One of the odd/interesting idiosyncrasies of the Blue Jays this past year is their love affair with old rookies. Not all of these players are technically rookies, but they all got their first real significant playing time with the Jays this past season. The Jays opened the year with twenty-five year old Davis Schneider in LF and twenty-eight year old Ernie Clement in a utility role that morphed into a regular gig at third base. Bowden Francis, also twenty-eight, made the pitching staff (although was in and out for the first half of the season). Over the span of the year, the Jays brought in Will Wagner (26), gave playing time to Nathan Lukes (29), traded for Joey Loperfido (25) and called up Spencer Horwitz (26). The only players that looked like real rookie-aged rookies were Addison Barger, who was 24, which would have made him an average aged rooked and Leo Jimenez (23) who was more or less forced into duty after the Jays conceded Bichette couldn't play and they had no one else on their roster who was anything more than an emergency sub at short.
Collectively, they weren't horrible. Clement looked (to me) good at third base. His offensive numbers were break even (102 OPS+). Horwitz had a good season at the plate. Second base is not his natural position and its showed. His dWar (a measure of defensive value) was bad and really bad when he played second. But, his 125 OPS+ put him well above replacement offensive value. He had serious problems against lefties, but this also means that his numbers against right handers were even better. Lukes and Wagner had good offensive numbers but more limited playing time. And, Francis, of course, pitched incredibly well down the stretch. Jimenez was basically average and that is actually not bad for a player in their first year. The other old rookies did not fare as well. Schneider (78 OPS+, 100 is average), Barger (70), Loperfido (65) looked enthusiastic but overmatched.
What are we to make of this? I think it is a development strategy. IOW, I think this was an intentional choice. But we need to be careful with the word "choice." People make history, but not under circumstances of their choosing. IOW, if, given other options, the Jays management might have gone a different way. My bet is that they'd prefer to a team like Baltimore's, which is loaded with good younger and young players. Or, they would have preferred a farm system that was producing talent. Or, they would have preferred to have signed Ohtani. Failing that, however, I think they tried to do the best with what they had.
What was the best with what they had? They had two choices. One: burn the house down, which is what I said was a smart plan. This was a nuclear option in which everyone was on the block with the idea of securing grade-A prospects from other teams to rebuild the farm system and become competitive in three years. They didn't go this way and we don't know why. Maybe they tried and no one wanted Bichette or Gausman or Kirk, etc. The other option was to try to find players who would be ready to fill out a major league roster and contribute next year. This is they way they went. Hence old rookies.
Said differently -- and to their credit the Jays management said this -- they were not looking to rebuild but believed that their core talent was good enough to compete in 2025 with the right additions. How will this work? It is very difficult to say. Bowden Francis pitched really well down the stretch but this was down the stretch against a lot of teams that were not good and playing out string. Pitching well is better than pitching poorly. He had two good starts against the Angels, one against the Cubs, a couple against Boston and one against Texas. He did pitch against good teams, the Phillies, Mets, Baltimore, but his best games were against teams that were poor, out of it, and auditioning players for next season much like the Jays. And, this might not be fair, but I am also haunted by the Chris Colabello story.
Colabello, you may recall, was a Jays player who had kicked around the minors and had a couple of shots with the Twins in which he seriously under performed before he was pressed into duty by the Jays who were in a playoff hunt but short on bench players. Colabello played like he never had before, nor would again. In a bit more than than half a season's worth of at bats, he hit 15 HRs and drove in 54 while scoring 55 runs. His OPS+ was 138. His OPS .886, all-star territory for a regular player. Here is the thing, he was 31 years old and this is shockingly unusual. Very few players established completely new performance levels for themselves after about 27, before which they are improving as they age and gain experience. And, you can usually see them coming. Some do. The example, I always use is Tony Phillips, who went from being a regular at Oakland to an all-start in Detroit at a similar age. He scored 100+ runs for the first time in his life at 33. It happens, but it is exceedingly rare. Jose Bautista did something similar with the Jays at age 29.
But here is the thing, neither Bautista nor Phillips were poor players. They were major leaguers who were under performing but had been solid starters. Colabello was nowhere to be seen. He went from being a poor player to playing at an all-star level late in his career and that is winning lottery ticket rare. It turned out, of course, that it wasn't true. Colabello was using performance enhancing drugs.
Now, I am not saying Francis is. In fact, he doesn't have the look of a player who uses PEDs. My point is simply that he might be good. The Jays might have found a diamond in the rough and I kind of hope so because I liked watching him pitch and he seems like a good guy. It is just rare and the rarity makes it improbable that he'll keep pitching at that level.
Horwitz played well, but really can't hit lefties at all and has no natural defensive position on the Jays. Clement impressed me, but is he a championship quality player at third?
In my last post, I agreed with Chris Bassitt: the Jays are not one player away from being competitive. They go into next season hoping that Romano and Bichette are back to form, that Springer can arrest his decline, that Kirk really is an everyday catcher. That's a lot of "ifs." And, here is the thing. I am not sure there is space on the team for Barger and Loperfido if they sign an outfielder. I am not certain what they do with Horwitz if they sign a middle infielder.
The Jays have gambled on a very unusual team development strategy. I think they were doing the best they could with what they had. Exactly how they got to this "what they had" place is another story (and, not a good one), but let's leave that aside for now. Will this strategy work? I'd love it if it did but I think the odds have to be against them.
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