The Blue Jays have been trading away all of their top prospects in recent years, and so far, not one of the players has come back to burn them. Unfortunately, the veterans brought in via trade haven’t pushed them over the top either.

By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @mlbreports and Jeff Kleiner (Salary, Roster and Depth Chart Expert for the MLB) – visit his website  here  Follow @prosportsroster

For all of the Rosters, Depth Charts, State of the Unions and Salaries Posts that we do, please visit our dedicated page link here.

The Blue Jays have invested a great deal of their future in trades in recent years.  First they traded away several prospects to acquire Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and John Buck.

The 2nd move was to also trade Travis d’Arnaud and Buck for R.A.Dickey.  However the moves backfired on them in 2013.

What is worse for the team, is the franchise has not been able to develop their own talent over the last several years.  Their best players on the club were all brought in via trades.

Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were absolute steals for the guys they doled out to reel them in (Robinson Diaz, never played in the Majors for Pit in the Joey Bats deal, and they originally acquired in the Scott Rolen traded to Cincy.  He was selected off of waivers by Oakland, before he came to the club via Free Agency.

Jose Bautista 2013 Highlights

Following the 2012 Major League Baseball season, Toronto Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopolous made some noticeable moves, to seemingly re-invent Canada’s team. Jay’s fans everywhere were ecstatic and pumped for the upcoming season, thinking that playoff baseball would finally return to Canada after 20 long seasons. However the 2013 ended with the team going 74 – 88 and finishing dead last in the AL East. A lot of it was injuries to key pitching and also to superstars on the offense side. AA has his work cut out for him this winter too.

It has been a long time since the club has had a homegrown talent.  A lot of this is not Alex Anthopoulos’s fault, as predecessor J.P. Ricciardi made most of the Draft picks.

In fact, AA still pulled off one of the biggest ‘Hoodini’ Acts of all time, getting the Angels to bite on Vernon Wells.  He also let the Alex Rios contract walk out the door, when the White Sox claimed him.

No matter how you feel about letting an asset walk free like that – and his decent numbers with the White Sox, those $ freed up enabled them to sign Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion.

AA was able to extend Joey Bats 5 Yr/$64 MIL after his breakout 54 HR campaign.  Pundits called it a bad idea, but #19 rewarded Toronto with 43 HRS in 2011. 

2012 and 2013 have been injury riddles seasons for Bautista, but he has still put up 28 HRs and 27 HRs respectively – in about 2/3rd of the year in both campaigns.

Enacarnacion is the most underrated player in the game of baseball right now.

While I thought he sold himself short, EE signed a 3 YR/$29 MIL extension midway through the 2012 season.  The man has 78 HRs (3rd only in the last 2 year to Miguel Cabrera and Chris Davis and has driven in 214 RBI in that time frame.

In 2014 though, it will be the Starting Pitching that will need to step up to the forefront for the team to compete.  It would be nice if they could have a healthy season from Brandon Morrow and breakout season from Kyle Drabek (coming of TJ Surgery).

The rest of the prospects could soon become suspect – if the young players can’t step up to the plate in the Majors.  Anthony Gose, David Cooper and J.P. Arencibia may have to prove they can hack it long term.

Management

All of the players in the Organization Minors and Majors:

Kyle Drabek establishing himself as one of the Starting Pitchers in the rotation – will go a long way in this teams success in 2014. In the roundabout way of the assets from the Roy Halladay trade, it is essentially he, Anthony Gose and R. A. Dickey representing the Blue Jays in the chain play to their potential, where Noah Syndergaard and Halladay were the only meaningful drafted assets surrendered in the multitude of trades. Halladay is a Free Agent now.  John Buck was part of the Marlins, then Mets trade  however he would be listed 5th in the trade’s top players coming over from Miami.  Mike Nickeas and Josh Thole also are part of the Jays trade from the New York in the R.A Dickey trade, while the Wuilmer Becerra rounds out the players with the Mets organization.

For all of the Rosters, Depth Charts, State of the Unions and Salaries Posts that we do, please visit our dedicated page link here.

Authors for this post:

You guys are all in for a treat.  Jeff Kleiner recently contacted me about a partnership merge for the website.  He has developed a site (prosportsrosters.com) that covers all organizational affiliates in the Minors for all of the Major League Baseball Clubs. 

We are going to combine efforts to bring you the best look at salaries, current 25 Man Player Rosters and Depth Charts for all 30 teams. 

Jeff is going to provide the documents in form of spreadsheets and I am going to accompany the posts with deep analysis of what the numbers tell us from my perspective. 

If you can’t wait for all of my updates (assessments for each club – in March and Aug/Sept), go and visit Jeff’s website over at http://www.prosportsrosters.com. for much more up to date info

In Speaking with Jeff, he is one of the more passionate fans I have come across towards the game of baseball.  He spends enough time in updating his MLB Facts for it to be a Full-Time Job. 

Jeff updates this page below on a daily basis.  After you click on it….Bookmark it.  There is a 3 year salary forecast and stats not listed here on this page.  Jeff updates these pages daily and these changes include any Roster moves!

Jeff Kleiner:  “I have been a sports fan since the first Baseball game I went to at Comisky Park in Chicago in 1959, when baseball for me turned from black and white to color.

I have attended or watched thousands of games, always paying attention to statistics, rosters and salaries of all professional sports.

Luckily I had the advantage of watching WGN TV and seeing hundreds of games in the 60’s. Collecting Baseball Cards and then later dealing them gave me an extra sense of the sport, both good and bad.”

For all of your Salaries, Roster and Depth Charts for all 4 Major Sports (entire organization – Minors and Majors) click here or Follow Me on twitter  Follow @prosportsroster

prosportsrosters.com is the best source for following entire organizations in all 4 Major Sports.

Chuck Booth – Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner and author of the Fastest 30 Ballgames:   To learn more about my  “The Fastest 30 Ballgames Book” and how to purchase it, click here .

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