Season Preview: Toronto Blue Jays

I hated the 2006 Toronto Blue Jays. They spent tons of money on B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnett; too much, I thought. Ryan continued to dominate and Burnett was great when healthy. They had a bunch of slow average hitters who all performed better than I thought they would. Vernon Wells hit about .800 against the Red Sox and a bunch of other jerks like Lyle Overbay got key hits and the Jays beat the Red sox in 12 of 19 games. Oh yeah, and they pulled ahead of the Red Sox in the last week of the season to grab second place. Even though Josh Towers was worse than anyone in the league at pitching. What a bunch of chumps.

Projected Starters:
C: Gregg Zaun
1B: Lyle Overbay
2B: Aaron Hill
SS: Royce Clayton
3B: Troy Glaus
OF: Reed Johnson
OF: Vernon Wells
OF: Alexis Rios
DH: Frank Thomas

Bench:
C Jason Phillips
IF John McDonald
IF Jason Smith
"OF" Matt Stairs
DM* Sal Fasano

AAA (should be in the majors):
OF Adam Lind

Rotation:
Roy Halladay
A.J. Burnett
Gustavo Chacin
Tomo Ohka
Victor Zambrano / John Thomson

Bullpen:
B.J. Ryan
Jason Frasor
Jeremy Accardo
Davis Romero
Scott Downs

*Designated Moustache

To be honest, this looks like a weak team. Of course, that's what I thought last year, and they did fine even though lots of things went wrong. But Reed Johnson can't be counted on to repeat his career year. Gregg Zaun is pretty old. Frank Thomas is pretty old. The rotation beyond Halladay and Burnett is very mediocre, as much fun as it is to say "Gustavo Chacin" (Try it with an exagerrated Castilian Spanish accent: "Guthtaahvo Cha-seeen") Similarly, the bullpen is weak beyond Ryan and the bench has very little depth, especially for such an old and injury-prone team. Royce Clayton is pretty bad in general. Jason Smith can actually hit a little and could perhaps take over a starting middle-infield job, though that would mostly be addition by the subtraction of Royce.

So much of the team's quality is tied up in Wells, Glaus, Thomas, Halladay, Burnett and Ryan, all of whom are injury risks except Wells, that I could actually see this team dropping very far in the standings if things go wrong. They have a little help coming, mostly in the form of Adam Lind, who should already be up, but I can't see this team overtaking the Sox or Yankees for second place this year.

Good.