ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism.
Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Toronto Blue Jays
Reason for optimism: It has taken a couple of years of personnel adjustments, but finally the Blue Jays have a roster set to play October baseball.
Reason for pessimism: Even if the Toronto offense leads the majors in home runs, there is no guarantee it can carry the pitching staff into October.
It has been two years since the Blue Jays made a big splash in the free-agent market, landing Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera and reigning National League Cy Young Award R.A. Dickey (among others) before the 2013 season. For their efforts, and a greater than 50 percent increase in payroll from 2012 to 2014, the Blue Jays won 157 games (10 games under .500) -- or just three more than they did the two seasons prior to 2012.
Last year, the Blue Jays teased their fans with a blazing first third of the season.
Then Billy Beane called.
Two years into what would have to be called a bold but failed effort to compete for the playoffs, the Blue Jays got that rare chance to go all-in again. By trading Brett Lawrie and his cost-controlled contract to the A's, the Blue Jays landed the second-best player in the American League (by WAR) the past two seasons, Josh Donaldson. This is truly an exciting addition for the Blue Jays, a team that ranked second in the majors in home runs over the past two years but only seventh in runs scored. The difference is largely due to the Blue Jays' mildly-above-league-average walk and OBP rates. Donaldson, with 53 home runs and a slash line of (.277/.363/.477) over the past two years, will replace Lawrie's when-healthy 23 HRs, (.252/.310/.406) production in that time. Plus he's moving to a park that should reward his power even more.
The Blue Jays didn't stop there, either. Russell Martin, after two seasons of hitting and pitch-framing excellence with Pittsburgh returns for a second stint in the AL East, where he'll replace what Baseball Prospectus ranked the 103rd (or third worst) catcher in terms of pitch framing, Dioner Navarro. Those additions would certainly be enough to push the 2014 edition of the Blue Jays to division favorites in 2015, if there had been no other changes. But, alas, along with the exciting improvements, there is some leakage as well. Cabrera, Colby Rasmus, and Adam Lind departed with more than five units of 2014 WAR with them and it takes a bit of an optimist to believe that can be replaced by Kevin Pillar, Dalton Pompey and Justin Smoak.
Pitching-wise, the Blue Jays will most certainly get 60-plus starts of league-average performance from 2013 acquisitions Mark Buehrle and Dickey, and the bullpen should again be adequate. To truly emerge as a threat to outscore their opponents by 100 runs and have a realistic chance at 90 wins and a division title, the Blue Jays need one of their other starters to turn into an ace. Incredibly enough, the Blue Jays have three different starters who could fill that bill. The smart money says it will be either Marcus Stroman or Drew Hutchison -- both 24 and sporting K-BB percentage spreads of more than 15 percent. But don't sleep on newly acquired Marco Estrada. Although a late-blooming 31, Estrada sports a lifetime K-BB of 16.2 percent, having never struck out less than 20 percent of the batters he faced while a starter with the Brewers. His results never seemed to match his underlying skills and he did regress a bit last year, but not many teams can claim a fifth starter with the potential skills of a No. 2.
Like the Rays, the Blue Jays appear to be somewhat underrated, especially if you believe the Red Sox are overrated by oddsmakers and fans alike. Toronto's total win market opened at 82.5 but now sits at 83.5. That looks to be a very achievable "over" for the Blue Jays, even if the Rays' market seems to have more value to the over.
2015 projection: 86-76 (second, AL East)
Bet recommendation: Pass