The following is a guest post from huge Yankee fan and friend of Yankeeist Eric Mollo. Mollo previously bantered with me last October about whether it made sense for Joe Girardi to keep starting Jose Molina in the playoffs.
Hold your horses. I will be the first to admit that I underestimated Toronto this year, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Toronto’s pitching has been excellent. Shaun Marcum, Ricky Romero and Brett Cecil have been getting it done while being supported by a Major League-leading .475 team slugging percentage. I do think their pitching is going to hold up better than it has in the past (assuming they stay healthy), but I predict their hitting will slow down.
Quite simply, they are beating the teams they are supposed to beat. Thus far they have only won series against the Rangers, Orioles, White Sox, Royals, Athletics and Indians — not exactly the cream of the crop. If you look at their first two months they have been very streaky, winning four or 5 in a row, losing four or 5, winning three, losing three. I think their lack of consistency is going to eventually catch up to them.
They have been pounding the heck out of the ball, with six players currently slugging over .500 (Adam Lind & Lyle Overbay are just under .400 and Travis Snider is at .483). However, the team is not hitting for average at all — the highest batting average on the Jays belongs to Vernon Wells at .307 and then Fred Lewis at .305, which is followed by a slew of terrible averages.
The Blue Jays’ team batting average is .247, good for 25th in the Majors. As an aside, the Astros are dead last with a .233 team average. No wonder Roy Oswalt considers the Nationals a contender. Toronto also leads the AL in strikeouts.
I am making the not-so-bold prediction that the slugging will come back down to earth, the strikeouts will catch up to them, and the low team average will begin to bite them as they face teams with winning records, consistent pitching and high-OBP strategies.
Here is Toronto’s record against the AL East:
2-3 vs. Rays
1-5 vs. Red Sox
6-0 vs. Orioles
0-0 vs. Yankees
I look forward to the Yankees heading to the Rogers Centre this weekend to set things straight. It’s time to give our perennial Canadian punching bags a dose of reality.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
16 Responses to Are the Toronto Blue Jays for real?
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
if i were a betting man, I would bet money that the Jays finish 4th in the AL East this year. They always finish poorly, get rewarded the next year with an easy early schedule, start and strong and then fade. its practically their business model.
This is great stuff MAAALOOOW – totally agree that Toronto's k-status is going to catch up to them. Also, Bautista has ZERO business leading the league in long balls and Alex Gonzalez should never have more than 3 HRs in one season.
Maybe you should look at the fact that 7 members of the team have OPSes over .800? (compare that to 5 on the Yankees…)
Your supposition that their SLG will go down is based on nothing more than the fact that you're a Yankees fan…
Gonzalez (while not actually hitting very well) has 4 seasons with 14 or more homers (23 in 2004). Bautista is a mystery, I didn't expect this, but he's actually getting consistent at bats, which he's never gotten before. You can't argue with the results, and he has ALWAYS been very patient at the plate.
Sorry Eric and Craig K, both just flag-waving Yankees fans hoping and dreaming that you'll always be the best.
What a stupid article. So what if Bautista and Gonzo slow down…How about Lind and Hill start hitting? They are MORE than capable of making up for that…they have been terrible this year.
So cram it with walnuts Yankee fans, and suck my motherfucking dick!
hill and lind will unleash on the yankees this weekend
>Implying that Yankees fans are intelligent
Yep, looks like that SLG is going down… And y'know, Bautista isn't for real or anything… Just saying!
Thank you Yankees for the dose of reality.
The 6-1 win just showed us how good we really are. Thanks :D
I love how everyone talks about the Jays SLG being too high and unsustainable, yet their low AVG and OBP will always stay below the norm.
If you're going to use the law of averages to try and make your point, use it properly…
Hill, Lind, Overbay, and Encarnacion are all well below their career AVG/OBP right now, while no one is really well above it (other than Bautista's OBP, an obvious byproduct of all the HR's he's hitting).
So if the SLG will fall some (and it probably will), you also have to admit the team AVG/OBP will rise to at least slightly compensate.
fail
Well played Jays fans, well played…thanks so much for joining in on the conversation over here. Yankees_lick_my_ballsack – love the fire. No denying the plethora of talent on your squad this year (just imagine if you still had the Dr. on your team..who did the Phillies give you anyways??)
It's nice that you guys joined the party in the AL Beast; I guess Ricciardi had to leave for it to happen. One key thing to keep in mind now that you're playing ball: please please please show up when you play the Sox.
P.S. Tell Adam Lind to stop striking out so much; he's killing my fantasy team…
this jays team is good ONLY because of jp ricciardi. if you werent such a dumb yankees fan, perhaps youd realize that, you fucking tool. your comment is only slightly less pathetic by the moron that criticized the halladay trade because none of the players are in the bigs when the jays got 3 top 100 prospects (2 in the top 25).
and as the previous commenter noted, SLG may be too high but this should be more than compensated from a return to the mean with respect to AVG and OBP.
the biggest problem for the jays is that none of their young arms arent used to pitching so many innings, which will hurt later in the season.
lol yankees
I respect several of your arguments, but others make you guys sound like flag-waving jays fans as I was accused of being for the Yankees. I simply did an analysis and based on the last 10 years, give or take a few, I still happen to agree with it. I never said Toronto wasn't talented or had no chance of hanging in in the AL East, I just made a prediction. Those who countered with actual analysis, thanks for joining in. Larry correctly predicted Toronoto would take 2 of 3 this past weekend, but there are still 15 games on the schedule between us and 2/3rds of the season left. Lots left to play out. As Craig K. said, please show up when you play the Sox! See you guys again in NY before the All-star break.
Cheers
P.S. – I apologize for the "Canadien Punching Bag" comment – clearly out of line. It appears justice was served on the field.
Oh, and please let me know when Bautista's homers land. I think they are currently in orbit.
Punching bag comment was out of line – what would that make the Orioles who have clearly been brutal for the last 25 years? Most of you don't remember the Jays in the late 80s early 90s when shoe was on the other foot and the Jays rules the roost but Interesting article nonetheless and some accuracy to it. As a Big longtime Jays fan here is my take on it. Jays will hang in for a while as they have much better pitching now (Doc where are you now that we can REALLY use you?)and they will keep it interesting. Unfortunately AL East is just too strong with D-Rays Yanks and Bosox and this team is still too raw and young. We will have a much better record at end of year and we are clearly on the upswing but our time is still a couple years away. We had a great draft as well so future looks great. Enjoy it now Yankee and Rays fans because we are coming to get you – World Series or bust 2012