Over the last few years Toronto Blue Jays fans have learned the hard way that in the AL East, there’s no point to being “pretty good.”

Seemingly every season, the Jays have ended with more wins than losses, and seemingly every season they’ve missed the playoffs.

Last season Toronto finished with a sub-.500 record for the first time in five seasons, but that was due more to bad luck than bad play, as the team’s Pythagorean record (expected wins and losses, based on the number of runs scored and allowed) was actually more like 83-78.

Edwin Encarnacion likes to get dirty, but can't field.

Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos could have hoped for better luck this season and a return to winning baseball. But really, what would have been the point? When you’re competing with the Red Sox and the Yankees, you’re either great or you’re golfing in October. And the Blue Jays would have needed an unprecidented string of favorable bounces to top either the Sox and Yanks in 2010.

So Anthopoulos did what he had to do, and he started before the 2009 season ended, trading frequently injured 3B Scott Rolen to the Reds and landing a great return. Fangraphs’ Erik Manning wrote, “Toronto must be be ponying up a lot of cash. Even if they are, I still can’t quite wrap my head around this.” Here’s what Manning had to say about Zachary Stewart, the centerpiece of the deal:

Zachary Stewart is the “get” of the trade. He has a 92-95 MPH fastball with good sink and a hard cutting 82-85 MPH slider. He’s quickly climbed the ladder, pitching at High-A, Double-A and now Triple-A this season, and has a cumulative 2.92 FIP in 92 innings pitched. He pitched mostly out of the bullpen last year but is showing some good promise as a starter. He’s a solid B grade pitcher.

Anthopoulos was just getting warmed up. This winter he did what his predecessor JP Riccardi couldn’t; he traded Roy Halladay. In return the Jays acquired at least two badly-needed top 50 prospects in SP Kyle Drabek and 1b/DH Brett Wallace, as well as C Travis d’Arnaud. It was a solid return for a pitcher the Jays had little hope of retaining after 2010.

Just like that the Jays breathed new life into baseball’s worst farm system, landing a talented crop of players (Drabek, Stewart, Wallace, d’Arnaud) who all could be ready for the big leagues this season.

But still, Anthopoulos wasn’t done. The Blue Jays acquired pitcher Brandon Morrow from the Mariners for reliever Brandon League and minor league outfielder Johermyn Chavez. Morrow was drafted fifth overall by the Mariners in ‘06, and still has the potential to be an ace, despite a a few serious injuries thus far in his career. MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes thought the Jays came out ahead on the trade:

The Blue Jays come out ahead on this one.  Morrow is an obvious health risk, but he still has frontline starter potential.  It’s a gamble worth taking at the cost of a reliever and a prospect.

After all his wheeling and dealing, Anthopoulos also spent $10.5M on a smattering of free agents, including the slick fielding John McDonald, who will be a utility infielder, and the always disappointing RP Kevin Gregg, who is the leading candidate to close games for the Jays (at least until his craptastic pitching forces them to find somebody else).

Toronto is still somewhat hamstrung by Vernon Wells’ awful contract. The team’s rotation is young and you can expect them to struggle even more this season without Halladay to take the ball every fifth day. Edwin Encarnacion is nobody’s idea of a longterm solution at third base, and Jose Bautista (so far) hasn’t shown the power to justify a corner outfield spot.

The Blue Jays aren’t going to make the playoffs in 2010. But thanks to the moves Anthopoulos made this winter, there’s hope for 2011 and beyond.

Grade: B+

Lost: SP Roy Halladay, SS Marco Scutaro, C Rod Barajas, P Brandon League, 1B Kevin Millar, RP Brian Wolfe, UT Joe Inglett, SS Brian Bocock, OF Russ Adams, C Michael Barrett

Added: SP Kyle Drabek, C Travis d’Arnaud, 1B/DH Brett Wallace, P Brandon Morrow, SS John McDonald, SS Alex Gonzalez, RP Kevin Gregg, C John Buck.

Projected lineup:

C: John Buck
1B: Lyle Overbay/Brett Wallace
2B: Aaron Hill
SS: John MacDonald/Alex Gonzalez
3B: Edwin Encarnacion
RF: Jose Bautista
CF: Vernon Wells
LF: Travis Snider
DH: Adam Lind/Brett Wallace

Projected rotation and closer:

SP1: Ricky Romero
SP2: Sean Marcum
SP3: Brandon Morrow
SP4: Marc Rzepczynski
SP5: Brett Cecil/Kyle Drabek

CL: Kevin Gregg/Jason Frasor/Scott Downs

-Hot Offseason Action Index-

This is one of a series of posts in which we throw cold water on each team’s pathetic offseason twiddlings while spraying champagne all over their ingenious winter machinations.

The Toronto Blue Jays have been stuck in a funk lo these last few years. They compete in a tough-as-nails division, dominated by two big-market teams, and they only crack the top two when something goes horribly wrong with one of those teams (such as when the Red Sox experienced disastrous injuries in 2006, allowing the Jays to beat them for second place by one game). And last year, despite heading into the season with a promising lineup, they themselves suffered injury after injury, apparently cursed by a vengeful swamp hag. Yet despite this, they managed to hang around second place in the AL East through the first half of the 2007 season, as the Yankees were similarly blighted. Unfortunately for Toronto, the Yankees then suddenly remembered, “Holy s—, we’re the New York f—ing Yankees!” and started winning again. And the Blue Jays finished the season 13 games out of first place.

What did the Jays do this offseason to try and break out of their perpetual state of mediocrity? The signed David Eckstein. Now, David Eckstein, though often treated as little more than a punchline by the average blogger, is not actually terrible. However, he’s not actually that good, either.

The other major move made by the Jays this winter was the acquisition of Scott Rolen in a one-for-one trade of third basemen, sending Troy Glaus to the Cardinals. Rolen, pissed off at Tony La Russa, waived his no-trade clause to get out of St. Louis. Glaus, whose tender feet didn’t enjoy playing half their games on turf, was just as happy to leave the Rogers Center. When healthy, the two are remarkably similar in their offensive output, but Rolen has struggled to stay on the field since a collision at first base that left him with nagging shoulder problems. Then there’s the question of how hard Rolen will play—certainly, La Russa got the impression he was dogging it. (But perhaps Eckstein, the intangibly gritty gamer that he is, will inspire similar intestinal fortitude in his fellow infielder. There. There’s your David Eckstein joke. I hope you enjoyed it.) At least Rolen will be an upgrade, defensively. But it’s the contracts carried by each of these men that render the deal a bit of a puzzle. As Paul put it in a recent email, “Glaus had one year at $12.75m left on his deal. So they sent him away and got back Rolen who has three years and $33m left. Why would you paint yourself into a corner like that when you had the ability to lose payroll?” Why indeed? And in a year when third basemen were either commanding lucrative contracts (A-Rod, Mike Lowell) or functioning as the centerpiece in the winter’s biggest trade (Miguel Cabrera), and you, J.P. Ricciardi, wanted to trade Troy Glaus, why would you trade him for a Scott Rolen when you could have gotten a couple of decent prospects with upside?

The Jays win just enough, apparently, to keep the FO from admitting defeat and deciding to rebuild. Yet they lose too much to make the playoffs. So they’re stuck. They’ve got one bonafide ace in Roy Halladay and a good No. 2 in AJ Burnett. The back of their rotation is better than most—and at least their 3, 4, and 5 pitchers are all young. Closer BJ Ryan, who had Tommy John surgery in May, says he’ll be ready to go by Opening Day. But even if Lyle Overbay and Rolen can both bounce back offensively this year, their lineup will still lack sufficient on-base, top-of-the-order types, and they could use another power bat. Their defense? No real complaints (though Eckstein is a downgrade at short). In fact, despite the holes in their roster, the Jays have enough youngish, decent talent—guys like Halladay, Burnett, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Aaron Hill—that if their farm system were stocked, they might have a chance to make a good run at the Wild Card in the next couple of years. But will the farm provide?

The Jays have some decent prospects in their system, but none are close enough to the bigs to help out in the near future. In fact, the organization’s most exciting youngsters can’t even drink legally. The best of these is outfielder Travis Snider, who just turned 20 on Groundhog Day. Baseball Prospectus describes him as “one of the top hitting prospects in baseball” who projects for “legitimate MVP-level numbers” in the future. That’s the good news. The bad? His flaws make his plate approach sound a bit like JD Drew to me (“could use more aggressiveness at the plate…currently works himself into poor hitter’s counts while letting not perfect–yet perfectly hittable–pitches go by”) and the hulking 245-pounder is not fast (he got caught stealing nine times in a row last year). In a perfect world, he’d be “a number-three hitter on a championship-level team, and a perennial All-Star.” However, he has yet to play above low-A ball. For better or for worse, he still has a ways to go. And after Snider, what has Toronto got? A talented 18-year old third base prospect (Kevin Ahrens); a solid, middle-of-the-rotation type lefty making the transition from a closer to a starter and aiming for AA ball by the end of the summer (Brett Cecil); a 19-year old with power but no natural defensive position position who has played all of 49 games in the Gulf Coast League (John Tolisano); and a good catching prospect who still strikes out too much (J.P. Arencibia).

All this leads me to believe that the Lansing Lugnuts will be a great team to watch this year. I wish I could say the same for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Acquisitions: Rod Barajas, C; David Eckstein, SS; Marco Scutaro, 3B; Buck Coats, RF; Scott Rolen, 3B

Losses: Josh Towers, SP; Troy Glaus, 3B

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer:

SS David Eckstein, 33 years old, 3 homers, .309 avg

1B Lyle Overbay, 31 years old, 10 homers, .240 avg

RF Alex Rios, 27 years old, 24 homers, .297 avg

DH Frank Thomas, 39 years old, 26 homers, .277 avg

2B Aaron Hill, 25 years old, 17 homers, .291 avg

CF Vernon Wells, 29 years old, 16 homers, .245 avg

3B Scott Rolen, 32 years old, 8 homers, .265 avg

C, Gregg Zaun, 36 years old, 10 homers, .242 avg

LF Reed Johnson, 31 years old, 2 homers, .236 avg

SP1 Roy Halladay, 30 years old, 225.1 IP, 3.71 ERA

SP2 AJ Burnett, 31 years old, 165.2 IP, 3.75 ERA

SP3 Dustin McGowan, 25 years old, 169.2 IP, 4.05 ERA

SP4 Jesse Litsch, 22 years old, 111.0 IP, 3.81 ERA

SP5a Shaun Marcum, 26 years old, 159.0 IP, 4.13 ERA

SP5b Gustavo Chacin, 27 years old, 27.1 IP, 5.60 ERA

CL BJ Ryan, 32 years old, 38 saves with a 1.37 ERA in 2006; he had 3 saves and 2 losses, with a 12.46 ERA in 2007.

Grade: D

What the Blue Jays have assembled here is not a bad team—if they played in the NL Central. Though the Toronto brass has promised to rebuild many times, they’ve yet to actually do so. I’m not asking for a drastic fire sale; they just need to stop acquiring mediocre hitters in their 30s. If they could face up to reality and unload a couple of their older players this year at the trade deadline, they could conceivably end up with some prospects who could actually help them in 2009 or 2010. But hoping for the two teams ahead of you to suddenly collapse—especially when those two teams have healthy farm systems and way more revenue than you do—is not a strategy.

Looking towards the future of the division, with the Devil Rays ascendant and the Orioles finally starting a rebuilding process of their own, if the Jays keep on their current path, they will soon be recalling their days in third place with fond nostalgia.

-Hot Offseason Action Index-

Maybe it’s because I’m getting a bit tired of hearing so many trade rumors, but I’m feeling mighty childish/punchy today (more so than usual, anyway).

And maybe that’s why I find this this headline on ESPN to be hysterical:

“Rolen seeks trade; LaRussa won’t ‘please Scott’”

Now Scott, you knew very well going into this relationship that Tony had the reputation of being a bit stingy in that department. There’s a long line of guys that couldn’t convince LaRussa to please them. And trust me, they’ve tried everything. A box of Ferrero Roche chocolates, a pocket full of posies, won an MVP Award, posted his bail, and all were denied.

I don’t blame you for trying, though.