Blue Jays: Trying to tactfully sum up the first half of the 2018 season

Now that we’ve officially reached the All-Star break, how do we tactfully sum up the Blue Jays’ first half of the 2018 season? It’s been frustrating to say the least.

The 2018 season was supposed to be about proving that last year was a fluke, and that the talented, veteran roster still had enough gas to make another playoff run. Instead of selling off  veteran pieces over the winter the front office elected to try to compete in 2018, rewarding the fan base for their loyalty over the last few years as the team has been competitive.

My how things can change in short order.

The Blue Jays officially wrapped up their first half with another loss to the Red Sox, dropping their record to 43-52. Their own record is bad enough, but the fact that the Yankees (62-33) are 4.5 back of the first place Red Sox (68-30) makes things that much worse. Over in the Wild Card race, the Mariners currently sit in the second spot with a 58-42 record, good for 14 games ahead of the Blue Jays.

I’m not one to call a season this early, but for the Blue Jays the writing isn’t just on the wall in Toronto, it’s been carved into the bathroom stalls. This season didn’t go how it was supposed to, and there are a lot of reasons for that. They’ve had a ton of games missed by key players, underperformance nearly across the board, and even legal issues getting in the way of their best roster being available and contributing. At times it feels like almost anything that can go wrong, has or still will.

There is a lot of baseball left to play this year and a lot of reason to remain interested in what’s going on with the Blue Jays in the coming months. For now though, how can we sum up what’s happened thus far in 2018? I figured I’d break it down into a few categories.

The Negative

This section will be understandably longer, and I’ll break it up into a few more specific parts. I could likely write a novel here, but I’ll try to do a neat little summary of what’s gone wrong for the Blue Jays in the first half of 2018.

Injuries

Let’s start with the biggest blow the team has dealt with this year, missing their best player for all but 36 games thus far. Josh Donaldson has been the undisputed best hitter in Toronto for a few seasons now, as long as he’s been healthy. Unfortunately I don’t think we’ve seen a healthy version of the “Bringer of Rain” yet this season, which has not only hurt the team’s ability to win games, but has also devastated his value on the trade market.

There are many, many others to include on the list, and I’m not going to cover everything that’s happened throughout the organization. However, if we’re talking about the rotation, Happ is the only member to have been healthy this year. Marcus Stroman missed significant time after badly struggling, and Aaron Sanchez is still on the DL with a confusing “finger contusion” injury. Those two were expected to anchor the rotation along with Happ, but haven’t been healthy, or consistently effective. We’ve also watched both Marco Estrada and Jaime Garcia land on the DL as well, leading to the opportunities for guys like Borucki and Gaviglio.

Back to the offensive side, they have been without Troy Tulowitzki for the entire season, and fellow shorstop Aledmys Diaz suffered an ankle injury and missed a good chunk of time. Lourdes Gurriel Jr.also finds himself on the DL at the moment with potential concussion issues, so shortstops haven’t fared terribly well this year in the health department.

In the outfield, Kevin Pillar landed on the DL for 4-6 weeks when he got injured diving for a ball a few days ago. He’s been the healthy one this year, as we watched Steve Pearce spend quite a bit of time on the sidelines before he was traded, and also missed quite a bit of time without Randal Grichuk, who was also injured while diving for a ball.

That’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s already a pretty good list of reasons why the team hasn’t operated at the top of their game. That can never be used as an excuse, but the reality is they’ve missed a lot of games from their best players, and that’s difficult to overcome.

Underperformance

If we’re talking about the list of players who have failed to meet or beat their expectations this year, it would nearly cover the entire roster. There are obvious exceptions like Happ, Solarte, Curtis Granderson, and a few others, but the majority of the team has performed below what most of us had hoped to see.

Russell Martin had a terrible first half, and will look to salvage the remainder of the campaign and help the team pick up a few more victories. While he’s been worth 0.8 bWAR largely due to his defensive value, he’s continued to stumble at the plate. He finished the first half hitting just .172, and picking up just six home runs and 17 RBI in 62 games played.

When Stroman and Sanchez have been healthy, neither has been the type of “front of the rotation” option the Blue Jays were hoping for. Stroman has been significantly better since returning from the DL, but his season has been a disaster for the most part. Sanchez managed to stay healthy until the contusion on his finger has kept him out, but was just 3-5 with a 4.62 ERA. Add that on to Garcia’s 6.16 ERA which lead to him losing his rotation spot, and even Estrada’s 4.72 ERA, and it’s been anything but ideal for the starting group.

Then there were the epic struggles of Morales and Grichuk I mentioned earlier. Morales was a routine target for fans and writers online, with most of us (myself included) calling for the Jays to cut him loose as he struggled through the first couple of months. Grichuk wasn’t much better, but being a lot younger and cheaper, he didn’t face quite the same level of wrath. Kevin Pillar’s hot start to the year has provided him a much longer leash than he likely would have had otherwise, but he’s regressed back to even below his normal offensive standards.

Add the below-expected production together with the ridiculous amount of injuries, and it’s been a recipe for disaster for the Blue Jays. The proof is definitely in the standings, as even the Rays are ahead of the boys in blue right now, which is really disappointing for a number of reasons. Thankfully the Orioles have been as bad as they’ve ever been, keeping the Blue Jays out of the basement of the AL East this year.

Other

I didn’t know what else to call this, but it’s largely centred around one player, and the incident that has lead to multiple issues for the Blue Jays.

As I’m sure you’re aware, Roberto Osuna was arrested back on May 8th, and has since been suspended for 75 games by Major League Baseball. He’s back on a rehab assignment already, and is eligible to return to the team on August the 4th.

However, just because he’s eligible to return (at the moment), doesn’t mean it’s that simple. The situation is far more complex than that.

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The Mexican born pitcher is still in the middle of dealing the alleged charges, and things don’t look all that great from most reports. That doesn’t mean anything as far as a legal resolution, but there is potential that he could face some serious repercussions, and maybe even work visa issues. That’s in a worse case scenario legally, but it’s entirely possible things could go that way.

The Blue Jays may or may not want to keep him around, despite the positive statements in his favour made by the organization so far. There’s every possibility that they’ll look to shop him later this summer (unfortunately after the non-waiver deadline), or more likely this offseason. They’ll likely need him to return to the team in order to regain more of his trade value, but that return isn’t a simple thing either.

If and when he returns to the mound in a Blue Jays uniform, both Osuna and the organization are going to have a tremendous amount of work to do to win back the fan base, at least when it comes to the young closer. There will be plenty of fans that will be upset with the organization as well, and it’ll definitely be something the front office has to be acutely aware of, while trying to figure out what’s best for the player, and the franchise.

Next: Pillar injures his shoulder, out 4-6 weeks

Beyond the Osuna situation, this is a pretty simplistic review of the long story that has been the disappointing 2018 for the Blue Jays. Hopefully the club will be able to change the narrative in the second half, and also make a few high value trades prior to the end of the month. Remember that the front office managed to get Teoscar Hernandez last year in a trade that only cost them the rest of the season of Francisco Liriano, so the next few weeks could be crucial.