What past red herrings can tell us about Blue Jays this spring

The Toronto Blue Jays begin their spring training schedule on Saturday after 140 days without playing a baseball game.

Last week in this space we pointed out a few things to look for when they get started, and this week we’re providing a reminder that looking for anything at all can be a trap.

While there are plenty of cases of huge springs foretelling breakout seasons, there are also countless examples of incredible or miserable springs meaning very little.

It is baseball’s red herring season and the Blue Jays have experienced plenty of Grapefruit League misdirects in recent years.

Below you’ll find some of the most pertinent examples of spring training performances by Blue Jays players that seemed significant, but amounted to nothing.

Spring stats: .328/.359/.525 in 63 PA with 2 HR and 4 SB
Regular season stats: .219/.282/.319 in 280 PA with 3 HR and 1 SB (-1.0 fWAR)

What happened: With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to say that the spring numbers Adams posted weren’t that impressive considering he walked just twice and had a BABIP north of .350.

In 2006 those factors weren’t scrutinized as closely, and excitement built around Adams — the team’s first-round pick in 2002. Adams had looked good in a 2004 cameo (127 wRC+) before falling back to earth in his first full season in 2005 (86 wRC+).

Heading into 2006, it was widely believed that he could become a solid starter after taking his lumps the previous year. Thanks in part to his big spring, the 24-year-old hit leadoff in 11 of his first 17 games of the regular season.

The campaign was a disaster for Adams, who spent time at Triple-A and got moved off of the shortstop position.

After 2006 he earned just 80 more plate appearances at the MLB level.

Spring stats: 381/.400/.698 in 64 PA with 4 HR and 1 SB
Regular season stats: .241/.328/.519 in 280 PA with 9 HR and 1 SB (-0.1 fWAR)

What happened: Snider’s season wasn’t as brutal as the one Adams endured as his 96 wRC+ was respectable for a 21-year-old.

Even so, it was a disappointment for the Blue Jays and their fans, many of whom viewed Snider as the future of the franchise. The young slugger had slashed .301/.338/.466 in 24 games as a 20-year-old in 2008 and a scorching spring suggested his first full MLB season was going to be a memorable one.

Instead, Snider tread water at the plate while struggling in the field and on the bases.

His 28.3 per cent strikeout rate ranked 12th among the 320 hitters with 250-plus plate appearances in 2009, and he failed to compensate with massive power production. He also spent 48 games at Triple-A — where, to his credit, he slashed .337/.431/.663.

Following the 2009 season Snider was still far too young to give up on, but it was hard to see him as the surefire future star he’d appeared to be beforehand.

Spring stats: .352/.397/.556 in 58 PA with 3 HR and 0 SB
Regular season stats: .150/.150/.275 in 40 PA with 1 HR and 1 SB (-0.1 fWAR)

What happened: Ruiz made his pro debut in 1999, but he didn’t reach the majors until 2008 — and he didn’t make an impact until a baffling 33-game stretch with the Blue Jays in 2009.

From Aug. 11 to Oct. 4, Ruiz raked as a 31-year-old rookie, slashing .313/.385/.685 with 10 home runs in just 130 plate appearances.

During that span his 164 wRC+ ranked 11th among all MLB hitters, just below guys like Prince Fielder and Magglio Ordóñez, and above Joe Mauer and Alex Rodriguez.

While it wasn’t fair to expect Ruiz to become one of the league’s most feared sluggers in 2010, it also felt impossible to accurately project the inexplicable DH. When he put together a strong spring training it seemed like the Blue Jays might be onto something.

They weren’t.

Ruiz lasted just 13 games in 2010 and his lack of track record made it easy for Toronto to move on. He signed with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in May and proceeded to play around the world, last appearing in the Puerto Rican Winter League in 2018-19.

Spring stats: 13.09 ERA in 11 IP with 9 K and 4 BB
Regular season stats: 3.65 ERA and 2.84 FIP in 130.2 IP (3.4 fWAR)

What happened: The rest of these stories are about players who light it up in spring training only to fall flat in the regular season, but Stroman did the opposite.

Stroman entered 2014 with just 35 pro appearances under his belt, none of them coming above the Double-A level.

His production was excellent, but he didn’t enter 2014 looking like a clear rotation candidate as the team featured the veteran trio of Mark Buehrle, R.A. Dickey and J.A. Happ — plus Drew Hutchison, Brandon Morrow and Dustin McGowan.

Stroman’s spring training work didn’t cause alarm, but it did seem to indicate that he could use some innings at Triple-A.

Seven starts with Buffalo and a couple of injuries later, Stroman was on his way to an outstanding debut season — the second-best rookie season by a pitcher in Blue Jays franchise history by fWAR.

Spring stats: 2.00 ERA in 18 IP with 29 K and 6 BB
Regular season stats: 5.66 ERA and 4.64 FIP in 97.0 IP (0.8 fWAR)

What happened: Although Liriano had experienced plenty of ups and downs in his career by 2017, there was plenty of optimism surrounding the veteran heading into the season.

After the Blue Jays plucked him from the Pittsburgh Pirates in a buy-low trade the previous season, he’d been stellar down the stretch with a 2.92 ERA in 49.1 innings.

Reuniting with battery mate Russell Martin seemed to have reinvigorated him, and his spring numbers popped off the page — particularly his strikeout totals. Unlike some of the other players on this list, you couldn’t poke any hole in what he did in his Grapefruit League starts.

Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, it simply did not carry over to the regular season. His walk rate surged and his velocity fell to its lowest level since 2012.

Fortunately for the Blue Jays, they were able to move Liriano for Nori Aoki and Teoscar Hernández at the trade deadline.

Not only did Hernández give Toronto multiple Silver Slugger seasons, but the Liriano trade tree lives on with the players the team got for him this off-season — reliever Erik Swanson and pitching prospect Adam Macko.