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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
He said JP had a NOSE for talent. Funny.
Not to make excuses for the man but Ricciardi had a serious handicap that was at times too much to overcome – the city of Toronto. The buzz and excitement of back-to-back championships was long gone and what was left was a fairly destitute baseball market, a market where no big time players really wanted to come. This caused a serious problem for a team that had to watch every penny it was spending as the Blue Jays were forced to basically give an open cheque book to even entice any free agents to consider coming here. Ted Lilly took less money to sign with Cubs, Gil Meche even took less to sign with the Kansas City Royals – to name a few. The Blue Jays were officially the Atlanta Thrashers, Detroit Lions and Portland Trailblazers of destinations for free-agents in major league baseball – think about that before passing judgement. You think any GM wants to sign Tomo Ohka?
Defense has become a new focus in the world of sabermetrics with many new exciting metrics measuring a players worth in the field (Dewan’s +/-, UZR) and I think the Blue Jays front office was right at the top of the list in terms of teams that were revamping the way teams looked at defense. The Jays were one of the top defensive teams in the game nearly every season JP Ricciardi was at the helm – and I don’t think it was by mistake. Ricciardi and company astutely recognized that defense was being undervalued and he could get a bigger bang for his buck if he spent more money improving team defense – until this year when the team clearly gave up and in 2003 before JP put his stamp on the team. With this, he would also be improving his pitching staff without actually replacing any of his pitchers with expensive and mostly overpaid free agents year after year.
TheCanuck
Posted: October 06, 2009 at 12:24 PM | 19 comment(s)
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I realize this is a basketball comparison, but the Celtics used to be that team before KG arrived. Then, suddenly, they were the place to be. I know that in baseball it's difficult for one player to singlehandedly change a team's fortunes, but do the Jays have the chips to, potentially, acquire a team-changer? Halladay and prospects for Jose Reyes or David Wright, for instance?
I have a hard time believing that Kansas City is a more attractive destination for free agents than Toronto is.
Lilly wasn't going to resign with the Jays, since he and Gibbons didn't get along at all. It's amazing how getting in a fight with a manager will drive a player away.
Meche took more to sign with KC. That's what prompted JP's public rant about how Meche was more concerned with money than he was with playing for a winner.
EDIT -- [4] confirms my suspicions.
I'd argue it's different in basketball:
-- One player can have far more of an impact on his team in basketball
-- Players interact much more in basketball both on and off the court - being on the same page and playing as a team is infinitely more important - and so a personality/influence like Garnett would have far more impact here as well
To put it another way, I don't see a single MLB player who could a) improve his team by 20 or so games on his own and b) completely overhaul the culture of the locker room. I just don't think it's the way things work in baseball. Has anyone signed with the Cardinals because they wanted to play with Pujols, for example?
If you wanted to argue that the Blue Jays could become a better FA destination by becoming a perennial contender, well, great, but that's a bit of a catch-22 in this example.
Isn't the "he" really you? Aren't these links to your own web site?
Yep. I still wonder what would happen to the team's fortunes if they somehow pried Pujols from the Cardinals. He'd be a mood-swinger if I ever saw one.
Don't be silly. He's just a reader from the other site who happened to stumble across this site, just as the other guy got a lecture about self linking, and who does nothing but submit links from that site. It's completely coincidental.
Well, since he'd be going from the NL to the AL, he'd basically be another Adam Lind, and we've already got one of those.
Awesome.
I do. Trading Hudson for Glaus should tell you all you need to know. Or not switching Rios and Wells.
JP claimed that he trusted his eyes more than numbers when looking at defense. If he was doing something cutting edge he wasn't clever enough to hide it - he would blab it to everyone.
He didn't trade for Overbay because of his defense, he was the only 1B that he could trade for that offseason. He traded for Rolen because he had to dump Glaus and the Cardinals were looking to dump Rolen. John McDonald is just a utility player that got forced into playing because there were no other options. Wells (when he could field) and Rios were part of a great defensive OF for a period, but he didn't acquire either player, he inherited both. LF has always been below average except for Reed Johnson who he inherited as well. Did he draft Hill with the intention he'd be a plus defender? I don't recall any of that talk; he moved to 2b because he couldn't handle SS.
JP often had good defensive players, but I don't think it was ever by design to have a superior defensive team because defense was undervalued.
And I'll join the chorus of those thinking its poor form to link to your own articles.
Ricciardi was in a virtually impossible division, but he probably couldn't have been a worse choice for the job. His remaining supporters talk up players like Jeremy Accardo, who if he is lucky, could have the career of Brandon Lyon, a player Ricciardi inherited, underestimated as he did most of what he inherited, and released for nothing. In a situation where he needed to obtain cheap high-impact talent, he became a guy who relied virtually entirely on obtaining players with Rogers' money -either through other teams dumping salary like, Overbay, Hllenbrand, Glaus etc.- or by overpaying wildly on the free agent market and then buying out an absurd number of contracts. The end result is a lousy farm system and a lousy major league team.
The extra year was the deciding factor because it came with an additional $11M - it's not like he threw in that year for free. I don't see how there's any "technically" needed, with respect to it being "more money."
Was 2002 talent-laden? Not really seeing as Adams looks like he has had one of the top 20 careers amoung hitters drafted that year, and Bush in the second round(55th overall pick, not sure where the other high pick you were talking about came from) was good value. I know at the time he did state that they were drafting that way to help fill the upper minors with players as at the time there was some top level talent(Hudson, Rios), but very thin after.
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