With teams finally able to negotiate with free agents from other clubs, the news is soon to be flooded with stories of team interest, contract demands, and the ever-present ‘Mystery Team’. From a Blue Jays standpoint, it will likely mean constant stories about the two big bats, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, and endless rumours […]
Author: Joshua Howsam
Report: Blue Jays Qualify Bautista and Encarnacion, Decline to Offer Saunders
The Blue Jays qualifying offer decisions came down today, and if you were hoping for some big surprise to get you excited about the Jays, you were probably a little disappointed. #BlueJays extend qualifying offers to Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. No offer for Michael Saunders. — Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) November 7, 2016 As predicted […]
Building the AL’s Best Pitching Staff on a Budget
Coming into the 2016 season, if you asked fans/writers about the biggest weakness on the Blue Jays roster, you’d probably get a near unanimous answer of “pitching.” The hitting was coming off an historic run-scoring season, and the defense was only going to be improved by a full season of Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop. Meanwhile, […]
Cleveland vs Toronto: Position-by-Position Breakdown
With their win against the Rangers on Sunday, Toronto is now set to face Cleveland in the best of seven ALCS. Both squads have a lot of talent, so as part of a series preview, I decided to break things down by position to see who might have the edge. Catcher Roberto Perez (.183/.285/.294, .218 […]
Recap: Blue Jays 5, Orioles 2; A Perfect Ending to A Perfect Game
There’s nothing quite like the excitement of a do-or-die baseball game. The anticipation started to build as soon as the Blue Jays clinched the AL Wild Card spot, and hit a fever pitch sometime around 5:30 pm ET on Tuesday afternoon. Despite the game not starting for another two and a half hours, and the […]
Searching for Cecil: Brett’s Bizarre Usage
Last night, with the Blue Jays leading the Orioles 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Troy Tulowitzki hit a two out double off of Oliver Drake. What was noteworthy about the seemingly innocuous two-bagged was that Roberto Osuna had been warming up, but Brett Cecil got up beside him (his second warm up […]
Recap: Rays 8, Blue Jays 1; Can We Get Off this Merry-Go-Round?
Stop me if you’ve seen this lately. The team received decent, but not great starting pitching, got no hitting, and the non-setup relief corps couldn’t keep the game close. Once again, the Toronto Blue Jays looked a lot more like the type of team fans have been seeing for the past two decades than the one […]
Joe Biagini: A Starter in a Reliever’s Uniform
Joe Biagini has been nothing short of a revelation this season. He started off as an irreverent Rule 5 pick who didn’t even know the rules about if/how he could stay on the Blue Jays. And even with the Rule 5 designation, he needed injuries to earn a real chance at making the team out […]
How J.A. Happ Evolved Into One of Baseball’s Best
J.A. Happ has been nothing short of a revelation in 2016. He currently has a strikeout rate of 22.2 percentage on the season (32.4 percent since the start of July), sits second in major league baseball with 17 wins, and has an ERA that has hovered between 2.80 and 3.20 all year long. All of […]
How Rob Manfred’s “Baseball Fixes” Could Hurt Pitchers
Last week Rob Manfred came out with his latest ideas on how to fix the game of baseball. As usual, they included some drastic changes. This most recent round of ideas comes in the midst of collective bargaining agreement discussions, and thus has to be taken with a little more than the usual “we will […]