The season has finished up for most teams and should have for others.  The first half of this blog will be about the Jays.  Second half about the A's. 

The Toronto Blue Jays exceeded every one of my expectations. I expected them to be a .500 team. Every player that was in that every day lineup either had better years then were expected or played just as expected.  The only exception in my mind is Brett Lawrie.  So where did they go wrong?  Being up by a bunch of games going into July.  When the pitching came back to earth and the injuries began to pile up.  This team has just as much talent as the KC Royals and Seattle Mariners.  They don't have the excuse of having the play the Red Sox and Yankees so often.  They failed to adapt when things started to go wrong. 

Unfortunately Mark Beurhle isn't going to have a 2.20 ERA at seasons end.  Bautista and Melky aren't going to hit .340 with a .470 OBP.  You need to have unexpected people to step up.  Well you did have that.  Navarro had 70 RBI's and Stroman became their clear cut ace.  So where else can we lay the blame?  AA not making a move at trade deadline? Well the three that would have made a difference would have been Jeff Samardzija, Jon Lester, or David Price.  Any one of those trades would have cost you Stroman, Sanchez or maybe both.  So the other options are John Lackey, Ian Kennedy, Bartolo Colon, or Justin Masterson.  Are any of those pitchers better then what you already have in your starting 5?  Let's look at the hitters that were available.  Josh Willingham, Adam Dunn, and Chase Headley.  Would any of those hitter make a difference?  You don't hear winning teams complaining about the team not making a move.  That's what the Jays love to do.  The Pirates stood pat.  They had confidence in what they had to get it done.  The team that made the most moves almost cost themselves a playoff birth. When you complain about the team not making moves.  You are only saying that you don't have the confidence that you can do it with the group that you have. 

The future is bright in Toronto.  We witnessed a peak into the future starting rotation.  If they get back a healthy Lawrie and can resign Melky they will be just fine.  You can always retool the bullpen.  I thought they had a two year window with the trades that they made, but after seeing all the pitching talent coming up I think they will be fine.  Behind the bench is their obvious weakness.  AA unfortunately is hedging his bets with Gibbons.  If the Jays get off to a slow start he can fire him.  If he fires him in the off-season, and they get off to a slow start he might be on the chopping block.   Hopefully AA will give a call to Ron Washington to gauge his interest.  That's the only real move he needs to make.  So I sit here confused.  I look at the stats of this team and realize that they should have been right there in the wild card hunt.  They did play some meaningful games into September.  I guess that's a start.  I just look at what Clint Hurdle, Buck Showalter, and Mike Matheny are able to do with similar talent and think that if the Jays just had a manager.

My beloved A's.  What the hell happened?  You can blame the Cespedes for Lester trade all that you want.  It's not just that.  This team was cruising.  Everything was firing on all cylinders.  It looked like another one of those years.  The Angels overpay for a bunch of free agents and are a bust.  The Rangers who might have the worst management in the league make some awful deals and have a bunch of injuries and can't compete.  The Mariners are the Mariners, and then you have the Astros. Then all of a sudden the Angels become who I thought they would be three years ago.  All of the Mariners pitching prospects blossom at once.  Watch out for this team for the next few years.   The A's are the prototypical idea of you don't mess with chemistry.  When you have the best record in baseball do you trade your best prospect and cleanup hitter away for two aces that might put you over the hump?  He took a chance and it looks like it backfired.  Now they still made the playoffs, but if you have been watching any games recently.... 

If they do manage to get past the Royals in the Wild Card game they will have the Angels sitting there waiting for them.  One thing that I do know about baseball winners in the past.  Pitching rarely goes cold.  The A's have the best 5 in the majors.  If they can get just enough hitting they can do some damage.  Lester has won big games before.  That experience might be necessary.  The A's have tried the past two years with identical lineups and couldn't get by the Tigers.  So do you go at them again with exactly the same thing?  I understood Beane's philosophy.  He knew that Cespedes would get huge money after next year.  He cleaned out the prospect closet with the Cubs trade. It's a tough call.  If they blow it in the wild card game it will go down as two terrible trades.  If they end up getting past the Royals and start to get hot?  This team has put too many expectations on themselves.  They play quite a bit better when they have that underdog identity.  If you look at that lineup they are still a bunch of hitters off of the scrap heap of other major league teams with Josh Donaldson being the exception.  

The American League is wide open this year.  The Angels lost Garret Richards for the year and are really relying heavily on a 87 MPH Jared Weaver fastball.  The Tigers have a great lineup, but their pitching even after the trades looks suspect past Scherzer and Price.  Their bullpen is probably the worst of all the playoff teams.  The Orioles?  Their lineup is murderers row, but who are these guys that are pitching?  Buck Showalter should win manager of the year.  There is no clear cut favourite.  It should be a fantastic playoff this year.  It will be a couple of stressful days for me with the Pirates and A's both playing in the Wild Card games.  It's been an exceptional year of baseball.  One of the best that I can remember.  Just a little off topic, but what were they putting into our drinks that we didn't realize they were taking steroids when they were putting up 70 HR's in a year?