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As the last few games pan out, the jays are most definitely out of the wildcard race. Would you say this season is panning out to be worst then last year due to injuries and the fact that other teams got better? (Baltimore)

If you blindly look at the record, than yes. This team will not win as many games as they won last season. Was this season a failure ? I don't think so. The Orioles look good, but in contrast the RedSox look terrible. If this team were healthy, we would be right there with the Orioles and Rays. We lost 3/5th of our rotation and been throwing junkballers (sorry Villi) with a Romero (whos been terrible). If Morrow and Hutch had stayed healthy, this team could have been special. It's also hard to judge this team with all the position players injured. With the Edwin injury, all of our opening day position players have missed games due to injury. It's very difficult to has 5-7 AAA players to produce on this level every day. This team has been grossly unlikely, probably historically unlucky.

Hopefully, we have a capable manger next season, and a better strength and conditioning coach. A better AAA location would probably be the biggest offseason goal. Instead of calling up position players who can't hit, and rushing pitchers who aren't fully developed.

tl;dr Difficult to judge this season with all the injures.

Its hard to call it a failure because of all the injuries.

Well I would say yes massive failure. I didn't feel horrible about our rotation coming into this year but now I realize Romero is iffy and Alvarez is horrible. We better hope some of those Lansing boys turn into monsters.

It's a failure because AA made two awful trades.

The team was doing pretty mediocre even before the injuries hit. So I wouldn't blame the injuries necessarily, though we'd probably be 2 games out of a wildcard instead of 8 or so.

All of our pitchers took a huge step back this season with the exception of Morrow. Many of our younger pitchers really aren't ready, either.

Does everyone in here forget that this team was .500 before all the injuries too? Also, losing 3/5ths of our rotation is a disingenuous excuse. Drabek was one more blowup away from being sent back down, and Hutch was only in the rotation because AA didn't go out and get another capable starter. Losing Morrow obviously hurt as he had been our best pitcher, but with his injury history, it was only a matter of time.

They'll use the injury excuse as the reason they didn't make it, but really, this team was battling all season just to stay 2-3 games above .500. Come September, that's just not good enough. I think this season was a huge missed opportunity because they really had the ability to sneak in with the likes of LA, Detroit, and the Red Sox struggling (LA and Detroit struggling relative to what they were expected to do). All those teams are going to re-load and the Jays will have a much more difficult time from here on out.

I honestly hope the Orioles manage to get in to show just how big of an opportunity this team blew this season.

We lost 3/5th of our starters right before the offense took off. It would have been nice Morrow and Hutch pitching instead of Cecil/Laffey when the offence was firing on all cylinders.

Going into this season out starting staff really wasn't ready to compete. Our offense, other than the gaping hole that is 1B (If you recognize that EE is a stopgap and should be the DH), was there at a playoff-caliber team level. It was nice to see Morrow so effective, Hutch proving himself, Villaneuva showing why he should be a full-time starter, and Drabek bouncing back, but who the eff knows what is wrong with Rickey? The league caught up to Alvarez who needs to get more than two pitches to be a major leaguer.

I was one of the few glad to see the BP addressed rather than grinding out the 21 year olds and ruining their development. Also I know it is an short sample set, but it looks like Jenkins, after maybe being a write-off as a starting prospect, might actually be an effective BP guy. I wonder if that is where McGuire ends up too.

injuries only imply a justified failure. either way the team was supposed to at least take a small step forward, and we didnt. the pitching took a step back, and there were mixed results on offence.

Next year, it's time for AA, Beeston, and Rogers to put up or shut up. No more of this hope bull. That being said, 2013 is on schedule with where they thought they'd be in terms of challenging for a playoff spot, so that suggests to me that AA understands what's involved in building a franchise and knows what he needs to do. After all, he has made SPs top priority this offseason, and the only other thing we really need is an Ortiz/Swisher type DH. Rajai hasn't been as dreadful as many like to believe. He's a perfect #9 hitter.

Every team has injuries its been a failure

the way things go, I see boston much improved next year, it tampa and baltimore do get the two wild cards this year I see them continuing and even improve next year as well. This means the jays either need to completely re-vamp their starting pitching staff and sign one more big bat.

Not possible.

I think it's a failure of sorts. There is, after all, a second wildcard now, without which the Jays would have been out of it a lot earlier - and well before the Bautista/Lawrie injuries.

The magnitude of the failure has been increased by the injuries, but it's not like this team was ever able to string together any decent winning streaks - unless they were following or followed by losing streaks. The team showed a lot of grit, hanging in longer than I expected, but it's hard not to look at the starting staff and wonder how AA considered this an acceptable staff for even a second wildcard scenario.

The regression of Romero and Alvarez is clearly disappointing, and coupled with all the pitching injuries, I'd hope Bruce Walton (and Farrell) get a pretty intense performance review when this is over.

henderson hardly regressed. yes his sophmore season (if you can call it that) has been disappointing, but thats from other teams adjusting to him and him not adjusting.

diddykong wrote:henderson hardly regressed. yes his sophmore season (if you can call it that) has been disappointing, but thats from other teams adjusting to him and him not adjusting.

I don't know what your definition of regressed is, but mine is broad enough to encompass what he isn't doing well, like giving up 8 runs, 12 hits yesterday in 4.1 innings, a team record apparently.

Yes the injuries have been large cause for the less than impressive record. Although regardless of injuries, the year still can largely be looked at as a failure. There's nothing wrong with calling the year a failure just because there were a lot of unforeseen injuries. Romero regressed largely, Bautista didn't have a strong year with his injury. Only real positive to take from this year was Edwin breaking out.

no - no it isn't.

Strav wrote:no - no it isn't.

how so? the only successes i can think of are e5 progressing, lawries defence, and a semi-come back by rasmus. bautista, arencibia, lawries offence, and morrow all more or less stayed the same. lind was so bad he got sent down, and has been okay since coming back. the rest of our pitchers either struggled or are suffering possible career-changing injuries (or both). escobar, johnson were awful. the snider potential was thrown away. TDA was injured. gose and hech showed at best that theyre not close to ready. farrells management hasnt improved. santos showed nothing. AA made no impact moves.

how is it not a failure?

It isn't a failure in the sense that the team has been able to endure all these injuries with a .500 record. That is quite remarkable. However I would classify this season a complete failure in terms of developing our prospects. I really hope this doesn't put us back a couple years. So yes, this could be deemed as a failure long term.