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Sorry about that folks, been sick for the last four days. Stay tuned tomorrow for a detailed look at the pitching.

The Jays closed the deals with two more players today, locking up Lyle Overbay and Scott Downs to one year deals. Overbay agreed to a $2.52 million contract while Scott Downs was secured for $705 thousand. Both deals are designed to prevent salary arbitration, which still looms for Shea Hillenbrand, Ted Lilly and Pete Walker.

If the achilles heel of last year’s team was its offense, then surely its saving grace was its defense. With two gold gloves, promising rookie play from Aaron Hill, and another solid year behind the plate from Zaun the Blue Jays were able to rely on their defense to bail their pitches out of numerous jams. The big question for this team coming into the new year is simply: will the new defense cost the team more runs than the revamped offense? (more…)

We’ll be watching lots of sweeps,
From our luxury box seat,
And the days of shutouts will be gone…
Other teams looked light upon,
And sang the same old song,
But we know the Jays will prove them wrong!

We’ll finally have solid execution,
An offense built on fair distribution.
Smack the ball, and bat all around,
Drive the ball the other way,
Win at home and away,
And we’ll all come and pay…
Won’t get shutout again!

Sorry, with Roger Daltry in the news, this is just where my mind wanders. Needless to say, the theme coming into this new season is a revamped offense, and thank the baseball gods for that. While the Jays did manage to place fifth in runs scored in the American League last year, anyone who watched a majority of these games realized very quickly how it was done:

1. A very “playing over their heads” kind of April.
2. Useless addons against weak bullpens after games had already been decided.
3. Rallying against weak teams.

In practical terms only of these traits can be expected to carry over from one year to the next, and only one of them is demonstrative of a positive trait for a team. If you guessed that I am talking about number three you are correct. While there is nothing wrong with hoping a team will play above predictable performance levels, depending on that is precisely the sort of wishy-washy optimism that crippled the Blue Jays during the Gord Ash era. At the same time, rallies after the game is essentially over looks nice in the next day’s boxscores, but they inflate statistics that would otherwise present an accurate picture of performance. The Jays, in spite of a few outbursts, failed to score enough runs to beat the Yankees and Red Sox consistently, and consequently ended up with a record against the two of .500.

The additions this year strike me as a calculated evaluation by J.P. Ricciardi to move away from an offense that depends on bad teams and rallies against weak, back of the rotation/bullpen pitchers. The subtraction of Koskie and Hudson, and the addition of Overbay and Glaus doesn’t add a tremendous amount of power or run production: what it does is provide a lineup that is able to sustain a rally. Assuming the further development of Russ Adams, the Blue Jays can now field a lineup where batters one through six will be able to put up respectable on-base-percentages, and consistent offense against all opponents. A bit more offensive consistency will make up for the general lack of power far more than Troy Glaus’s imposing frame ever could.

They are definitely not the same as the old Jays. (With apologies to Roger Daltry.)

This off-season has been an exhausting one for loyal followers of the Blue Jays, and at times a challenging one. Not a day goes by when someone somewhere (usually my parents unfortunately) asks me, “did you hear what the Jays did?,” or, “do you think it was a good move?” The short answer to all those questions is invariably “yes,” and “I’ll have to wait and see.”

To recap quickly the following players affecting the major league roster were moved:

In: Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan, and John McDonald.

Out: Dave Bush, Corey Koskie, Gabe Gross, Miguel Batista, and of course Orlando Hudson.

Of course there were moves affecting minor leaguers as well, as several prospects came and went, and the payroll moved significantly, although not to the $80-85 million region where many people first reported. So what are we to make of all of these moves?

On a talent for talent basis, it certainly augers well. The Blue Jays removed only one player who was likely to have a positive value to the club in 2006 (Hudson), while trading away commodities which, while valuable, were expendable with the new talent coming in. While I have no doubt that Dave Bush will have a fine career as a major league pitcher, the fact remains that his prospects in the starting rotation in 2006 were slim. If he outperforms A.J. Burnett this year, I’ll eat my hat. Hudson’s departure is being hailed as the collapse of the great defense: fears which I am not entirely sold on. Yes, Hudson is the best glove man in baseball, but Hill is no slouch. With Overbay taking over at first and Glaus being an unknown commodity it is tough to tell where the infield defense stands. So lets look at the projected lineup, processed by my very own baseballific datafier:

Rotation: Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Ted Lilly, Gustavo Chacin and Josh Towers.

Bullpen: B.J. Ryan, Justin Speier, Scott Shoeneweis, Jason Frasier, Vinnie Chulk, Pete Walker and Scott Downs.

Lineup: Russ Adams, Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells, Troy Glaus, Shea Hillenbrand, Frank Catalanotto, Aaron Hill, Gregg Zaun, and Alex Rios.

Bench: Eric Hinske, Reed Johnson, and either Guillermo Quiroz or Jason Phillips.

Is this a perfect team? Of course not. Is it an 85-90 win team? Most definitely. Can this team make the playoffs? I guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out. Tune back in this week and the next for detailed breakdowns of the pitching, hitting and defense of this team.