Jose Bautista is not happy about the Blue Jays projected record
Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve. The 35-year-old isn’t afraid to let an umpire know if he disagrees with a call, and has no problem celebrating big moments when the situation calls for it.
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With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that Bautista spoke up after seeing the most recent PECOTA projections from Baseball Prospectus. After winning 93 games and making the postseason for the first time since 1993, PECOTA predicts the Blue Jays will finish third in the American League East with 86 wins.
Bautista wasn’t a big fan of that projection, and let all 931,000 of his Twitter followers know about it.
Wow. That’s just a brutal own on so many levels. It’s not just Baseball Prospectus Bautista is going after, but he also decided to take Kevin Hart down a couple pegs. We respect Bautista’s ruthlessness here. It also gave us an idea for a Ride Along sequel, which comes courtesy of The Stew’s own Mike Oz.
While we understand why Bautista is upset, being projected for 86 wins isn’t really a bad thing. Projection systems are notoriously conservative, so you shouldn’t expect many teams to receive crazy win totals. You’ll never see a team projected for 100 wins, even when clubs come close to that total every season.
On top of that, there are reasons to expect regression from Toronto. David Price and Mark Buehrle are gone. Marco Estrada is coming off a breakout season at age-32, and J.A. Happ is coming off three exceptional months. Marcus Stroman may be an ace in waiting, but he only tossed 27 regular season innings due to injury. While knuckleballers defy age, the fact that R.A. Dickey is 41 is somewhat concerning.
The historic offense of last season will return virtually all its members, but it will still be tough for them to repeat last year’s success. Everyone is a year older, too. That includes Bautista, who at age-35 is entering an area of his career where many players see steep decline.
[Related: The PECOTA projections picked the Royals to finish last in the AL Central]
We’re not saying any of that will happen. There’s a scenario where the Blue Jays offense is still excellent, Stroman becomes an ace and Drew Storen shores up the bullpen. The Blue Jays might win 95 games this year and destroy the AL East. You don’t even have to stretch your imagination that much in order to get there.
While all of that is true, we still can’t help but chuckle at Bautista’s poll. After last season, he ought to have high expectations for his club. He didn’t have to bring Kevin Hart into this mess, but Bautista’s never had a problem speaking his mind.
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
