With the season winding down and the Blue Jays headed for their first losing season since 2005, it seems like there's a very good chance that general manager J.P. Ricciardi is going to lose his job when the season ends. His popularity in Toronto is waning and 2009 will mark his eighth season on the job without making the playoffs. The Blue Jays ownership reportedly went over his head in hiring Cito Gaston last year, so the Jays' record this year might be the final straw. Ricciardi, however, isn't going down looking. When asked about the possibility of being replaced, Ricciardi went on a rant about the difficulties of playing in the American League East before taking a dig at Blue Jays fans for forgetting that the 1992 and 1993 World Series champion Blue Jays both had the highest payroll in baseball.
The quote (with the full version at the link):
"Let me make this clear: It doesn't matter if J.P. Ricciardi is the GM, or Joe Blow is the GM. Two years from now, five years from now, seven years from now, the reality that we face in Toronto is the division is not going to change," Ricciardi said in an interview this week. "The Red Sox and Yankees are not going away. If the Yankees want to, they can take their payroll to $300 million.There are two points that immediately come to mind when reading this. The first is that Ricciardi is absolutely right; the AL East is ruthless. The Yankees have enough money to fix any problem they have and the Red Sox are both loaded with cash and exceptionally well run. On a year to year basis, it's certainly hard to compete with those two things.
The second thing, though, is that there has been a team that's managed to crack the AL East power structure, the Rays, and they've done it in a worse market than Toronto with a strategy that's not really like anything Ricciardi's tried in his time with the Blue Jays. Toronto tries to compete on essentially the same model that most teams in baseball do: grow talent in the minors and supplement it through free agency. The problem is that it's much harder to make that fly in a division where one team can afford to spend $50 million for the rights just to negotiate with a player and another team can drop a quarter of a billion dollars in one offseason to upgrade its pitching staff. The Rays tried a different route; rebuild the organization from the bottom up and try to beat the Yankees and Red Sox at something they can afford to beat them at - player development.
Ricciardi's certainly got some reason to be upset. He's put together some good teams in Toronto that could've made the playoffs in worse divisions (or, you know, in the National League). The problem, though, is that he was tasked with putting together a playoff team in the American League East. And while that's not an easy task for a team that's not in Boston or New York, the fact is that someone else has managed to do it.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JP had a chance to jump to the Red Sox when Theo resigned a few years ago. He showed loyalty to the Jays and stayed there. They have rewarded that by cutting back on payroll and making it very difficult to compete in the Eastern Division. Sure the Rays broke in last year but look what happened this year. The Rays had a bunch of guys have carrer years in 2008 and they barely beat out a very injured Red Sox team. This year is back to normal with the Sox and Yanks having the best two records in baseball. Until the Jays pony up in the salery zone they will be also rans.
I sympathize with Toronto. Teams like them and Baltimore don't have the money to outspend the Yankees and Red Sox. Baseball may have to consider re-organizing by payroll size instead of geographically. All team payrolls within $200M to $250M in one division, from $150M to $200M in another division, etc. This change would make the season more competitive for these teams but probably wouldn't change the outcome of the playoffs where the richest teams would most likely still win.
Ricciardi has no one to blame but himself. A GM is always going to be measured more on the signings and trades he makes than the players that are developed in the system; after all, player development involves a great deal more than the GM. That being said, the signings and monumentally poor deals given to Alex Rios, Vernon Wells and BJ Ryan - as well as his inability to make a trade for Halladay for future pieces to the franchise, have sealed his fate. Sour grapes, JP - you failed to help your franchise get to where all franchises need to go, the playoffs - and the future in pretty grey to boot.
The Rays also had the dubious advantage of coming in last virtually every year they existed which gave them a lot of high draft picks. Once they stopped frittering those away, they had an amazing nucleus of talent to use and trade. And this year we're seeing the limits of their strategy. Basically it's next to impossible to compete when your rivals hold equal or better cards than you in all respects.
Right on @joelmargolese, exactly...
If you really want to blame someone blame the fans.The Yankees and the Red Sox have fans who support them, thats obviously why they can afford to pay more. The Rays went to the World Series last year and were in contention for quite awhile this year but they sure had a lot of empty seats at the ball games. Sponsors and TV income is certainly going to be higher for games that are being watched by the most fans
First, I want to commend JP for speaking about himself in the third person. I respect that. If I was giving a press conference I would do the same thing. Then I want to agree 100% with 17dean. It's not that Toronto doesn't have money - they just spent it very poorly. If you have a GM going out spending all of your money on crap - why would you keep him? The contracts given to Alex Rios and Vernon Wells were a joke. Let's not forget about what Lyle Overbay is making - he's the team's 2nd highest paid player this year. And Yes, trading Halladay could have netted some major prospects to rebuild with. Next year they'll probably get little for him or lose him. A series of errors and poor team performance. It doesn't look good.
The only reason Lyle made the second most money on the team this year after the trade of Rios and the release of Ryan is because this year was a relief year in Wells contract. Also let’s not forget that there was major pressure to resign Wells and at the time of his contract CF's were in high demand, it was the backlash of not resigning Delgado that forced his hand in that contract for Wells. I don’t think the Jays were in a position (financially or talent) to make it into the playoffs in any of the last 8 years. However that’s not to say that the results of JP being fired aren’t of his own doing. Between Wells bad contract, Rios bad contract (got to give him points for getting out from under that one) B.J.'s break down and bad contract, inability to make any significant trades, giving Burnett his opt out clause not trading Halladay when his value was the highest, lying to the fan base. My fav quote of all time is J.P. "It's not lying if we know the truth". He's right, there really isn’t a competitive balance in the A.L. East; all the stars have to line up just right for any team other the Boston and N.Y. to land 1-2 in the standing. 1 team needs to have a down year and another team needs to have career years from most of their roster. e.g. 2008 Rays. Good luck to Alex Anthopoulos