Well, that season sucked…as I predicted. For those of you who just became Jays fans, welcome to the feeling of despair and disappointment, something real Jays fans are all to familiar with. This past season reminded me of the JP Ricciardi days, where you knew this team had no hoe and watched management do literally nothing to improve the roster, other than sign fillers in the off season.
As I stated in my opening of my Top Bluejays Predictions for 2018 “get ready for a season that will be over by Canada Day and half empty seats by September. Here are my 2018 Bluejays Predictions”…Let’s see how I did:
1. Stroman gets in a twitter beef with another player – Wrong
Didn’t happen. Although he had a little tiff with Arash Madani. But Stroman kept his emotions in check for the most art on social media this year
2. Randal Grichuck gets sent to AAA – Correct
So he was sent down in May for an injury, but this guy was the worst player in the Majors League for the first month and a half of the season before getting hurt. There was no valid excuse to keep him in the Majors and should have been sent down sooner. He was striking out 30% of his at-bats (that’s horrific). BUT they didn’t send him down because he had no options and would’ve been claimed on waivers. Even though he deserved to be sent down, but only got sent down for an injury, I’m giving myself this one. When he came back, he was surprisingly good, but I’m still not sold on this guy. I still think he’s Colby Rasmus 2.0 and will never be a consistently good player.
3. Gibby get fired by end of year – Bingo
The writing was on the wall for Gibby this year and everyone knew it. This team was trash and Gibby was not the guy Shapiro wanted to grow the next crop of prospects. As I stated in my Predictions article “I hope shithead Atkins and Shapiro have the decency to let him finish the season.”, which they did. They owed him that, for having to figure out how to piece together a major league roster with fringe major league players.
4. Granderson leads the team in HR – Wrong
Early in the season I thought this would happen, but Grandy finished his Jays career with 11 bombs, 14 away from the team lead.
5. Donaldson misses >50 games with injury – Correct
He only played 36 games as a Bluejay this year. After not playing a season game, then being rushed into the lineup to prove he had trade value, which all blew up in the Jays faces, I knew this would be a trying year for JD. I just hoe he’s healthy and wins World Series MVP.
6. Tulo doesn’t make it back to the majors until June – Yup
I predicted this back on March 27th in my last article and the Jays announced he was having Surgery on March 29th. So I fucking nailed this one, I thought i was being a little pessimistic saying June, but I should’ve trusted my inner pessimist and said longer. I don’t even think we’ll ever see him in a Jays uniform again.
7. Granderson gets traded – Mhmm
This was obviously going to happen. Vet on a one year deal on a shit team = trade deadline asset.
8. Vlad gets the call by the end of June – Nope
It’s not like he didn’t earn it. He was the best layer in the world not playing in the Majors last season. He SHOULD’VE been called up in June. Who knows, what could have happened, just look at what happened with the Braves when they called up Acuna early in the year. But we’ll have to wait until next year, mid-April to see what our future holds. Oh yea, he won’t be on the Opening Day Roster because then it’ll eat a year of his service time, so he’ll have to wait until mid-April. I’m sure he is thrilled at how this has all transpired.
9. Jays will finish between 12-17 in attendance – Nailed It
The Jays were 4th in attendance in 2017 and finished 13th in attendance in 2018 with 878,605 less attendees this year. To put that in perspective, that would be approx 18 less sell outs than in 2017, and a loss of $26.3M if you multiple the lost attendance by an avg of $30/ticket. Why did this happen? Well here’s what I had to say before the season started:
“They were 4th in attendance last year and this year this will piss it away by regularly having guys like Almedys Diaz and Yangervis Solarate filling voids for weeks at a time for injured Donaldson and Tulo. Their team is not fast, young or exciting. They did not upgrade their outfield, their regular infielders are all injury prone (with the exception of Smoak) and the team doesn’t have any scary fire power. Opponents will not be afraid of this team and fans will not be stupid to buy hype.” – Damn, I’m good.
10. Jays finish 4th in the Division with 72 Wins – So Close
SO CLOSE! They finished with 73 wins! Goddamit, I was legit routing for them to lose this weekend so I could get this one right, but they had to go and do something crazy and win a meaningless game on Friday. Still, not a bad prediction by me.
Overall I went 6 for 10 this year. Which at least gives me a better winning percentage than the Jays (not that hard though). Enjoy the winter of not having to watch this horrid team (but you will have to endure their mediocre roster moves), and see you in the spring when we see Vlad tear things up but start the season in AAA!
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