Globe and Mail: Blair: J.P. Ricciardi: It’s time

He was not Paul Godfrey’s first choice. Or his second, or third. As J.P. Ricciardi went about his business this spring, the general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays was asked one day whether he thought his job was in jeopardy after six years without a playoff berth.

“Nobody’s told me this year is bigger than any other year,” Ricciardi said. “I’ve never heard from anybody that my job’s on the line. I don’t know … maybe I’ll go into TV. Maybe I’ll do ESPN.”

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Ricciardi has gone from being one of the game’s bright young things — a disciple of Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane when Moneyball was all the rage — to somebody hammered by the same people who once sang his praises. In his first year with Toronto, Ricciardi admonished a reporter one day for using a copy of the staid old Sporting News Register as a reference source.

“You need this,” Ricciardi said, sliding a copy of Baseball Prospectus across his desk.

No more. That publication believes he has broken faith with the Moneyball principles, or at least hasn’t changed with them.

“Look, it’s not what kind of farm system you have or how many prospects you have, it’s what you do at the major-league level,” Ricciardi said.