Higher or Lower Expectations for the Jays?

[LittleOzzy]

With the team how it stands today have your expectations of the team been lowered, or do you see us having a surprising season?

Are we rebuilding or going for it? Or do we sit somewhere in between?

How do you see the season playing out?

[Weems]

Lower in a literal sense, but it's for the best.

[j127]

I say lower the way the present team is structured. Subject to change if AA makes any more trades.

[OldNo7]

We overachieved last season, and traded away two key pieces to last year's success. We will be worse than last year record-wise.

[wlujaysfan55]

75-80 wins.

[righteous015]

I really wanna say higher expectations just because I wanna see them in the PO either next year or the year after. We have almost all the pieces. Just a proper ace and a shut down closer.

[acemann]

i expect a season similar to last year.
82-88 wins.
I wouldn't be surprised with a 2nd place finish in the AL east with around 90-91 wins. Nor would i be surprised by a 4th place finish with around 78 wins.

[SharoneWright]

even to higher.

aside from BoSox, division is weaker...

much better manager this time around...

PLAY EE at 3rd!!!! Solves soooooo many problems.

[evilRyu]

it seemed like everything went well for the starting rotation, it'll be very hard to duplicate that.

We don't know how Morrow and Drabek will do with a full-season. How will Cecil do in his 2nd full season?

[hyper316]

ideally 81-81 .500 season. there's gonna be a high learning curve for JPA at catching, Lind in 1B, plus pitching in the 4 and 5 spot for drabek and Rzep. A toss up for Davis.

[DonYon]

I think losing Shaun Marcum was a big blow for the 2011 team, so our pitching is considerably worse just from that. However, I think some of our offensive players can have much better season than last year (Hill, Lind, Escobar, and a possible big breakout from Snider), so overall I don't expect too much change in terms of the level of competitiveness.

edit: I forgot to factor in John Buck... he was probably a much bigger impact on the team than I could imagine.

[Randle McMurphy]

With the loss of Marcum (3.5 WAR) and Wells (4.0 WAR last season, even though he'll never keep that up in LA), the Jays are about a 80 win team in the AL East. Whether they do better than that will depend on Hill/Lind potential bouncebacks, the development of Snider, how Napoli transitions to the RC (I think he'll mash, personally), and of course, perhaps most importantly, if Bautista can keep it up.

[WpgPage]

i expect about 80 wins hopefully we are in the bottom half so our first rounder is protected if we choose to spend some of our cash

[guvernator]

i expect about 80 wins hopefully we are in the bottom half so our first rounder is protected if we choose to spend some of our cash

I disagree. Firstly, I believe next year's draft isnt as strong as this year's. Secondly, You want as much progress from lind, hill, snider, pitching staff, arencibia and escobar as you can get, which can allow the management to identify a core and then go out next year into the free agency/trade market with a certain idea. I really want AA to get a slugger and closer which are both available in the free agent market (pujols?/fielder and broxton). Couple of additions like this, more or less, makes the jays a contender.

[J-Roc]

I have high expectations for the pitching staff, and great pitching ought to lead to some wins.

[Relentless88]

Lower. Losing Wells/Marcum does make us slightly worse in the short term. Never know though. Never really know how the pitchers do (Drabek, whoever the 5th starter is) and if players like Lind/Hill can have comeback seasons, AND if Bautista can do close to what he did last season.

[Michael Bradley]

I expected a horrible season in 2010 and they ended up having a very good one. Not sure what to expect this coming season. I think losing Marcum will hurt a lot. How much Bautista regresses is also a factor. I think he is better than the .750 OPS player he was prior to 2010, but I'm not sure he is a .900+ OPS player moving forward. That remains to be seen.

Overall, given the improvement of Baltimore, and the three super teams still being super (in Tampa's case probably less so), I think the Jays will fall under the 80 win mark. Maybe around 75-79 wins. But wins/losses are secondary this season. It is clearly a bridge year so as long as no one is expecting greatness there shouldn't be any disappointment.

[Brinbe]

I have zero expectations because nothing is expected of them (record-wise) right now. As long as the youngsters (like a Snider and our starting pitchers) continue to show signs of improvement, I'll be happy.

[CapeCrusader]

If Lind can bounch back, Hill can put up the same power numbers with a better avg. Then we should be about the same, maybe slightly worse. I think if anything it weighs on our pitching staff and how they can grow from last season and without Marcum.

[Strav]

Let's see - 85 wins last season:

Loss of Marcum (13-8), full seasons from Drabek, Litsch, Mills to pick up the slack -5 wins
Better bullpen +2 wins
Dotel new closer +1 win
Wells gone, additions of Davis (more speed at lead off), Napoli, Rivera +3 wins
Full season from Snider and he gets it +1 win
Lind & Hill come back from awful offensive years +3 wins
JPA full season at C -1 win

= 89 win season

I see this team improved obviously.