11/05/24
October 03, 2009
Axe comes down on Ricciardi : The Toronto Blue Jays fired general manager J.P. Ricciardi on Saturday, ending an eventful eight-year reign marked by frequent controversy and mediocre teams never good enough to reach the postseason. Many fans will wonder what took so long as Ricciardi, along with centre-fielder Vernon Wells, had become the lightning rod for those most frustrated with the team's playoff drought, which dates back to 1993 when the Blue Jays won their second consecutive World Series. Wells has five years remaining on his $127-million, seven-year deal, an albatross contract that will handcuff the club for many seasons to come. The team managed to escape the $60-million remaining on Rios's deal when he was claimed off waivers by the White Sox, but Ricciardi got nothing in return. Ricciardi twice caused spats by publicly wondering if former pitcher A.J. Burnett's injuries were simply in his head. He had countless memorable quotes over the years, perhaps the definitive one coming during a radio show while taking calls from fans. "It's not a lie if we know the truth," he said about the back injury story concocted for B.J. Ryan when the left-hander was actually having elbow issues in 2007.
posted by tommytrump to baseball at 12:48 PM - 13 comments
Considering Cito's the next to go (as there's been numerous reports of a revolt against his managing), things are about to change in Toronto big time. That said, without an owner who's willing to invest a lot of money in the franchise and players who are willing to take their heat for their lack of performance (and not blame the manager who completely turned things around last year), it's going to be a lot of change and the same results. It's sad.
posted by dfleming at 01:30 PM on October 03, 2009
It seems to be an inalterable fact that the Yankees and Red Sox will have the advantage for many years to come. The Rays, Orioles and Jays might get a look once in a while, lets say, 20% of the time. That means about 6% each, or once every 15 years. That makes it hard to judge performance by playoff appearances. Not defending this guy, who seems like he made some questionable decisions, but the Jays have been moderately successful for much of the last decade but no one remembers it if you don't make the playoffs. (Taking >.500 as a threshold for moderately successful since baseball is a zero-sum league)
If the Jays were smart, they'd try to get moved into the AL Central - the other Great Lakes teams should be their natural rivals anyway.
Or get a meaningful salary cap.
Or both.
posted by rumple at 03:32 PM on October 03, 2009
Mike Wilner's eulogy for the Ricciardi years is, as usual, an absolute must-read.
J.P. Ricciardi made some smart trades (Glaus, Overbay, Accardo, Rolen), picked up some solid players for almost nothing, put together a batch of great young arms, and managed to keep Roy Halladay from free agency twice.
And it's worth pointing out that Ricciardi, unlike many Toronto-area GMs of the past 10 years, never made a really dumb trade.
But the free agent signings and contract extensions... well, they were all celebrated at the time, and even Vernon Wells can't possibly be THIS lousy every season for the next few years. But every big deal seemed like it involved just a bit too much money (Wells), or time (Ryan), or options (Burnett). No big signing ever seemed to hit the sweet spot of giving up just enough for the player.
And of course, the complete bungling of the Halladay situation this year. I'd always blamed Ken Rosenthal for trying to make a story out of nothing, but given recent events I wonder if Ricciardi himself was Rosenthal's source. It would fit in with the other strange things on J.P.'s record when in the spot light (Adam Dunn, "it's not lying if we know the truth").
So, J.P. Ricciardi (2001-2009): He couldn't quite spend money smartly when he had it and enjoyed the public eye a bit too much. He did put together a decent team and make some good decisions, but "decent" and "good" won't get you anywhere in the A.L. East.
If the Jays were smart, they'd try to get moved into the AL Central - the other Great Lakes teams should be their natural rivals anyway.
You're right about the divisional strengths, of course, but what does being smart have to do with it? How are the Jays, a mid-market team in a foreign country, going to lobby to switch divisions? And which team from the Central is going to volunteer to switch to the East? You think Zack Greinke is up for the Cy Young this year if he pitches against Boston and New York more than ONCE, combined? Or Cliff Lee last year?
A better option would be lobbying for ditching the divisions altogether, and playing a balanced schedule across the league. Still very unlikely to happen, of course, since reducing the number of Yankees-Red Sox games would leave about nine hundred hours of unused airtime on Fox.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 06:13 PM on October 03, 2009
It seems to be an inalterable fact that the Yankees and Red Sox will have the advantage for many years to come... If the Jays were smart, they'd try to get moved into the AL Central - the other Great Lakes teams should be their natural rivals anyway.
Or get a meaningful salary cap.
posted by rumple
Going into the season:
Yankees: 201 mil,
Red Sox: 122 mil,
Blue Jays: 80 mil
Al Central:
Cubs: 135 mil,
Tigers: 115 mil
The Yankees are the exception and skew the numbers, and I'm all for a salary cap. But if you're painting the East as two teams spending massive amounts of money and the Central as being different, that's really not the case at all.
You think Zack Greinke is up for the Cy Young this year if he pitches against Boston and New York more than ONCE, combined?
Watching Greinke, this year, I'd say yes.
posted by justgary at 06:23 PM on October 03, 2009
Al Central:
Cubs: 135 mil, Tigers: 115 mil
The Cubs are in the AL now?
posted by goddam at 06:53 PM on October 03, 2009
The Cubs are in the AL now?
My mistake.
Still, my point was that the Blue Jays moving to the central would still leave them in a division with a team that spends much more.
posted by justgary at 07:39 PM on October 03, 2009
Good point about the Tigers spending a lot of money, which is no guarantee of success in and of itself.
I didn't really mean "smart" as in likely to succeed, just smart as in making a case for a cap in a smartly symbolic way. But the very fact no one would want to join the AL East speaks volumes right there.
The fact that Ricciardi maybe spent a little too much on each free agent might just represent the extra cost of signing someone in (a) Canada and (b) in a division where success is going to be very difficult. It's hard to compare absolute values I guess. I guess I agree he did a pretty decent job in fairly tough circumstances.
posted by rumple at 08:03 PM on October 03, 2009
The Yankees are the exception and skew the numbers, and I'm all for a salary cap. But if you're painting the East as two teams spending massive amounts of money and the Central as being different, that's really not the case at all.
For me, it's not about the money. I think salary caps introduce more problems than they solve, and I know that money is not guarantee of success (heck, I lived in the same town as the pre-cap Maple Leafs).
It's about scheduling. Baseball is a game designed to be evaluated over large sample sizes: 162 games, 600 at-bats, 2800 pitches. It's doesn't make sense for the schedule to artificially shrink the number of unique opponents so that you're playing almost half your games against only four teams instead of thirteen. What happens, of course, is that the good teams have an easier time staying good, and the bad teams have a tougher time getting better.
The only turnover occurs in the divisions which are stocked with mediocre teams, like the Central. I'm estimating mediocrity by looking at this year's division records:
AL East vs. AL Central: 109-76 (.589)
AL West vs AL Central: 96-78 (.551)
and even then it's an NFL-style "pure parity" turnover, in which any team could make a run any year.
I think dynasties are key to a league's long-term entertainment value, and that arbitrary parity creates a more disposable and ultimately less valuable form of entertainment. But dynasties need to be a part of a longer-term lifecycle of success and failure, and that cycle doesn't have a great track record since 1994.
I would love to see a division-free1 balanced schedule. That would increase the sample size of unique opponents, and make a team's won-loss record a true representation of their quality of play within the league.
The Yankees and Red Sox would both still be at the top, of course: they're both very good teams for many reasons other than roster payroll: smart front offices, excellent scouting, great draft budgets and strategies. But that second tier of teams would have a whole lot more to play for: imagine the Septembers for the next few years as teams like Toronto, Tampa, Texas, Seattle, Oakland, and probably even a couple teams from the former Central Division battled for that last post-season spot. Those Septembers would puts butts in seats and make larger payrolls more viable for the teams that don't sell out every game, and restart the natural and gradual cycle of success and failure.
1. The divisions would have to be ditched to avoid the 1994 scenario, in which a balanced schedule exposed the weakness of a single division, and would probably have resulted in a team winning a division title with a record below .500. In fact, that scenario is probably the entire reason why we have an unbalanced schedule now.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 03:47 PM on October 04, 2009
In defense of Ricciardi, I am pretty sure he was willing to let Wells walk but Godfrey got involved and they Jays way overpaid for him. Rios at the time of his signing was looking to be a good young star before the weight of his wallet affected his ability to hit and make good baseball decisions.
posted by jc at 12:06 PM on October 06, 2009
I think salary caps introduce more problems than they solve, and I know that money is not guarantee of success (heck, I lived in the same town as the pre-cap Maple Leafs).
I disagree. The regular season is ruled by big spending teams. Random examples of high payroll teams not making it, or low payroll teams doing well are simply exceptions that prove the rule.
The difference between the Yankees winning over a hundred games this year and missing the playoffs last year is signing the top 3 free agents this past winter.
The difference between the Yankees payroll and the Jays, around 120 million, is the payroll of the Red Sox. That's a staggering difference.
I havent' followed the Jays close enough to comment much on Ricciardi, but he could mask a ton of mistakes if he had Cashman's money.
posted by justgary at 03:32 PM on October 08, 2009
Ricciardi could mask a ton of mistakes.
Frank Thomas, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Eric Hinske, A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan, off the top of my head. At an average of 240 lbs per player (just guessing) , you're at 1440 lbs with only six of his boneheaded moves.
B.J. is making $10 million in 2010 not to pitch for Toronto, and Frank made about $9 million not to play for the Jays in 2008.
Granted, all didn't look awful the day they were signed, but they all turned out ugly.
posted by tommybiden at 11:00 PM on October 08, 2009
I havent' followed the Jays close enough to comment much on Ricciardi, but he could mask a ton of mistakes if he had Cashman's money.
I'd agree if it was any other GM, but all of J.P.'s mistakes came from spending money when he was given it. He was kind of weird like that. But that's a different argument.
The regular season is ruled by big spending teams. Random examples of high payroll teams not making it, or low payroll teams doing well are simply exceptions that prove the rule.
True, but the schedule is also a big factor in this—those regular season monarchies are earned by one or two big-money teams spending between 35-50% of the season beating up on the same few small-money teams in their division. Balancing the schedule removes this skew. Money will always have an effect, of course, but a balanced schedule across the entire league would certainly reduce it.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 12:26 PM on October 12, 2009
And there was rejoicing !