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Once upon a time, the Toronto Blue Jays were baseball's model organization, and that's one of the things that makes this 2013 season even more interesting. It's a chance to put a really good team on the field, but it's more than that, too, a hope of lifting a franchise back to places it hasn't been in two decades.

"We have a very rare opportunity," said 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, one of the new Blue Jays. "We can be the group that ushers back in this championship mentality. You don't get these kinds of opportunities very often. These fans are hungry for a winner. It's been a long time coming. To have that opportunity is a big responsibility, but it should be fun."

It's not just that the Blue Jays have undergone a dramatic overhaul, with general manager Alex Anthopoulos adding 627 innings and 66 quality starts to the starting rotation and two impact bats to the lineup. It's not even that the Blue Jays brought back John Gibbons, a smart, tough, no-nonsense baseball lifer, to manage the club.

It's all that and more. It's that the three new starting pitchers -- Dickey, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle -- are veteran guys, respected for both their maturity and production. If there's an easy way to dramatically change the mix of players, having veteran, quality people ought to make the job that much easier.

And the biggest difference, perhaps the thing that could end up being the biggest factor of all in the dog days of August and September, is that the Blue Jays have Jose Bautista. There are few players in the game more respected for how they go about their business AND how they produce on the field. His leadership is both spoken and unspoken, and his fifth Opening Day with the Blue Jays begins with a combination of expectation and optimism.

"The most important thing is the guys we have," Bautista said. "We have quality players that are at the same time quality people. It's easy for everybody to get along and enjoy their time together and come together as a club for a common goal. Obviously, we all want to play in the playoffs. When everyone is pulling the rope the same way, it's easy to get everything done."

OK, what can go wrong? With ownership increasing the payroll from $84 million in 2012 to around $123 million this year, there's a very good rotation, with quality depth. There's a terrific lineup after the addition of Jose Reyes to top of the order and Melky Cabrera to the middle. There's a quality closer in Casey Janssen and nice depth -- Darren Oliver, Sergio Santos -- in front of him. Is there anything wrong with this picture?