Tanner wrote:Stroman is hurt and wasn't pitching well. Sanchez has stayed healthy but not pitched well. JD has been hurt, probably still is hurt, and hasn't been good. Osuna was arrested. People prior to the season were beating the drum that everyone else on the team wasn't good enough and those four in particular were the ones to trade, but they've let the team down, while the majority of the others have exceeded or met expectations. Not sure where this "expected everyone to regain their prime form" stuff is coming from. The argument in the off season was that just because an older player has a poor season it doesn't mean there will be a linear regression, so it is reasonable in some cases to project improvement even at age advanced age. Grandy and Pearce have been good. Morales and Martin haven't. Tulo hasn't played yet. Happ has been great, while Estrada is looking more like a #5 starter. That looks like a fairly typical pattern for older talent. If everyone was producing the exact same way, but the four guys I mentioned to start with (JD, Osuna, Stroman, Sanchez), aka the young guys and one elite older guy, were playing closer to their projections, then this team is right where they should be in the 82-85 win projection range. If those guys don't perform, then they have no shot, and that was always the case. Nothing has changed.
Regardless if things continue like this, they will trade the vets for whatever they can get at the deadline. The jays are setting up nicely for 2020 either way. 2019 looks like the significant fall back year, which was going to be the case regardless of how this season ended up.
Russell Martin, Kendrys Morales, likely age-related regression. Martin's regression includes an inability to throw out a reasonable percentage of runners. This team was only going to be good if everything broke its way, and they never do.
