#25 Zach Morin

Zach Morin had a performance to forget during the Jay's opening tournament at Baseball Heaven. He struggled both at the plate and behind the dish throughout the weekend. In the third and final game of the tournament on a late Saturday afternoon, Coach Wanderlingh called Morin over before leading off the bottom of the 7th with his team trailing 3-2. Wanderlingh was in his face, and he wasn't sugar coating anything. He ended his conversation with a smack on Morin's helmet. Morin steps into the box and works the count to 3-1. Morin drives into the 3-1 fastball and belts it over the center fielder's head for a leadoff triple. Morin's season took off from there and he never looked back.

Morin's offensive numbers in 2015 were ridiculous. Let me put it in perspective for you. The Blue Jays hit 22 doubles in all of 2015, Morin had 10 of them. The Jays hit 7 triples, Morin had 2 of them. Morin finished his season hitting .343, including .378 with runners in scoring position, both good for second best on the team. He only struck out seven times all season, fifth lowest on the team. Along with leading the team in extra base hits, he also led the team in RBIs (19). The only downside to Morin's monstrous offensive season was that in 75 plate appearances, Morin walked twice. The team walked exactly 100 times in 2015, Morin only walked twice. That's extremely hard to do if you ask me. I'm confident that number will rise for Morin in 2016.


On the defensive side of the ball, Morin was the workhorse for this team behind the plate, part of the reason being Steinberg's injury for the first half of the season. Steinberg's health plays a big part in Morin's game because Morin is more than capable of playing other positions. We might see Morin at the hot corner, maybe at second, maybe in the outfield, we even saw him on the mound for an inning in 2015. The idea of being versatile is so crucial for this Jays team in 2016, working with just an eleven man roster.

Look for Morin to be the first name slotted in the cleanup spot early in the season, as the Jays will rely on him to have another big year with the extra base hits and driving in runs. He was the best in the business a year ago, and will look to be even better in 2016.