The Blue Jays should score plenty of runs, but is their pitching good enough?
Shi Davidi
At this point it looks like it is. Between Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez they’ve added enough potential upside to cushion the loss of David Price, but they’ll need J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada to cover for Mark Buehrle’s steadiness.
Jeff Blair
I don’t know if it’s good enough … but it should be deep enough. I’m a J.A. Happ skeptic, to be honest, and there are obviously going to be innings concerns with Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman. But the depth of the bullpen ought to make up for that. I’m expecting a lights-out season from Brett Cecil in a walk year.
Ben Nicholson-Smith
As unlikely as it seemed a couple of months ago, the Blue Jays actually seem reasonably deep in the starting rotation. The group’s light on upside, and the bullpen lacks a second legitimate lefty, but the pitching doesn’t have to dominate. League-average production will be more than enough for a team that should still have baseball’s top offence.
Arden Zwelling
Probably. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in Josh Donaldson’s ‘our pitchers don’t have to be great, they just have to be average’ theory. If the five Blue Jays in the opening day rotation all pitch to their career average ERA’s (all below 4.00 with the exception of JA Happ’s 4.13) I think the Blue Jays will win more often than not, considering they scored five-and-a-half runs per game in 2015 and arguably have a better all-around offence this year. What’s also encouraging is that the next wave of replacements, who will inevitably have to make starts at some point this season, is stronger than it was in 2015. I’ll take Gavin Floyd, Jesse Chavez and Drew Hutchison over Felix Doubront, Scott Copeland and Todd Redmond any day.
