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Jim Bowden, ESPN Baseball Analyst 10y

A Blue Jays rebuilding plan

We are only few days into the 2014 season and there is no reason for a team to panic if it gets off to a slow start -- unless you’re the Toronto Blue Jays. For the Jays, it's time to accept the fact that they are not going to make the playoffs this year.

The four other teams in their division are well-equipped to make a playoff run, while the Jays are plagued by a lack of pitching depth and have already seen Jose Reyes -- the key to any 2014 revival -- hit the DL again with a hamstring injury.

Now, I'm not going to blame general manager Alex Anthopoulos for this predicament. Back in the fall of 2012, he sensed that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox might be poised to drop off -- a sentiment shared around the league at the time -- and decided to see if he could capitalize by trading a number of elite prospects, such as Noah Syndergaard, Travis d'Arnaud, Jake Marisnick and Justin Nicolino, in two separate deals with the Mets and Marlins that netted him R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and Reyes.

Everyone in baseball believed the Blue Jays were headed for October -- and many thought Anthopoulos would win executive of the year -- but their playoff hopes were dashed by injuries and underperformance.

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