Yankees Season Dependent on the Blue Jays Pitching

The New York Yankees are expected to stay relatively quiet this winter with any activity the team sees likely to come on the trade market. The Bronx Bombers, the former kings of free agency, will likely stay away from the top tier free agents and have already seen many names and plenty of dollars come off the board already. New York’s primary concern is waiting out these albatross contracts that expire after the 2016 and 2017 seasons without adding more albatross contracts as knee jerk reactions to what the other teams in the American League East have done. The Yankees, a playoff team in 2015, are also looking to at least compete for a Wild Card and playoff spot in 2016 while this is all going down, will they make it back to the promised land?

The Red Sox are going to be better undoubtedly, although the Yankees finished nine games ahead of them in 2015, and all signs point to the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays taking a step back next season but what about the Toronto Blue Jays? Toronto has already lost David Price to the rival Boston Red Sox but have added a couple complimentary pieces in Jesse Chavez and JA Happ, will that be enough to replace the production left behind by Price? Not likely but one thing is for certain, the Yankees postseason hopes depend on those two arms.

The Blue Jays, assuming the health and effectiveness of Marcus Stroman, are a better team than the Yankees if Chavez and Happ pitch better than they did in 2015. Happ was a big part of the impressive second half push the Pittsburgh Pirates made in the NL Central Division last year while Chavez continued to bounce back and forth between the bullpen and the starting rotation in Oakland. We’ve seen glimmers of hope from both pitchers in the past, and recently mind you, but we’ve also seen both pitcher fail. Fail hard. Toronto needs both of them to compete this season, RA Dickey is not a suitable #2 starter anymore and I can’t see Marco Estrada replicating his 2015 season although I could be wrong, and if they don’t they may be on the outside looking in at the postseason this year.

Sure the Blue Jays will have one of the best, if not the best, offense in all of Major League Baseball in 2016. Ask the Yankees how well that worked out in the 2000’s. For the most part that and 75 cents got you a can of Coke.