May 12, 2013; Boston, MA USA; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Chad Jenkins (64) pitches during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

You know Fenway Park right?

The hitter’s paradise where leads are never safe and balls fly out of the park like a video game on Rookie Mode.

But once again baseball reminded you that it makes no sense.

Ramon Ortiz started the first game of the series. He hadn’t started a game in the big leagues in 2 years! He pitched 5 shutout innings at Fenway Park! You’re a probably a liar if you say you saw that coming.

Mark Buehrle’s overpaid. He can’t pitch in the AL East. AA made a mistake acquiring him. His contract’s going to be a burden. That’s been the consensus among most of the Jays fan base right now. A little bit harsh but you wouldn’t have been able to argue it.

Mark Buehrle had given up at least 5 runs in all of his starts. The last thing the Jays needed was Buehrle doing that. The Red Sox had Clay Bucholz on the mound. He was arguably the best pitcher in baseball till now.

To most people’s shock Buehrle came through big time. He cruised through the Red Sox lineup and gave up just one run in 7+ innings like he took a time machine to the 2000’s. Mark Buehrle also didn’t give up a homerun, in Fenway! For a guy that’s already given up 11 homeruns that’s quite an accomplishment.

Chad Jenkins was injured. He came off the DL and made one start in Double A. His 2nd start was the 3rd game of the Red Sox series. Ryan Dempster was on the mound for the Red Sox.

I was so sure the Blue Jays were going to lose I was actually upset to not see David Ortiz start the game. If you told me the final score was going to be 12-4, I would have assumed the Red Sox were the 12.

But Jenkins gave the Blue Jays 5 innings of 2 run ball.

For all we know the Red Sox could have just been in a slump. Even if they were they still have a very talented lineup so not just anyone can give you a good outing against them especially at Fenway.

Where does Mark Buehrle and his contract fit with the Blue Jays. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

While the Jays were able to mount an epic comeback on Monday night after Mark Buehrle gave up seven runs to the Rays, that sort of offensive firepower is not the sort of run support  Buehrle can expect  in every start. Monday marked the fifth time in seven starts this season that Buehrle that Buehrle gave up five runs or more. Normally if a pitcher is performing consistently at this level you would try him in the bullpen or even assign him to the minors, however when that pitcher is owed $48 million over the next three seasons those options become much less palatable.

Most of the time Blue Jay’s GM  Alex Anthopoulos is lauded for being able to dump Vernon Wells and his bloated contract on the Angels it seems he may have picked up something similar in Buehrle in his deal with the Marlins. Obviously the Wells contract, which had four years and $85 million remaining on it, was a much bigger burden than what the Jay’s picked up in Buehrle. There are however other factors besides the money to take into consideration when looking at how much a contract burdens a team.

One reason Wells received such a lucrative deal was because of his performance at a premium defensive position. As Wells defensive abilities have declined he has found himself in left field, while this makes him theoretically less valuable it also allows that position to be occupied by a higher WAR player, similarly he can be moved around in the batting order to come up in less crucial situation or less often in general.

In Buehrle’s case however it doesn’t matter which rotation spot he holds, none of them provide any leeway for regression the way defensive placement or batting ninth can. Even in Well’s worst days with the Jays, or Angels for that matter, no matter how many high fastballs he whiffed on, or how many times he popped up to the infield, none of those actions would put the club down 5 runs.

Former Jays Albatross Vernon Wells rounds the bases after hitting a home run off of Mark Buehrle. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

Therein lies the real problem with Buehrle. Moving to the American League East after a career in the AL Central and one year in the NL East Buehrle has seen a spike in his home run rate, on pace to give up 52 long balls over the course of the season. This is well over his previous career high of 36 allowed in a season, and more than double his career average of 24.6 home runs per season. This is a troubling trend for any pitcher on the wrong side of 30 regardless of what type of money is owed them.

The question that really needs to be asked though. Is the money the Jays owe Buehrle only well spent if he is successful? One can argue that taking on Buehrle and fellow overpay Jose Reyes from the Marlins, the Jays not only bought the services of those players (and Josh Johnson), but also bought the club relevance. Without picking up the contract of Buehrle would the club have gotten a chance to sign Melky Cabrera or lock up the reigning Cy Young winner for only $30 million. These team friendly deals that the Jays handed out could in theory cancel out the bad value on Buehrle’s contract making it easier to stomach. And even if his effectiveness has been questionable so far this season, Buehrle’s true calling card throughout his career has been his durability and consistency, for any club hoping to contend innings need to get eaten and how much is it worth having someone who you know should be able to do that for you?

While his ERA sits at an ugly 7.02 Buehrle has still been pitching fairly deep in the games, and although pitching like garbage for 7 inning is less than ideal, somebody needs to pitch those innings. Even with his homer happy tendencies it won’t seem to have a dramatic impact on bullpen usage, as believe it or not despite his rocky start,with troubling signs of decline and adjusting to a new division, Buehrle is still the model of consistency on pace for 195 innings. As long as you have no one clearly better to pitch those innings Buehrle is still a valuable cog on the 25 man roster. However if the money he is owed results in him blocking a young pitcher who could be more effective from pitching the picture becomes a little murkier as to what value he can provide.

Will Buehrle and his contract become nothing but a burden on the team, or will he be a valuable fixture in the rotation logging innings and always remembered for being a part of the franchise changing trade? Only time (and home runs) will tell.

September 21, 2011; Cleveland, OH , USA; Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Mark Buehrle (56) during the first inning in the game against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric P. Mull-USA TODAY Sports

For Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow and R.A. Dickey their best career starts were all against the Blue Jays division rival Tampa Bay Rays.

On July 23, 2009 Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Rays in his home ball park US Cellular Field. Buehrle cruised through the Rays lineup as you can tell from the game lasting 2 hours and 3 minutes. At the time, the Rays had a 343 on base percentage. Two of the Rays batters hit a foul ball very close to the fair territory down the left field line. Five of the Rays hitters had a full count. DeWayne Wise made a homerun stealing catch in the 9th. Without that catch it would have been a 1 hitter which isn’t bad either.

On August 8, 2010 Brandon Morrow threw a complete game 17 strikeout 1 hitter against the Rays in his home ball park Rogers Centre. Morrow had a no-hitter going through 8 2/3 innings until Evan Longoria broke it up with an infield single! Morrow would have been the first Blue Jay since Dave Stieb in 1992 to throw a no hitter. It was also Morrow’s FIRST career complete game, that’s getting your first career complete game in style! Morrow’s 17 strikeouts in a game was just one less than the Blue Jays record of 18 strikeouts by Roger Clemens in 1998.

On June 13, 2012 R.A. Dickey threw a 1 hitter against the Rays at Tropicana field. He struck out 12 hitters which was a career high at the time. He didn’t walk a single hitter and only faced 29 hitters in total because of an error which is just 2 over the minimum if you didn’t know. The only hit Dickey gave up was an infield single that Mets third baseman David Wright didn’t field cleanly. The New York Mets formally appealed the official scorekeeping of the only hit allowed to be changed to an error on Wright in an attempt to make it a no hitter but MLB denied the appeal.

Now obviously the Rays have different players now than they did when 3/5 of the Blue Jays rotation had their best career starts against them. But for 3/5 of the Blue Jays rotation playing the Rays should always give them some good memories.

February 14, 2013; Tampa, FL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Mark Buehrle (56) works out during spring training at Bobby Mattick Training Centre. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

If only the Blue Jays had acquired a middle of the rotation veteran starter that has a reputation of being able to pitch deep into games and eat up innings. Oh yes that’s right they did, Mark Buehrle!

Buehrle is 34 years old and the Jays have him until the end of 2015 while paying him 51 million, more than any other Blue Jays starter. He’s old, probably the only player on the team that’s overpaid and he’s probably past his prime but there’s a reason the Jays were comfortable taking on his contract.

As you’ve surely heard by now Buehrle’s thrown 200 innings for 12 straight years. As you would imagine you’ve got to be able to pitch deep into many games to do that which is what the Jays are counting on from him.

You also have to be able to stay healthy to pitch so many innings every year. A starting pitcher that can stay healthy provides a lot of value because it means the Blue Jays will have to call up fewer pitchers from the minor leagues to make starts. Like we learned from last season that’s always a good thing during the course of a season.

Buehrle’s entire career minus 2012 was spent in the AL Central, the worst division in baseball a lot of years, so it’s easy to question whether he can handle the AL East.

We know Buehrle can eat up innings the problem is how many runs he gives up in the process pitching in the AL East.

Except that he’s not going to be pitching against an AL East team in his first Blue Jays start. He’s going to be pitching against a team he knows well from his White Sox days, the Cleveland Indians.

The Blue Jays are hoping Buehrle can do exactly what they acquired him for to pitch deep into the game and give the bullpen some rest.

Obviously there’s no guarantee that Buehrle will pitch deep into the game. Especially since Dickey and Morrow are better pitchers and weren’t able to go very deep against the Indians but baseball has a weird way of reminding you that it doesn’t make any sense.

One of the advantages Buehrle has as a left handed starter that Dickey and Morrow don’t is managers might bench their good left handed hitters which the Indians have plenty of.

Buehrle also plays Gold Glove defense, is good at picking off runners, doesn’t walk hitters and works quickly which only helps him get outs and pitch deeper into games.

The Blue Jays didn’t acquire Mark Buehrle to be an ace. They acquired him to pitch a lot of innings to keep the bullpen rested and to keep minor league starting pitchers in the minors. So now it’s time to do his job.

Jun 06, 2012; Chicago, IL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Brandon Morrow (23) reacts after getting the last Chicago batter out in the ninth inning at US Cellular Field. The Toronto Blue Jays defeat the Chicago White Sox 4-0. Mandatory Credit: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

The rotation order is certainly not set in stone as it can change from month to month and from week to week. If that order is the one the Blue Jays decide to start the season with it gives you a sense of what they hope it will accomplish.

R.A. Dickey will mess up hitters timing with his knuckleball. A day after facing Dickey, Brandon Morrow’s fastball will look like its 118 mph to a hitter. Mark Buehrle will be counted on to eat up innings in the middle of the rotation whether the bullpen needs some rest or not. Usually not a lot is asked of a fourth starter so by that logic if Josh Johnson is even close to being the Josh Johnson of 2012 or better he’s more than doing his job. Ricky Romero was awful last season. The Jays are banking on it being just one down year. If Ricky can have a repeat of any of his seasons other than 2012 he’ll be a stud as far as fifth starters go. Then Dickey will be counted on to eat innings (a bit of an understatement) after Ricky. The circle then just continues the same way.

It’s fun to think of a possible rotation order for the Jays to start the season with, even though it’s bound to change as the season progresses. If the Blue Jays were to really start the season on fire and kept winning then you don’t change it. Of course that’s a best case scenario.

Sept 15, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins starting pitcher Mark Buehrle (right) talks with catcher Rob Brantly (19) before their game against the Cincinnati Reds at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

It’s easy to think of many teams with stacked offenses. Heck there’s teams that could have better offenses than the Blue Jays (LA Angels, Detroit Tigers).

However when you look at the Blue Jays starting rotation you see 5 starters that all have the potential to pitch 200 innings in a season. Unless I just haven’t been watching baseball long enough or have a bad memory the only other team I can think of that had 5 starters capable of pitching 200 innings is the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies. They had Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and Joe Blanton but even they didn’t all pitch 200 innings that season.

Pitching 200 innings is very hard for any starter because they have to pitch deep into a lot of games and stay healthy and consistent. As hard as it is, all the Blue Jays starters are capable of it.

You can’t talk about the Blue Jays rotation and pitching 200 innings without talking about Mark Buehrle first. He’s pitched over 200 innings for 12 straight seasons. He’s going to be pitching in the AL East now where it won’t be as easy to eat up innings. Especially since he barely made it the last 2 seasons with 205.1 in 2011 and 202.1 in 2012 but we certainly know he’s capable of it.

R.A. Dickey made his big league debut in 2001 and has only been a full time starting pitcher since 2010. In each of the years he’s been a full time starter his inning totals has gone up from 174.1 in 2010 to 208.2 in 2011 to 233.2 in 2012. Dickey’s knuckleball doesn’t put a lot of strain on his arm and he’s been a starter for such a short time that it’s reasonable to believe that 2011 and 2012 were just the beginning and that he’ll be able to continue pitching 200 innings.

After Buehrle and Dickey it starts getting a little more questionable.

Ricky Romero had a big down season in 2012 and as a result only pitched 181 innings. However he did pitch 210 innings in 2010 and 225 in 2011. Those were also just his second and third seasons in the big leagues. If Romero can have a bounce back season in 2013 he’s definitely capable of hitting the 200 innings mark.

Innings pitched is far from being the most important stat for a starting pitcher as starters like Josh Johnson make painfully obvious. Johnson is arguably the Blue Jays best starter but because of his injury history has only cracked 200 innings in 2009 with 209. Even last season when he stayed healthy he just pitched 191.1. Johnson is just coming into his prime at age 29, so if he can stay healthy he doesn’t need that big an innings jump to get to 200 in 2013.

Brandon Morrow is the biggest wild card as far as pitching 200 innings goes because he’s never done it. He’s only been a full time starter for 3 seasons. In 2010 he was on an innings limit. In 2011 and 2012 Morrow dealt with injuries but he still managed 179.1innings in 2011 and 124.2 in 2012. Like Johnson, Morrow is young and coming into his prime so if he can stay healthy and make all his starts he should be capable of pitching 200 innings.

No one should expect all 5 Blue Jays starters to pitch 200 innings. No one would be upset if they all didn’t. Just knowing they’re all capable of it is more than enough.

If you live in Toronto or anywhere in Canada or are a baseball fan anywhere on planet Earth and were near a computer, radio or television on November 13th (bad luck number in Miami, good luck number in Toronto) this was probably how you took in one of the biggest trades in sports history. If you’re a fan of the Blue Jays you probably also had a mixed bag of emotions to.

Trades this big don’t happen very often that’s why they’re considered big trades. In baseball big trades don’t typically happen in November either because it’s the month after the season ends and teams haven’t figured out the trade and free agent market enough to do anything crazy. Trades this big also don’t happen to the Blue Jays, to the chagrin of Blue Jays fans for years.

It would be hard enough just trying to trade for one of Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle let alone all 3. The perfect combination of the Marlins needing to dump salary and not having no trade clauses along with the Blue Jays having a very deep farm system to make trades from and having a substantial payroll increase because of increased attendance made this trade possible.

The fact that all the players the Blue Jays acquired have no trade clauses made it a lot easier than it normally would be to get star players to Toronto. It also makes it a lot easier for the Blue Jays to trade any of them to if they were inclined to.

This trade is so big that if the Blue Jays chose not to do anything else for the rest of the offseason, no one could say they’re not contenders. It would be a huge boost if they got someone better than Maicer Izturis to play 2nd, someone better than Emilio Bonifacio or Rajai Davis to play left field, someone better than Adam Lind to play DH, someone better than J.A. Happ to be the 5th starter but even if they don’t they would still be a very good team.

There is still a lot offseason left though which means a lot of time for the Blue Jays to make those upgrades and get even better. It also means all the other American League teams have time to get better to but the Blue Jays just got a huge head start.