Your 2013 Toronto Blue Jays

I love baseball, and I love the Toronto Blue Jays and Opening Day is my favourite day of the year, so most other teams have already opened the season, but as Alex Rios would say "who gives a fuck!?!".  Although I am a die-hard Toronto Maple Leafs fan, the Toronto Blue Jays are my first love, and the start of a new season fills me with warm fuzzy feelings that hockey season can not, mainly because hockey season signals the start of a long miserable winter and baseball season signals the end.  The 2013 season is extra special for Jays fans, because for the first time in 20 years the Blue Jays are serious post-season contenders.  I remember optimism before the 1997 (Roger Clemens!) and 2006 (AJ Burnett! BJ Ryan!) season, but nothing like what we're experiencing heading into the 2013 season.

The 2012 season was nothing short of a disaster for the Jays.  Every thing that could have gone wrong for the Blue Jays last season went wrong, it was almost like the team was cursed.  Injury after injury really hurt them, I know every team in every sport deals with injuries, but the plague that was on the Jays last year was absolutely obscene.  By the end of last year, they had a shitty manager who checked-out and packed his bags for his "dream job" in Boston (more on that asshole Farrell later), the Yunel Escobar eye-black incident embarrassing the organization, and a patch-work of AAA and AA players making up the line-up.  I wait all shitty winter for baseball season to start, but by mid-August I couldn't wait for that clusterfuck of a season to end.  Once the season was over that rat-goof Mitt Romney looking fuck John Farrell packed his bags and left for Boston, and he took Brian Butterfield with him....Butters!! Toronto media dicks like that insufferable Damien Cox and Steve Simmons were already writing off the 2013 Jays, and the Jays in general, but then November 13th 2012 happened....

Hey Farrell, do you like apples??

It was a lonely night for me at work, working check-out.  Working check-out usually means fucking around on my phone for 90% of the shift, re-tweeting the Iron Sheik or checking Facebook every 5 minutes to see if someone new has 'liked' one of my witty statuses.  But on this fateful night Twitter exploded with rumours that Josh Johnson was heading to Toronto, I was taken aback with joy immediately, and as the night went on I found out the Jays were not only getting Josh Johnson, but Mark Buerhle and Jose Fucking Reyes as well!  My bowels nearly expelled when I first read that.  Andrew Stoeten from Drunk Jays Fans summed up the night of tweets in his post here http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2012/11/13/morosi-jays-on-verge-of-acquiring-josh-johnson/.  On an aside, if you are a Jays fan and you don't read DJF or follow Andrew Stoeten on Twitter give you head a shake.  PS I stole all these pictures/photoshop from Drunk Jays Fans, so 100% full credit to them.  More on that later though.  It took that ridiculous old fart Bud Selig about a week to approve the deal, but mercifully he did.  Clearly Alex Anthopoulos (herein referred to as AA so I don't have to spell his god damned last name anymore) was going to go all in this year.  A few days after that he signed Melky Cabrera for a song, before he was suspended last year for PED's he was the best hitter in the National League, even if last year was an anomaly, it's not like a ton of money was committed to him, and if he turns out shitty no harm, no foul, and big fucking deal if he may have accidentally taken something from the banned substance list, shit happens.  AA wasn't done there....

#DickeyTheBest

He just went out and traded for the 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner, knuckle-baller and the most interesting man in baseball, RA Dickey.  Talk about a complete rotation overhaul.  Obviously all these moves didn't come cheaply, the Blue Jays had to give up some highly regarded prospects like Travis d'Arnaud, Adeiny Hechavarria, Justin Nicolino, Jake Marisnick and Noah Syndergaard.  Since AA took over from that big nosed fucknut JP Riccarrdi (aka Retardi) he has been stock-piling the minor league system waiting to pull the trigger on big moves like this.  All those players I just mentioned could well end up being All-Stars, or at the very least serviceable major leaguers, or they could end up being career minor leaguers, playing in the Mexican Leagues with Kenny Powers.  Either way none of them were going to help the 2013 Blue Jays win games and I commend AA for making these bold moves.

After all these moves were made, the question of who was going to replace that shit-for-brains douchenugget John Farrell as manager remained.  The usual suspects of ex-managers came through the rumour mill, but AA completely came out of left field and announced that John Gibbons (Gibby!) will be returning as Jays manager.  Gibbons managed the Blue Jays from 2004-2008 with marginal success, but he did well with what he had to work with.  At that point they were third wheel in the AL East to the juggernaut Yankees and Red Sox, in any other division the Blue Jays would have been a playoff team, especially in the 2006 season when they finished with 87 wins, yet still finished 10 games behind the Yankees.  So he got in a few scraps with his players, Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilley totally deserved it.  I think Gibby will be a nice contrast from that jerk Farrell, and won't have the boys running into outs on the basepaths like chickens with their heads cut off.  He has a more relaxed, easy going style and is a players manager, but as we saw before isn't afraid to bust heads if he has too.

Out of all the players they picked up I have a very strong feeling Jose Reyes will quickly become my favourite.  I barely follow the National League, so I haven't paid close attention to his career to date, but everything I have heard has been great.  He has an infectious personality, always smiling is a defensive master at shortstop, and will put up a ton of hits.  The main concern is that he is injury prone, he initally balked at signing with the Blue Jays before the 2012 season out of concern over playing on the SkyDome Rogers Centre turf.  He was excellent during the World Baseball Classic for the Dominican Republic, and I have a feeling that will carry over to the season.  I have the feeling he will be a fan favourite in Toronto.  Plus look at that picture with him and that donkey, how can you not love him??

Despite all this, I am incredibly nervous and anxious for the coming season, what if after all this hype it can all go wrong?  Already the Jays 2012 Opening Day Starter, Ricky Romero, aka Ricky RomerWOE has been optioned to Single-A to start the season to hopefully get his shit together, and come back stronger then ever as RR Cool Jay.  What happens if Colby Rasmus, JP Arencibia and Adam Lind play like shit, what if Edwin Encarnacion doesn't put up the same numbers he did in 2012, what if they're bitten by the injury bug yet again?  I've talked a lot of shit to my buddy/nemesis Killer (aka Ryan Bourdeau) who is a shitty Tigers fan, over the course of the winter and I will never hear the end of it if they Jays don't live up to the hype.  I don't expect the Blue Jays to win the World Series, but I do expect them to play meaningful ball games in September, and that they will be in the post-season for the first time since Joe Carter touched 'em all in 1993.  The AL East is ripe for the picking, Tampa Bay has a very good team, but the Orioles will not have the same horseshoe in ass luck they did last year, the Yankees are old and injured and the shitty Red Sox are fielding one of their worst line ups in years.  I think the Jays will be in Wild Card contention, and in the hunt for 1st in the East all year.  I would give my middle nut to see the Blue Jays play October baseball.

I am going to try and make blog posts throughout the season on the Jays, but chances are I won't.  The blog to follow for everything to do with the Jays is Drunk Jays Fans.  I've visited their site from their humble beginnings,  (bring back the DJF guides!) and I am glad they've made it to the big time with theScore.com.  They'll have two DJF podcasts a week, featuring Stoeten, Drew Fairservice and that delightful Archi Zuber, the same guys, along with Dustin Parkes have the Getting Blanked podcast daily, which covers everything to do with the rest Major League Baseball.   Like I said I stole all these pictures from the DJF website, the least I can do is give them credit, and tell you all to read their articles and listen to their podcasts.

Prediction time.  I honestly believe in the power of my jinx, I don't want to come out and say the Blue Jays are going to win the World Series because I will feel personally responsible if they don't.  But I am going to go ahead and say the Blue Jays win the AL East and make the playoffs.  Jose Bautista will have another massive season, hitting between 40 and 50 dingers.  Josh Johnson and Brandon Morrow will have massive seasons, especially Johnson who is a free agent after this season, and everyone plays better when he has an obscene contract waiting for him to sign in the winter.   Jose Reyes will win the AL batting title, and Gibby will be AL Manager of the year.  Here is how I see the AL playing out.  I really could give a flying fuck about the National League...pitchers taking at bats is barbaric.

* = Wild Card Teams


EAST

1.  Toronto Blue Jays
2.  Tampa Bay Rays*
3.  Boston Red Sox
4.  Baltimore Orioles
5.  New York Yankees

CENTRAL

1.  Chicago White Sox
2.  Detroit Tigers
3.  Kansas City Royals
4.  Cleveland Indians
5.  Minnesota Twins

WEST

1. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
2. Texas Rangers*
3. Seattle Mariners
4. Oakland A's
5. Houston Astros

Enjoy the season folks, and  Let's Go Blue Jays!!