Blue Jays now among AL contenders 

Blue Jays now among AL contenders

The Toronto Blue Jays, buoyed by ownership's willingness to countenance a higher payroll, have been one of the most active teams in baseball this winter.

Thus far, they've made three notable additions: closer B.J. Ryan (five years, $47 million), SP A.J. Burnett (five years, $55 million) and 1B Lyle Overbay (acquired from the Brewers along with minor league hurler Ty Taubenheim). You can certainly quibble with the contracts doled out to Ryan and Burnett (although, to be fair, the Jays generally need to surpass market rates in order to attract players to Toronto), and a case can be made that the Brewers (narrowly) got the better end of the Overbay swap. Even so, this is a substantially improved team going into 2006. In Ryan, they have a top-shelf, shutdown closer whose excellent peripheral indicators augur continued success. In Burnett, they get a legit number-two starter whose groundball tendencies and high strikeout rates mean he's primed for a breakout season, and in Overbay they get a slick-fielding first baseman whose gap-power stroke should play nicely on the artificial turf of the Rogers Centre.

The Jays as presently constructed would probably win, say, the NL West by 10 games or so. However, in reality they have the misfortune of toiling in the AL East, where the Panzer divisions otherwise known as the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox roam the earth. But they've got a shot. They key to the Jays' success in 2006 may just be the well-planned intersection of a groundball-inducing staff with an accomplished infield defense. Consider ...

At third base they have Corey Koskie, a strong defender even in these, his decline-phase years (and backing him up they have the equally adept Aaron Hill). At second, they have Orlando Hudson, who's the best defensive keystoner in the game today. And now, they have Overbay at first, and he's on the short list of baseball's top-fielding first baseman. This infield arrangement is going to serve the Jays quite well.

Last season, the Toronto pitching staff ranked second in the AL in ground ball-fly ball ratio. Now consider that Burnett, who had the sixth-highest ground ball-fly ball rate in all of baseball last season, has been added to the fold. That's going to be an overwhelming number of "worm burners" induced by Toronto hurlers, and having gloves like Hudson, Koskie and Overbay manning the infield will mean groundouts by the truckload.

You may have noticed that no mention has been made of shortstop Russ Adams. Adams shows good range/lateral movement at the position, but his throwing arm is weak — and often inaccurate — by shortstop standards. As a result, he bounces many of his throws, and a great number of those bounced throws, in the absence of a good defensive first baseman, become errors.

Enter Overbay. Overbay has good footwork and range around the bag, and he's also especially skilled at scooping errant throws out of the dirt. That's going to help Adams tremendously. In 2005, Adams made 26 errors in 132 games at short. In 2006, watch as his error total magically declines, and Adams gains confidence at the position. That's probably what GM J.P.Ricciardi was thinking when he dealt for Overbay.

The upshot is that the Jays, who placed sixth in the AL in 2005 in fewest runs allowed, figure to be much better at keeping runs off the board. But will that be enough to overtake Boston or New York and claim the organization's first playoff berth since 1993? A few things need to happen ...