What to do With a Surprising Amount of Sock

Toronto’s offence seemingly just keeps rolling. After a weekend in which the Blue Birds hit six home runs on Friday night and scored twelve runs two days later, it is safe to say that no one saw this year’s tater surge coming. Toronto is far and away out homering the rest of baseball, and it is in large part due to many pleasant surprises in the Jays lineup: Kevin Youkilis Jr. (John Buck) and Alex Gonzalez are both on pace for career highs in ding dongs. Edwin Encarnacion came off the DL to hit 5 bombs in one weekend, and Jose Bautista leads the majors in homers, no one saw this coming. While it is easy to get excited about this unexpected power surge and a 27-20 start; I am hoping that cooler heads prevail inside the Jays organization and this season is still treated as the first year of a rebuilding process.

Treating this team as one that is rebuilding means several things for the currently surging Jays. With Bautista, Encarnacion and Fred Lewis all exceeding expectations, creating playing time for Travis Snider will prove to be a challenge. Developing young players that will become cornerstones of the franchise should still be priority number one (unless we plan on singing Alex Gonzalez long term). Hopefully someone that has the potential to become an impact player like Snider doesn’t have to ride the pine because Cito wants to play the hot hand of Fred Lewis.

Despite the Jay’s impressive home run total, this offence needs to be put into perspective. Friday against Arizona the team hit six dingers and STILL lost. While the Jays may be leading the league in homers, they sit 12th in the 14 team AL in on base percentage, which is not the sign of a dominant offensive team and suggests the Jays will be fumbling to score runs if the home run fountain dries up. The Jays coaching staff needs to be preaching patience along with power if this team wants to truly develop into an offensive force.

Lastly, the surprise offensive output of so many different Blue Jay hitters should be used to do what rebuilding teams do best: trade for younger players. Many around baseball are suggesting that Jose Bautista is for real: he has made adjustments to his swing that will translate into sustained results (it is also important to note that despite his .241 average, he has a respectable OBP. Of .354). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell high on players like Alex Gonzalez, Fred Lewis, and John Buck (on the pitching side of things Kevin Gregg and Jason Frasor could be attractive to contending teams). If any of these chips can be turned into productive young players, they Jays should pull the trigger.

Despite this offensive surge the Jays are still facing several challenges: they sit in third place, 7 games behind the Rays, the fourth place Red Sox are beginning to surge and Kevin Gregg is currently closing. As exciting as the team is playing, taking the long view in this situation by focusing on player development and building for the future will ensure that two years from now the are contending and not just exciting.