Tanner wrote:Donaldson didn’t decline. He was playing hurt the whole time (couldn’t even throw when he was playing) and then has missed the majority of the season. Osuna had legal issues which were kind of hard to predict. Stroman has been hurt and ineffective until recently. Those were the best position player, reliever, and starter on the team heading into the season. Sanchez was also a big wild card. The depth pieces and vets around them were generally fine. But lose your best players and it’s going to hurt. Yes, even if JD was healthy the team would probably be around .500 and behind the A’s but who predicted the A’s to be this good (even their pythag doesn’t agree)? How about the negative differential M’s? Jays were a projected 82-85 win team and those teams with health and luck in a weak league aside from the top four teams had a chance.
Sure it’s only the second wild card but tell the A’s how bad the 2nd wild card could be facing a Yankees team that is scuffling this badly. Anything can happen in one game and that gives you a chance.
Shapiro hedges his bets this past winter. He didn’t fully go for it, and had a solid way out if things were sour. Aside from losing value on JD (which still remains to be seen), the team pivoted pretty well.
-Donaldson had significant health issues last season as well. And he is in that age bracket where position players often suffer from strains and muscle pulls that result in extended absences.
-Osuna had character issues last season that almost resulted in him being traded a year ago. It might not have dawned on management that he would go out and abuse a woman, but they had an inkling that he had serious issues.
-We had an excellent rotation last season with above average health in most cases, save for Sanchez's blister issue.
-Martin does the bulk of the catching, and has been declining at the plate for a couple of years now. Further decline was more likely than some sort of spike in his numbers
-Smoak had a career year last season and few among us thought this was sustainable.
-Tulo was clearly someone no one should have been ready to bank on. He hasn't been healthy since 2015.
-Devin Travis being healthy and available for 162 games and performing like he did two season ago? Would you have placed a significant bet on that?
You really had to expect a large amount of luck and counter-indicative performances to hold a belief in playoffs, and I'm not the analytical guy some of you are. I don't care what projections were, it was crystal clear to me then and still is today that this team does not have the talent to be a playoff team, and wouldn't be a playoff team under any normal run-of-luck scenario for the oldest team in baseball with terrible defence and a sub-optimal pitching situation.
In fact, I'd argue that some of the good things that have happened more than made up for the what if's, and wouldn't have occurred if this team had actually been healthy. The injuries for Tulo and Donaldson gave us a great month from Lourdes Gurriel Jr - and we still suck as a team. Sanchez being out opened the door to Ryan Borucki, and we still suck as a team.
