Blue Jays: playoff contenders?

New additions might get the job done

Steve Bohrn Staff

The Toronto Blue Jays began the 2006 Major League season as perhaps the most talked about team in baseball. Owner J.P. Ricciardi has invested millions in buying the best talent in the game, but will it win him the World Series, or even a spot in the playoffs?

There is no question the Blue Jays have the talent to win some games this year. Off-season acquisitions, including Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, BJ Ryan, AJ Burnett and Bengie Molina, have given the team the depth that it has been lacking for years.

But therein lies the problem. The Blue Jays have been a bad team for too long. The last time the team won the World Series was in 1993, when Joe Carter and Robbie Alomar were on the squad.

Since then, it has been a long, hard road, and along the way many of the Toronto faithful have fallen off the bandwagon. Will one good season be enough to bring them all back on board? I am not convinced it will be.

The real measure of a good team is how well they do at the end of the season, so we cannot really judge the Jays right now, as they have only played a few of their 162 games scheduled.

We can, however, gauge their chances of making the playoffs. As it stands, the Jays would have to beat either the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees to get into the wildcard. Both of these teams are regarded as elite teams and they are both in the same division as the Jays.

Is this a possibility? Yes, but it is not very likely. The Jays as a whole have too little experience playing meaningful baseball in September and a few new additions are unlikely to make enough of a difference to allow the team to get the job done.

Perhaps money is simply unable to buy happiness: if you follow baseball, you can surely remember what happened when the Yankees went all out in 2004, spending huge sums of money to bring in stars like Alex Rodriguez in an attempt to win the World Series.

And in a strange twist of fate, the Yankees did not win the Series that year. They did not even get to play in the finals. Although they were up three games to none on the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, they eventually lost in dramatic fashion in seven games.

This is not to say that the same thing will happen to the Blue Jays this year, but strange things do happen when a lot of money is dished out in this fashion.

And problems have already begun to creep up. Star pitcher AJ Burnett has already missed his first start because of scar tissue in his elbow. The season is long — who knows what other ailments may strike down the star-laden Jays. Only time will tell.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Jays will finish much higher this season than last. They may even pull off a wildcard playoff spot, but don’t bet the farm on them to win the Series, because they are not that kind of team yet.

Still, baseball is back in Canada, and that’s something the whole country can be proud of.