Team Postmortem: Toronto Blue Jays

Record: 74-88, -44 Run Differential

Summary: Congratulations to the 2013 World Champi-- What? They didn't win the World Series? Didn't even play in it? Well, the postseason is a crapshoot, they probably just got unlucky. In that case, this season the AL East Champion Toro--Huh? They didn't win the division, either? They finished last? Oh... So, yeah, despite being crowned the easy favorites by just about everyone in the media, the Blue Jays actually finished dead last in the East, with a sub-.500 record. Seeing a window of opportunity, with the Red Sox and Yankees both apparently weakened and the Orioles likely to regress, the Blue Jays pushed all their chips to the center of the table in the offseason, trading nearly their entire farm system for R.A. Dickey and the entire Miami Marlins roster. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong from that point basically did. Let's take a look.

More or Less Scary than J.P. Arencibia, Starting Catcher

So, yesterday I had a small exchange with Dan Szymborski on Twitter. He had done an article for ESPN listing free agents who scare him, then tweeted:

Did not include Arencibia, but I'd obviously be scared of him too.
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) November 13, 2013

For reference, J.P. Arencibia spent 2013 as the starting catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was, to be kind, abysmal. He hit--and I use that term loosely--.194/.227/.365  with a wRC+ of 57. Look at that OBP! It is not a typo. It's .227. Yet he got into 134 games and had almost 500 PAs. The only thing that kept him from being the worst player in the game was being a catcher and hitting with some power (21 HRs). I asked a pertinent question: