The Blue Jays' Stings of Spring, and Why Depth Is Vital

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

By now, most Blue Jays fans have probably pored through all those stories listing the five big questions facing their favourite team as spring training dawns. Here are my answers.

• Aaron Sanchez will start.
• Drew Storen will close.
• Troy Tulowitzki will lead off.
• John Gibbons will manage the whole season.
• Jose Bautista won't be back in 2017, and maybe not Edwin Encarnacion either.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's consider a question that is just as important for the Blue Jays in 2016: Who will get hurt and for how long?

When I walked into the Jays' spring training clubhouse in Dunedin, Florida, on Thursday, one of the first players to greet me was Devon Travis, sporting his familiar smile, along with a hair style (and tint) we've come to associate with Marcus Stroman. Travis comes to work twice daily, but he doesn't pick up a bat or glove. Instead, he undergoes grueling two-hour rehab sessions in the morning and afternoon.

"It's a grind, man," he said, shaking his head. "But it's my job, so I can't complain."

Few would blame him if he did. A year ago, he won the second-base job out of spring training and was American League rookie of the month for April. In mid-May, a hard shot took a bad hop and whacked him in the collarbone. The pain spread to his left shoulder. He missed six weeks, came back and got hot again for a month. Then the pain returned, and he was done for the season.

For a while, doctors were baffled. They'd discovered that two bones in his left shoulder that normally fuse before adulthood were still separated. But they didn't think that condition should cause such searing pain. In exceptional cases, however, it can create impingement in the rotator cuff.

"They did everything they could for me to find out what was wrong," Travis said. "It's just that it's rare, what I had."

Finally, in November, they concluded that surgery was needed to fuse the bones. They attached them with two screws. Travis was in a brace for 7 1/2 weeks. The Jays announced that recovery would take 16 to 20 weeks.

On Thursday, Travis said no one, including the doctor he'd seen that day, has set a timeline for his return. And after what he went through last year, he is not inclined to set one for himself.

"I'm trying not to set a date in my head because, God forbid, if there's a setback or something, then I'd feel like I've failed to get back in the time I could've," he said. "This time I'm just saying, let's just get healthy and then I can enjoy the game."

The Jays survived Travis' injury last year because they had depth. They had Ryan Goins, who sparked afield and exceeded his career norms at the plate. They will need him again to start at second base when the season opens, and for an indefinite period after that.

Every year, management knows that players will get hurt. In 2015, the Blue Jays were fortunate, especially with the health of their pitching staff. Yes, Stroman and outfielder Michael Saunders sustained serious knee injuries in spring training, and Travis missed roughly half the season. But, otherwise, the team stayed generally healthy.

One exception was Aaron Sanchez, whose back-muscle strain while he was starting might have been a blessing in disguise for the Jays. After he recovered, it was far less awkward to assign him a setup role, where he flourished, than it would have been before the injury.

The Blue Jays have also experienced the opposite extreme. In the spring of 2012, starter Jesse Litsch went down with a shoulder problem. A platelet-rich plasma injection was supposed to help it heal. Instead, the injection led to infection. Litsch never pitched again.

That same year, the Jays lost three starters—Drew Hutchison, Kyle Drabek and Brandon Morrow—within the same week in June. A month later, seven Toronto pitchers were on the disabled list. The team finished fourth, with a run differential of minus-68.

Blue Jays fans won't like the reminders, but they'll remember some of the casualties—Dustin McGowan and his serial shoulder surgeries, Ricky Romero and his wonky knees and back, Maicer Izturis and his permanent residency on the disabled list.

So teams know players will go down. The trick is to create a support system that minimizes the number of games lost to injury and build sufficient roster depth to weather the inevitable storms.

During the spring training of 2007, we were told that B.J. Ryan's back had seized up. I recall walking into an empty Dunedin clubhouse one morning and talking to Ryan at his locker after his teammates had left for workouts. We exchanged anecdotes about back problems. Ryan said he couldn't even bend down to tie his shoes. Oh, the pain.

Ryan was indeed suffering, and his lamentations were convincing. But the pain was in his elbow, not his back. He and management were lying. After five awful outings in April, he underwent Tommy John surgery and was done for the season.

That episode spawned perhaps the most infamous quote in franchise lore. "They're not lies," said general manager J.P. Ricciardi, "if we know the truth."

Truth to tell, the Jays quickly found a new closer in Jeremy Accardo, who enjoyed the best season of an otherwise unremarkable career. He posted a 2.14 ERA and 30 saves.

The next year, Ryan was back, although his elbow was never right again. In turn, Accardo missed most of the season with a forearm injury, which is typically code for an elbow problem.

One of Mark Shapiro's first moves as team president was to set up a "high-performance" department. Director Angus Mumford, a sports psychologist, heads an interdisciplinary team that includes mental and conditioning coaches and an expanded training staff.

In Dunedin this week, GM Ross Atkins has convened meetings with each player, not only to get to know them, but to sell the club's new, holistic approach to personalizing player support. He comes to those sessions with a set of questions. "How do we help you realize your goals? Are we aligned on them? Do we see them the same? That's what those interactions are about, and hopefully breaking down some barriers," Atkins said in a scrum.

All of that aims to enhance a player's mental and physical health. Building roster depth creates a different sort of barrier. In theory, Atkins did a decent job in the past three months, especially considering that he started with no Triple-A rotation support and a thin crop of bullpen backups.

Assuming Sanchez starts, that leaves Jesse Chavez and Gavin Floyd as long relievers with starting experience. And trading for a year of Storen was an obvious plus for the bullpen.

But the Jays have no elite prospects waiting in the wings if a position player gets hurt. Outfielder Anthony Alford, the best of the lot, is probably at least a year away. They are fortunate their lineup is strong enough to cover for an injured member, but if the injury were long term, or if a couple of players were to go down, the production decline could become acute for a team that relies so heavily on offence.

The most vulnerable spots are obvious. If something should happen to catcher Russ Martin, third baseman Josh Donaldson or right fielder Jose Bautista, their replacements—whoever they are—would pale in comparison.

The Jays have plenty of depth at first base, while Darwin Barney looms as the all-around infield reserve at the moment. If Travis gets healthy and pushes Goins for the second-base job, suddenly the infield depth is solid.

Ezequiel Carrera, or maybe Junior Lake, is the likely fourth outfielder. Dalton Pompey? "With him, we want to make sure he's good and ready," manager John Gibbons said. "We don't want a situation where he's on the team and next thing you know you've got to send him out again." Which is what happened last year.

So Pompey will probably start the season doing daily duty at Triple-A Buffalo. Assuming he settles in, he could earn a promotion to start if an outfielder gets hurt.

One of my lasting spring training images is from a cloudy morning in Dunedin in 2008, before the exhibition games started. Casey Janssen, who logged a 2.35 ERA in 70 games the previous season, was throwing in the bullpen when he suddenly felt a pop in his shoulder. As a trainer tended to him, I watched as Janssen grimaced in pain and frustration, then angrily stomped back to the clubhouse with the trainer in tow. The surgery that followed forced him to miss the entire season.

The team, however, had bullpen depth that year. Ryan bounced back. Workhorse relievers Scott Downs, Jesse Carlson, Brian Tallet and Jason Frasor passed the baton. The Jays' bullpen led the majors with a 2.94 ERA. (The team still finished fourth.)

Carlson, a string-bean lefty, was the surprise of the group, posting a 2.25 ERA in 69 games. But eventually, his heavy workload proved too much. After he pitched in 142 games over two seasons, shoulder problems and subsequent surgery forced him to miss most of 2010 and all of 2011. His career ended after a one-game comeback attempt with Boston's Triple-A affiliate in 2012.

Like every team, the Blue Jays know injuries are inevitable, especially to elbows, shoulders and knees. In most cases, there's no way to know who's next. The key is to have capable reserves at the ready—and hope they stay healthy, too.