The Toronto Blue Jays Set Their Sights on the World Series

Months removed from those sad days, Guerrero conjured a much different emotion at the Blue Jays’ spring training site in Florida on Thursday. The day before, the Blue Jays had completed a trade with the Oakland Athletics for the power-hitting, slick-fielding third baseman Matt Chapman, 28, adding him to a team whose talented young core remained intact.

“What we did last year was a trailer,” Guerrero said. “I think they’re now going to see the movie.”

The losses to the cast over the off-season were significant: Second baseman Marcus Semien, who hit 45 home runs, signed a seven-year, $175 million contract with the Texas Rangers; starting pitcher Steven Matz, who had a 3.82 earned run average, signed a four-year, $44 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals; and Ray, the Cy Young winner, signed a five-year, $115 million pact with the Seattle Mariners.

But on a team so talented, those departures barely dented the team’s depth. They still had three 2021 All-Stars (right fielder Teoscar Hernández, Guerrero and Bichette), the former All-Star center fielder George Springer (who hit 22 home runs in an injury-plagued season), the hard-throwing Manoah (who posted a 3.22 E.R.A. in his rookie year) and a rotation that includes the former All-Stars José Berríos and Hyun-jin Ryu.

“Last year, I got to see how they were at such a young age, and now they’re one year older,” Springer, 32, said of Bichette, 24; Hernández, 29; and Guerrero, 23. “So you just hope that you learn from that experience and you build on it.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/sports/baseball/toronto-blue-jays.html