State of the Position: Rotation

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DUNEDIN, Fla. — The heart of the Toronto Blue Jays is still the cadre of homegrown star position players and an offence that needs to score runs to keep up in the American League East.

But everyone knows pitching, pitching and more pitching is what’s needed to win a World Series, and the rotation the Jays are set to run out to the mound this season is inarguably one of the best in baseball.

“It’s a talented group of pitchers and I think we all feel pretty confident going into the season with this group of guys,” prized $110-million man Kevin Gausman said Monday. “Especially in the AL East. You’re only as good as your starting pitching.”

A full 162 games will tell that story, one that often involves health.

In José Berríos and Gausman, the Jays possess two right-handers with sparkling track records of health and the rare ability (these days) to pitch deep into games each and every time out.

Both could approach 200 innings this season. Even though he only has 20 big-league starts on his resume, Alek Manoah could join them after throwing 111.2 sparkling frames as a rookie to finish with a 3.22 ERA.

If Manoah takes another step in his sophomore year, it could be a scary trio of right-handers, a threesome that’s also locked up for a long, long time thanks to the Berríos contract extension way back in November.

If those three perform as their recent track records suggest they will, the rotation keys could come down to a Hyun Jin Ryu bounceback and Yusei Kikuchi finding the upside that the Jays thought enough of to hand him $36 million over the next three years.

The two lefties balance out what looks like a diverse rotation in terms of styles, repertoires and even age.

One year ago, Ryu and a