Looking Back at the Blue Jays, Looking Forward with the Leafs

Today, the Toronto Maple Leafs play their season opener. Much of recent discussions about the Leafs in recent months surround their off-season front-office overhaul bringing in new coach, Mike Babcock, and new GM, Lou Lamoriello. Patience was requested from the front office with the expectation that it will take a while to rebuild the Leafs to their former glory. Some suggest, it may very well take five years, and from this notion springs speculation around media quarters about the players around whom the Leafs may build around. Nazem Kadri, perhaps? Or maybe Morgan Rielly?

On this date, I’m actually more of a baseball fan. Tomorrow, the Toronto Blue Jays will play their first playoff game since 1993. But with all the talk about the Leafs maybe needing five years to rebuild their glory, I starting thinking about the Jays…where were they five years ago?

Five years ago (2010) was Alex Anthopoulos’ first year as GM of the Toronto Blue Jays taking over the position from J.P. Ricciardi. A quick comparison of rosters reveals that only three Blue Jays from 2010 remain with the team today: Brett Cecil, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion. More on them later. Another name stands out to me: Ricky Romero.

2010 was Ricky Romero’s second year in the major leagues with the Jays. His performance was on an upswing, and one year later, he represented the Toronto Blue Jays at the All-Star Game. At some point, Romero’s performance started to decline. He was eventually assigned to Double-A New Hampshire, and released by the Jays in April 2015.

Brett Cecil’s first call-up was in 2009, but not as a reliever; he was a starting pitcher. For the next four years, Cecil would be repeatedly promoted and demoted in accordance with the Jays’ needs for starting pitching. 2013 would be his first year as a relief pitcher, and marked the first time he was selected to the All-Star Game.

Edwin Encarnacion, then a third baseman, was acquired in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds (along with two pitchers) for third baseman Scott Rolen. The story goes that the Jays didn’t really want Encarnacion, but the Reds didn’t either, so the Jays had to take him to acquire the pitchers in the deal. If this seems inconceivable, it’s because Encarnacion wasn’t the power-hitting all-star he’s known to be today. Prior to 2012, Edwin Encarnacion had an OPS that hovered between 0.7 and 0.8, and generally hit fewer than 20 homeruns per season, with the highest season homerun total of: 26 in 2008 with the Reds. His defense wasn’t all that spectacular either. He had a career-high 25 errors with Cincinnati in 2006, and a high of 18 as a third baseman in Toronto. Since 2012, “Edwing’s” OPS has been consistently above 0.9, and averages more than 37 homeruns per season with a career high of 42 in 2012. He also only has 3 errors in 59 games at first base this season. Not to mention, he was selected as an all-star in 2013 and 2014.

Jose Bautista has been an all-star every year since 2010. His performance picked up since he became the regular right-fielder for the Toronto Blue Jays. Enough said.

Could any of this have been predicted five years ago? Ricky Romero was an all-star, and there are still debates about what went wrong between him and the Blue Jays. Brett Cecil was a starting pitcher who became an all-star once he was moved to the bullpen. Edwin Encarnacion was once someone no team wanted, but blossomed into a perennial all-star that the Jays couldn’t imagine being without. Jose Bautista’s been an all-star for six straight seasons, but prior to 2010, that would have been inconceivable.

Hockey’s different from baseball, but it’s still a sport, and part of the fun of sports is a certain degree of unpredictability. Current stars may not be future stars, and future stars may not be current stars. The players who were on the roster at the end of the 2010 – 2011 season about five years ago and remain on the roster today include: Tyler Bozak, Nazem Kadri, Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf, and James Reimer. Clearly a team’s “core group of players” is more dynamic than static. If history is any indication, three to five members of the current roster may remain five years from now, and there’s a good chance the five listed above may not be part of it. Who will they be? Only time will tell. But what fun it is to imagine the possibilities!

All stats were obtained from baseball-reference.com.