Shaun Marcum

The Toronto Blue Jays play in the most competitive division in baseball, yet have assembled a five-man rotation, who all have potential fantasy upside. 

Let’s take a look at the candidates in order to determine the potential long-term success:

Brandon Morrow

The 17-strikeout game aside, Morrow has a ton of potential and might just now be scraping the surface of his ability. 

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has reported that Alex Anthopoulos has signed Ricky Romero to a five year $30.1 million contract extension. This is very odd for Anthopoulos, as he normally gives a bit less money in the early years of his contracts with options for big money later. In this case he gave Romero reasonable money, but this is the largest amount given to a player with less than two years of major league service.

On Saturday while the Toronto Blue Jays were in the midst of an inter-league series with the Colorado Rockies, manager Cito Gaston was asked which of his players deserved All-Star consideration. Gatson told MLB.com writer Jordan Bastian that he felt Brett Cecil, Ricky Romero, Shaun Marcum, Vernon Wells and Jose Bautista were worth serious consideration. Gaston also said he hopes to see at least three selections from his squad.

Many of the so called experts predicted the Toronto Blue Jays to end up in the cellar in the AL East.

So far, this hasn't happened as the Blue Jays have stayed within striking distance in the AL east, and currently own the AL's third best record.

How have they done this you may ask? Well, it is simple. They currently lead the league in home runs and the pitching staff has stepped up and pitched pretty consistently.

Always afraid to release your drafted stars whose weak performances are killing your fantasy squad, you risk missing out on some early-season hot up-and-comers that could make or break your team.

Remember this: in fantasy, you need to play it week by week, and you need to take advantage of the fact that your players aren’t “real.”

In the real world players demand and possess no-trade clauses, so Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman can’t run around signing free agents and immediately packaging them for positional or rotational upgrades.

In fantasy, you can, and you must.

It’s easy to forget about Shaun Marcum, as he missed the entire 2009 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.  On opening day, he once again made you pay attention.

Marcum carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning at Texas before giving up a single to Vladimir Guerrero with one out.  If you were simply looking at the box score, you might not be all that impressed by Marcum allowing three runs on two hits and one walk, striking out six over seven innings.  Yeah, it’s impressive, but the fact of the matter is the bottom fell out all in one shot.

Six months ago, no one ever thought there would be a time in the near future where anyone but Roy Halladay would be starting on Opening Day.

Unfortunately, the Blue Jays will find themselves in that predicament on April 6 of next year when they decide who their Opening Day starter will be, and essentially who will be the new ace of the starting rotation.

So who will it be? As far as I'm concerned, the proverbial torch has been passed on to Shaun Marcum to steer this pitching staff in the right direction.