Randle McMurphy wrote:When adjusting for schedule, the Jays have been the 5th best team in baseball this year (though they are very close to overtaking TAM and MIN).
The Jays could conceivably contend as early as next year if they choose to.
I doubt it, not without a significant change in one of the three teams better than us in our own division. We are certainly among the best teams in baseball at the moment, but we're forever locked behind the better ones because they're concentrated in our division.
Our third-order wins aren't that far off from everyone else, but no one legitimately believes that we're a piece or two away from contending with the Yankees at the moment, because as presently constructed, we're not.
100%, we're a good team. But unless the Rays (who are playing without their All-Star catcher and who have lost Carlos Pena (their Gold Glove, Silver Slugger 1B) for a while) regress really hard from injury or losing guys to free agency next year, they're going to be better than they have been to this point in the season in 2010.
We'd have to get a lot more consistent on offense, probably by adding more contact hitting, and we'd need to shore up our 'pen and 5th starter. Then we have to hope that Arencibia produces what Buck has so far, and sort out some comparative defensive weakness in the corners, hope Wells does what he never really has before and be worth more than 2 or 3 WAR in consecutive seasons...
A fairly large number of things have to go right for us before we can even think that adding a piece or two will put us in legitimate contention.
