Olney: Blue Jays A “Sleeping Giant Almost Ready To Wake Up”

Published: 16^th Feb 12 8:19 pm

Thom Tsang
thomastsang

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Nathan Denette (Canadian Press)

Ah, there’s nothing quite like a little bit of flattery from ESPN to make you look forward to the upcoming baseball season.

It’s been somewhat of a tumultuous off-season for the Blue Jays front office in terms of how they’ve navigated fan expectations, but Alex Anthopoulos and co. stuck to their guns in building a team capable of sustainable success, and the major media outlets are really starting to take notice of the potential success that is on the way to Toronto. Buster Olney of ESPN published their annual future MLB team power rankings (for ESPN insiders only), with the Blue Jays coming in 6th overall – no small praise, considering the state of the team even just one season ago.

On the future of the franchise, Olney writes “no team will benefit from the extra wild card as much as the Jays. Of course, they could be in position to win the AL East outright very soon”, while suggesting that the team is likely a couple of arms and a big bat away from being a perennial contender. The downside to this story? The Blue Jays are still the 4th ranked AL East team on the list, with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays all ahead based on current MLB talent, and financial muscle.

To quibble on that though, I think is a bit besides the point. The Blue Jays are a rapidly improving team, with significant talent on the way and very little in terms of financial commitments…but I think most of us would agree that this is a 4th place team going into 2012. I’d say there’s a significant talent gap between the big 3 in the AL East and the bluebirds at the moment (with an even more significant drop to the Orioles – thanks, Peter Angelos!). The point is, the 3 teams ahead of us are essentially on the same level of competition, with any of them being able to win the division on any given year. As a fan, that’s where I’d really like to see the Blue Jays be at at some point over the next year or two – where we can legitimately fight over minor details about the rosters between the Rays, Red Sox, Yankees and Blue Jays – knowing all of them have essentially the same chance of winning the division. I’d also be cool if the Yankees and Red Sox made some sort of mistake that set the back a few years, but anyhow…

To me, the level of competition marks a big difference between being a 4th place team now, and a 4th place team in 2014. By then, the Blue Jays might well have eliminated the parity gap between us and the best teams in baseball, and a 3rd/4th place finish might be razor-thin in the AL East. As much as I hate the Red Sox, their 3rd place collapse last September was basically the culmination of a bunch of worst-case scenarios – on paper, they could very easily win the division this year. Ditto the Rays, or Yankees. When the MLB adds an extra wild card, this is the most likely division to produce 3 playoff teams in the AL (sorry, AL West).

In a couple of years, hopefully we’ll be able to add the Blue Jays to that list among the juggernauts in the league. For now, I’m okay with this sleeping giant lurking just a little while longer.

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