May 8, 2019

Jays Possible 2020 Run

By Rob Seguin

As bad as the Jays have been of late and as much hope as Vladdy Junior’s recent promotion provides Jays fans for the future, what’s really exciting is if you look at the possible 25-man Opening Day roster for 2020.

Consider this starting 9 (potential batting order):

Dante Bichette, 2B

Lourdes Gurriel, RF

Vladimir Guerrero, 3B

Cavan Biggio, DH

Randall Grichuk, CF

Rowdy Tellez, 1B

Teoscar Hernandez, LF

Danny Jansen, C

Freddy Galvis, SS

Assumptions:

-Gurriel is moved to the outfield; Bichette to second and Biggio is the super-utility guy and occasional DH.

-Justin Smoak, Devon Travis, Eric Sogard and Luke Maile are traded primarily for pitching/outfielders at the minor-league level.

-Ken Giles, David Phelps and Galvis have their options for 2020 picked up by the Jays based on their performance in 2019; Giles is signed to a longer-term contract during 2020.

-Marcus Stroman is traded; Aaron Sanchez is not and he’s signed to a multi-year deal for $10M/year based on a strong back-half 2019 performance

-Jacob Waguespack makes the team as a starting pitcher to complement Sanchez, Ryan Borucki, Trent Thornton and Matt Shoemaker; replaces the departed Clay Buchholz and Garrett Richards (FAs) and traded Stroman.

-Nate Pearson starts in triple-A and joins the rotation at the trade deadline in July when Shoemaker is dealt for prospects

-Reese McGuire is promoted and takes over for Maile as the back-up catcher

-Justin Shafer and Corey Copping are promoted to the bullpen to replace Elvis Luciano (sent down to double-A), and Daniel Hudson (FA).

-The Jays’ 2020 committed payroll is just short of $80M including the $19.4M they must pay Troy Tulowitski (thankfully, it will be the last year). This provides them tremendous payroll flexibility to pony up perhaps as much as $100M/year to sign their top young players to longer term deals and/or free agents over the next 2-3 seasons, before the bulk of their young core become arbitration-eligible in the 2022-2024 window (Guerrero, Bichette, Biggio, Alford, Tellez, Jansen, Pearson, Borucki and Thornton).

-Currently, the 2020 free agent class include pitchers Gerrit Cole (29), Alex Wood (29), Stephen Strasburg (31) and Chris Archer (31) to name four of eight or nine strong and not-to-old starters who may still be available in the off-season

-In case any high-end prospect stubs their toe, or trips on a sprinkler head going into 2020, as for position players, how about Avisail Garcia (29), Nick Castellanos (28), Anthony Rendon (30), or Scooter Gennett (30) to name four of six or seven great options

*Contract/Payroll figures from NBC Rotoworld

** Includes retained salary for Tulo ($19.4M)

If the Jays, use their considerable budget resources, could a World Series run happen as soon as 2020?

Maybe, baby. And hopefully it does before the 2021 labour shut-down looms. Canadian baseball fans don’t want to a repeat of the 1994 Expos debacle.

Editor’s note: In this the 50th anniversary of the Ottawa-Nepean Canadians we have opened the doors to former Canadians to take pen in hand (or open up the laptop) and write a few memories. Rob Seguin played for the Canadians from 1981-to-1983. This piece originally appeared on Bluebird Banter on March 18th.