All Those "Surprise" Teams...and the Jays

In the first week or so of this blog, away back 3-4 weeks ago now, I profiled the Orioles, Mariners, Marlins, and Padres, four teams that had started the season off much better than anyone anticipated. How about a month later (actually, just 22 days after the fourth post)?

• Taking their records as of the day I wrote about them, the four teams were a combined 32-9 (.780).
  


• Since? 28-66 (.298). .298!!!! These guys as a whole have been playing at a 114-loss pace since then, and I guess the Mariners have been playing a little better than the other three, but it's not like any one team is dragging the pack down.
  


• Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA-Adjusted Playoff Odds Report now has the O's with a 1.39% chance of making the playoffs (down from 8% when I reported on April 15); the M's retaining a 23.34% chance (down from 28% on April 16, and from a high of 42% on April 25); the Fish with a 4.51% chance (down from 6.59% on April 18); and the Padres at 1.18% (down from 7.46% on April 21). Realistically, then, we're 4 1/2 months from the end of the ball, and three of the four Cinderellas have already headed home.
  
  

A team I chose not to write about, though, is the Toronto Blue Jays. It was almost as much of a surprise that they were 10-4 on April 20th as it was that the Padres were 9-4, but what with sharing their division with the Orioles, I didn't think anybody had really figured the Jays for last place at the start of the season.

So I guess it shouldn't be surprising that, if one of the surprises from the year's first week or two were going to keep it going, it would be the team that was the best to begin with. The Jays are 12-8 (.600) since that 10-4 start and sit at 23-12, first place in the East, jostling with the Dodgers for the best record in baseball. And to the extent that run differentials mean anything at this point in the season (they don't), they're just about exactly at the record their run differential would predict.

So why does Baseball Prospectus still hate them? Through Tuesday, the same report has them ending the year at 82-80 and in fourth place, seven games behind the third-place Rays and fifteen behind the first-place Red Sox. It gives them just a 4.58% chance to win the division and 13.83% to make the playoffs at all.

Well, there's Aaron Hill, who, much as I like him, won't finish the year hitting .350 with a .550 SLG. And Marco Scutaro, a 33 year old who averages ten homers per 162 games (he's already hit 5) and has a career .330 OBP (currently sitting at .406). And there's the fact that they've already had nine different pitchers who have started at least two games for them, and aside from the awesomeness that is Roy Halladay and possible late bloomer Scott Richmond, none of them figure to be very good (assuming they can even stay healthy).

Mostly, though, it's that they play in the same division as the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays. The Jays might be good enough to win the Central or West, but I'm pretty well convinced that those three other teams in the East, flawed as they've all looked at one point or another in the early going, are still the best three teams in baseball.

I'll be pulling for the Blue Jays, though. If it's a four-team race into August or September, that could be some of the most interesting baseball we've seen in decades. And if it's a three-team race sans Yankees or Sox, well, that's okay, too.