BOCA RATON, Fla. – Drew Hutchison wasn’t the worst pitcher in the major leagues last season, but it was pretty close.

Among those who threw at least 150 innings in 2015, the Blue Jays’ opening day starter ranked dead last in WHIP and opponents’ OPS and second from the bottom in ERA.

Now, if you drop that standard by just two innings, to 148, there are two pitchers who have a worse WHIP and three with a poorer ERA and OPS against, but the point is clearly made. Hutchison easily had one of the worst seasons of any pitcher in the major leagues in 2015.

And just as he was 12 months ago, he’s in the Blue Jays’ plans as part of their starting rotation for the coming season.

"We think he’s a great bounce-back candidate," said Jays’ interim general manager Tony LaCava. "His will, his desire to be good – he has that and that’s going to help him."

There’s no reason to doubt LaCava’s sincerity in that statement, but the truth is that he sees Hutchison as one of the Jays’ starting five right now because there aren’t any other options. There’s Marcus Stroman, R.A. Dickey and, for now, that’s it.

Hutchison had a great start against the Yankees to open the season, going six innings and allowing just a run on three hits, but his next outing told the story of what his season was to become. Staked to a 7-2 lead after two innings and an 8-4 lead through four, he couldn’t get out of the fifth inning and had to be bailed out by the bullpen, having allowed the Blue Jays’ advantage to narrow to one run.

No one had more run support than Hutchison did in 2015 – his teammates scored an average of 6.64 runs per game for him. That’s why he finished the season with a 13-5 record despite some otherwise ugly numbers. But the record can’t paper over what was an extremely disappointing season.

So what went wrong?

"We’re working on that as we speak," LaCava said. "We know it’s in there and if you look at his peripherals, his walk rate’s good, his strikeout rate is solid, he’s had success in the past and for some reason it just didn’t manifest itself in ERA."

It sure didn’t. But the truth is that Hutchison walked only 2.6 batters per nine innings this past season, the best rate of his career. His strikeout rate was also his best ever, at 7.7 per nine innings. His FIP of 4.42 was only slightly worse than Marco Estrada’s 4.40.

There was a major spike in batting average on balls in play against him – Hutchison’s was .343, almost 50 points higher than 2014. While that could be seen as bad luck, there was also a spike in his line drive rate, up by almost a third from 18.6 per cent in ’14 to 24 per cent in ’15. But then, his hard-hit ball rate actually went down from year to year, though not significantly, from 32.1 per cent to 30.8.

And as bad as Hutchison was overall, he was still pretty terrific at home, posting a 2.91 ERA and 1.12 WHIP with a sparking opponents’ slash line of .238/.288/.357, though he did average less than 6.1 innings per start.

It’s not enough just to say that the 25-year-old "can’t pitch on the road" because he was actually better on the road in 2014 than he was at home.

Through the righty’s ups and downs, LaCava admired the fact that Hutchison didn’t quit on himself or his teammates. "He wanted the ball, he kept going out there,” LaCava said. “This is a really strong competitor."

Even when Hutchison was optioned to Buffalo in mid-August, and later excluded from the Blue Jays’ playoff roster, he left a good impression on the front office. "He went down to Dunedin (in October) and he was preparing in case we needed him," LaCava recalled. "All the guys down there said he was an example for everyone. Instructional League was going on at the same time, he was getting after it. Everything I heard was positive that he was all about the right stuff, so nice job by him."

Clearly the Blue Jays would feel a lot more comfortable going into next season without having to depend on Hutchison to be one of their top five starters. The ideal scenario would be to have him come to spring training with enough starting depth that he would need to force his way onto the team. However it shakes down, Hutchison is almost guaranteed to make some starts for the Blue Jays in 2016, and everyone involved would be a lot happier if they got the guy they thought they were going to get when they gave him the opening day nod last season.