those who played in the team’s first game and those who didn’t compare:
Guys like Goins, Chris Coghlan, Luke Maile and Jarrod Saltalamacchia have combined to hit pitchers in a way that’s dragged down the offence as a whole. The only non-Opening Day position player to post a positive WAR is Darren Ceciliani, who had one strong game and got injured.
These depth players have accounted for just 16.9 percent of the team’s plate appearances and managed to wipe away more than half of the rest of the lineup’s production by WAR. Some things – such as Maile’s strong game-calling and framing work – are missed by WAR, but for the most part this group has been an anchor.
The same could be said about the team’s rotation. It was well-known that the team was hurting for a sixth starter prior to 2017 behind the strong quintet of Sanchez, Happ, Liriano, Marcus Stroman and Marco Estrada. Guys like Casey Lawrence, Mat Latos, and more recently, Mike Bolsinger, have been asked to fill the gap and the results have been ugly. Even including Joe Biagini’s recent strong outings, the depth starter brigade has not been up to snuff.
Finding yourself strong sixth starter candidates is no easy task, but a 6.05 ERA isn’t good enough in a not-minuscule 11-start sample. Unsurprisingly, the Blue Jays went 3-8 in those games.
When the injury bug strikes, it’s always unfair to expect depth guys to step in and replicate the production of the starting pitchers or everyday players. “Next man up” is a good philosophy to promote positive thinking, but it’s a fallacy. The reason guys like Donaldson and Tulowitzki get paid the big bucks is precisely that they’re exceedingly difficult to replace.
That said, there’s a big difference between “worse than the All-Star you’re replacing” and “comfortably below replacement level” – and that gap is having a huge influence of the Blue Jays season. Depth was never going to be this team’s strength, but it’s been an even bigger weakness than expected.
That’s devastating for a team that has a big hole to climb out of – and isn’t going to be fully healthy any time soon.
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