Blue Jays: The Five Burning Questions for the 2018 season

With the 2018 season just days away from getting started, what are some of the biggest questions surrounding this year’s version of the Toronto Blue Jays?

The Blue Jays finished the 2017 season on a much lower note than almost any of us expected. One friend of mine joked that they “couldn’t even lose when it mattered, let alone win”, in reference to their moving out of the last place in the AL East for the first time on the season’s final day.

However, that feels like a distant memory as we embark on the start of a new season. It’s a clean slate for a veteran roster, and one that has plenty of new and talented faces from a mere five months ago. Many of the key pieces remain the same, and with the talent brought in to surround them, the hope is that last year was an outlier, and not a sign that this group is incapable of competing for a playoff spot.

Because many of the key pieces remain the same, some of the same questions we asked ourselves last year remain as well. Can veterans like Josh Donaldson, Russell Martin, and Steve Pearce avoid the disabled list? How many healthy games will the Blue Jays get out of Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis? Can the rotation rebound in performance, and health? How long will it be before we get to hear Joe Biagini post-game interviews again?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to questions surrounding this roster in a season that could realistically either go really well, or be set up for another disappointment for Blue Jays fans.

Can Aaron Sanchez stay healthy?

Speaking of nagging issues, Aaron Sanchez dealt with a doozy last season while trying to get his pitching hand in performance shape. I’m sure you’re aware by now, but if not, he only made eight starts and threw just 36 innings, repeatedly sent to the disabled list because of one finger on his throwing hand. A variety of fingernail, blister, and tendon issues ultimately landed him on the DL for good, and the hope was that an extended rest without so much as gripping a baseball would get him to a proper re-set point.

It appears that’s what’s happened for the 2016 American League ERA leader, who has looked every bit the part of his former self this spring, and has the Blue Jays’ coaching staff very excited at what they’re seeing. The worry about his blister issues returning will always linger, but after more than a year spent directly dealing with a bad enough case to keep him out, he and the training staff have a few more tools in the belt to deal with the problem.

That doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods, or that he might not need time off either. It’s entirely possible the Blue Jays could skip him for a start here and there throughout the year, especially if he starts to develop the dreaded “hot spots” that preempt the blister issues that took his last season away from him. That said, it’s been clear sailing for him since the calendar flipped to 2018, and if it stays that way then the Blue Jays have just regained one of the better starters in the American League. That’s no small thing.

How long until Teoscar Hernandez gets called up?

The talented outfielder that came over from the Houston Astros last season is almost indisputably ready for a big league shot, but it’s just a matter of if the Blue Jays have a spot from him right now.

After a rock solid audition in September last season (that has carried on into this spring), some folks thought the Blue Jays may give him a starting job in 2018, especially with the expected departure of Jose Bautista in free agency. The team indeed cut ties with the legend, but instead opted to bring in a pair of new outfielders, Randal Grichuk in a trade with the Cardinals, and Curtis Granderson through free agency.

Adding those two to a group that includes Kevin Pillar and Steve Pearce leaves no place for Hernandez to play, at least not on a regular basis. For awhile it looked like one or both of Pearce and Grichuk might not be ready for Opening Day, but at the moment it looks like both will be ready. That might leave Hernandez in Buffalo to start the season, but don’t expect him to stay there for long.

We’ve talked about it a lot here at Jays Journal, but Hernandez’s ability to play all three outfield positions gives him the chance to get called up as soon as any of the regulars need a breather, or maybe if others around the diamond do as well. He’ll need to continue to work on cutting down his strikeouts, but his ability to provide power and speed on offence, and an above average glove in the outfield, make him someone John Gibbons would like to have around.

It’s hard to put a date on when he’ll get called up (it could even be Opening Day if someone is deemed not quite ready), but expect his reunion with the big club to come early, and for him to stick at some point this season. He’s too good of a player to be toiling in Triple A, and I don’t expect it to last very long, one way or another.

What do the new pieces have to offer?

The Blue Jays went out and got a variety of new players this offseason, as we talked about above. They didn’t bring in a premium free agent anywhere, but they addressed a lot of needs, which was probably the smarter play for Atkins and Shapiro after a disastrous 2017 season.

They brought in Yangervis Solarte and Aledmys Diaz to shore up and improve their middle infield depth, Grichuk and Granderson to improve the outfield picture, Jaime Garcia to round out the rotation, and a number of relievers, arguably the most significant being Seung-hwan Oh.

The biggest question is, will they offer an improvement over last season? We won’t know for sure until the new campaign is behind us, but here’s what baseballreference.com has projected for the five I’ve listed above.

Solarte-          .264/.323/.436, 17 HR, 65 RBI, 454 at bats

Diaz-                .274/.332/.450, 13 HR, 45 RBI, 358 at bats

Grichuk-          .250/.303/,491, 23 HR, 64 RBI, 432 at bats

Granderson-  .230/.330/.437, 23 HR, 56 RBI, 452 at bats

Garcia-             8-10, 4.35 ERA, 1.361 WHIP, 155 innings pitched

Oh-                   3-4, 3.71 ERA, 1.270 WHIP, 63 IP, 11 saves,

As I said above, none of them represent All-Star production by their projections, but each brings value with them to the Blue Jays, especially when you add it all up. Remember, Solarte and Diaz aren’t supposed to be tasked with replacing Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis, rather they’ve been brought in to provide depth. If they provide the type of numbers above it’ll be a result of the starters missing time to injury, but it’ll also be a big upgrade at two key positions, any way you look at it.

Grichuk and Granderson both provide defensive upgrades from what the Jays employed last year, and bring other skills like speed, and clubhouse presence. There are also plenty of people around baseball who believe Grichuk could blossom into a lot more given a regular lineup spot, and the Jays are ready to give him just that. Garcia and Oh round out a pitching staff that has a lot of talent, but needed the depth they provide to push them into another tier.

There may not be an MVP or Cy Young contender in the group, but the depth is what the Blue Jays needed most, and their front office went out and got it.

Will we see Bo and Vlad this season?

The most talked about prospects in the Blue Jays system have had fans buzzing all spring long, and with good reason. They’ve looked even better than they did in 2017, when each of them were Minor League All-Stars and tore apart both Low and High-A. They started their seasons in Lansing with the Lugnuts, and were promoted together to the Dunedin Blue Jays later on, which didn’t slow either player down much at all, if any.

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That impressive performance has continued into Grapefruit League action this spring, and has even pushed a few people to ask if they’re ready for the big leagues right now. The answer is almost certainly no, but they may be even closer than we think. At just 20 and 19 years old it would likely benefit each of them to play a couple more seasons of minor league baseball in an ideal scenario, but their performance will likely dictate otherwise ultimately.

As for if we’ll see them in 2018 with the Blue Jays, that depends on a lot of factors. It’s hard to imagine them being promoted to a team in contention, especially with so many others who are further along in their development, and higher up the depth chart. For example, for Bo Bichette to get the call to play shortstop or second base, he’s behind Tulowitzki, Travis, Solarte, Diaz, Danny Espinosa, Gift Ngoepe, Richard Urena, and maybe more. And that’s assuming he shows the same promise in Double-A that he did last year Single-A.

If the Blue Jays have a rough start to the year and start selling veterans this summer, there’s a small chance the dynamic duo could be promoted to fill in for a potentially departed Donaldson, or maybe others. However, there’s always the issue of starting their arbitration clocks earlier than need be, and there’s not much sense in rushing the process for a losing season. And again, in that scenario there is plenty of other depth that could come first.

The most likely scenario in my mind is they’re pushing for a big league roster spot next spring, and their major league careers begin in 2019. It could happen this year, and maybe they are ready for the big time, but I just don’t see the situation playing out that way regardless of how things look in the standings for the Blue Jays. I’m repeatedly blown away by the talents of each of these two though, so nothing would really surprise me that much.

Next: Bring on a Stro' vs Sanchez competition

What other burning questions do you have about the Blue Jays heading into a new season? As always, feel free to leave them in the comments section below and let us know what you think of the five we included here.