Spring Training has officially started in Major League Baseball (MLB). The Toronto Blue Jays have high expectations this year coming off a very busy offseason. Some of the key acquisitions the Blue Jays made were all star pitcher Chris Bassitt, gold glove centre fielder Kevin Kiermaier and left-handed power hitter Daulton Varsho.
Adam Peddle is a baseball expert and one of the hosts of the Blue Jays Today podcast. He told us why he believes that Varsho will have the greatest impact of all the new additions.
“I think Daulton Varsho is going to take a huge step up. He’s a left handed hitter, there’s been a bunch of changes to the Rogers Centre… They moved the left field fence in, so obviously there’s going to be more of a power alley there. I think the banning of the shift, and he’s a pull hitter, is going to really benefit him especially in the A.L. East with all these small ballparks. So I can really see Dautlon Varsho taking that next step.”
Varsho had a career year last season for the Arizona Diamondbacks, hitting 27 home runs with 74 runs batted in. When speaking about Bassitt, Peddle said “I think he’s one of the more underrated signings that we’ve ever had. He’s just a guy that gets the job done and he’s kind of falling off the radar because he’s behind Manoah and Gausman, but he’s just been getting the job done for the past three seasons. You can just look at the numbers. Consistency and reliability, that’s going to eat up innings and help our bullpen. I think him and Varsho are definitely underrated and they’re going to make a big impact.” Last season, Bassitt went 15-9 with an impressive 3.42 earned run average for the New York Mets.
Of course, you can’t have addition without subtraction. The Blue Jays lost some key members of their lineup during the offseason, including all star Teoscar Hernandez, fan favourite Lourdes Gurriel Junior and young catcher Gabriel Moreno. Peddle mentioned why he thinks making these moves was the right decision for the team.
“Lourdes and Teo were both on one year deals and the goal for Toronto and this organization is to create sustainability and win championships. Sure, having them on the team this year would’ve been awesome for the offense, but the offense is already amazing though that’s the thing. We were first in a lot of offensive categories and second in runs scored last year and what did that do for us? You see time and time again all these other teams with good offenses… but what do they have? They have incredible pitching and they have incredible defense. So I love the approach that Ross Atkins (Blue Jays General Manager) made this year. Trading away guys on one year deals that realistically weren’t going to sign back because you want to save some of that money for Vladdy and Bo potentially.”
While Spring Training is already well under way, the Blue Jays regular season officially kicks off March 30th on the road versus the St. Louis Cardinals.
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