Blue Jays All-Time Roster

[Boxcar]

Yeah that WS team had to be dismantled as it had run its course, but Ash was not the guy who was going to squeeze more juice out of that roster, and he was not the guy who was going to pivot to maximize assets. That 1995-2001 team had no chance because they had the worst GM in Toronto sports history running it (Babcock wasn't GM long enough to hold that honor).

 

Have people forgotten that JFJ existed?

[Terminator]

The 2006 team was also a fun team. Maybe 1 good starting pitcher away from the playoffs. Won 87 games that year and that was the year Towers lost 10 games or whatever it was.

[Captain Adama]

The 2006 team was also a fun team. Maybe 1 good starting pitcher away from the playoffs. Won 87 games that year and that was the year Towers lost 10 games or whatever it was.

 

There was a lot of hype before that year I remember. That lineup was stacked. You're right, the starting rotation lacked depth, but after the previous years Chacin and Towers had, everyone thought the rotation was gonna be pretty great too.

[Orgfiller]

There was a lot of hype before that year I remember. That lineup was stacked. You're right, the starting rotation lacked depth, but after the previous years Chacin and Towers had, everyone thought the rotation was gonna be pretty great too.

 

We had the third best offense in the league behind the Yankees (prime Jeter, A-Rod, Posada, Giambi with the delayed aging effect of roids) and Indians (prime Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez), and the defense wasn't bleeding runs either. I'd say that was easily our best lineup of the decade and in fact likely our best from the championship squads up until the 2015 one. The rotation just wasn't deep enough and you make a great point that we probably expected way more out of Chacin and Towers after their seemingly breakout 2005 campaigns.

[glory]

I remember having so much optimism in 2002-03. Halladay broke out. A position player core all coming up at the same time in Wells, Phelps, Hudson, Hinske (ROY season), Werth, etc. Made some interesting trades for Prokopec, Jason Arnold, JF Griffin, etc. All of them busted, but looked decent at the time. Escobar was wasted as a RP but was finally moved to the rotation for good in 2003 and looked to be turning into a long term piece, though they ended up not re-signing him and he turned into a really good SP for a few years with the Angels. Not finding a way to bring him and Carpenter back really hurt long term, obviously Carpenter more so. More than anything, the Jays hired someone from Beane's front office before Moneyball was a thing. I thought we were going to be the Toronto A's, which would have been a huge compliment around that time.

 

Regardless, in hindsight, 2002-08 wasn't that bad. Had some fun years and there wasn't the level of ineptitude like there was during Ash's years. Still wasn't a good period in Jays history, but from 94-14, we had to take what we could get.