First Happy Thanksgiving to those of you south of the border, I hope you enjoy all the things you have to be thankful for, like an improved Blue Jay team. I'm enjoying the football, but have no urge to do a turkey today.
After reading this post from Espn.go.com, I thought I'd ask the question 'Are the Jays the best team in the AL East right now?'
Jayson Stark's (any relation to Anthony?) post ends with this:
You have the best team in the AL East. On paper. On Nov. 21. That's what.
And even though it's only Thanksgiving weekend, it's been a long time since we've been able to say that about the Toronto Blue Jays. Wouldn't you say?
Being the best team in the division on November 22 isn't worth very much, but still it is nice to think.
1-5 I'd like to think our starting rotation is better than anyone's, at the moment, except for the Rays. If Ricky Romero bounces back some, it certainly wouldn't hurt, but I'd take him, Morrow, Johnson, Buehrle (yes I put the r in the wrong spot the first time) and Happ with any 1-5 in the division other than the Rays. Yankees will likely end up fine, but CC has to get healthy and I'm sure they will try to fix up the back of the rotation some.
We could use some help in the 6-8 slots as far as starting pitchers go, but if they get someone to move Happ back we wouldn't be bad.
Our bullpen, if Sergio Santos comes back from injury and if Darren Oliver just comes back, looks terrific. Even without either or both of those two, we should be pretty good and pretty deep. I'd like to think our relievers will be as good as any of the teams in the AL East.
On offense, as Stark notes, before Bautista (and Lawrie and Arencibia and, well, Cooper) went down, we were with in a run or two leading the AL in scoring. Add Reyes, Cabrera, Bonifacio and Izturis (Maicer, not Cesar) we should be at least as good. Our bench ought to be better, not that it could get much worse than last year's.
There is lots of time for the rest of the division to improve but the question for the moment is: are the Jays the best team in the AL East at the moment?
I see Blake Murphy at Beyond the Boxscore is ploughing the same field.