The J.P. Ricciardi Bullshit Translator 3000

After yesterday's trade deadline, I am not looking forward to seeing this month's electric bill. I had so much material to input into my J.P. Ricciardi Bullshit Translator 3000 that the machine came dangerously close to overheating, forcing me to crank the AC just to keep it operational.

First up there were rumours of Toronto's interest in Jason Bay, and while I thought that the Pirates asking price was far too high for the Jays to be interested, especially considering that our outfield is fairly set for the future, the JPRBT 3000 calmed my nerves over their involvement.

After inputting the proposed trade into my machine, buzzers, sirens and lights went off like I had won the grand prize from a penny slot machine. It seems that Toronto's involvement was total bullshit, and the phone call that Jays management made to the Pirates happened almost at the exact same time as phone calls directed to media members like Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to complain about the asking price. The phone call was entirely a PR stunt to make it look as though the Jays were interested in bringing home a good Canadian boy in Jason Baysy. Oh Ricciardi, you're a wily one.

Of course these so called rumours were followed up by supposed interest in Seattle's Raul Ibanez. Thirty-six year old Raul Ibanez who becomes a free agent at the end of this year. Yeah, you were shaking your head too, huh? Well, think about what the JPRBT 3000 was about to do. At least the human body has mechanisms that force you to pass out before your brain explodes. There's no such switch for the JPRBT 3000.

It was suggested that the proposed deal involved two players on the Jays current 25 man roster, and names like Brandon League and David Purcey were bandied about. In the end, nothing came of the deal, supposedly because the Mariners backed out. Isn't it sort of funny that thanks to Lee Pelekoudas, the Toronto Blue Jays were actually winners on deadline day.

While my esteemed colleague Andrew Stoeten was busy giving hand jobs and hand shakes to former Jays beat writer Geoff Baker for his studious analysis that J.P. Ricciardi would desire Ibanez for optics only, I was busy inputting all this information into the JPRBT 3000.

What it spit out: "Thanks for the newsflash Baker. Did you really have to consult your Toronto contacts to realize this? And what the fuck are you talking about television numbers for? Yes, Rogers depends on television numbers on its own station because it sees the Jays as little more than a marketing tool, but how does that make the numbers less important to teams that need television numbers for direct income?"

What Ricciardi said:

We had some really good talks with Seattle, they were pretty intense and pretty in-depth. We thought at one point there was a possibility to get something done there, but it just didn't come to fruition.

We were ready to go forward. I think at the end of the day they just didn't feel as comfortable going forward to finish off the trade. It was just something that didn't come to fruition. Both parties worked hard. At the end of the day they probably weren't as comfortable with making the trade as we were. That happens.

I don't think we're in the middle ground. I think we're in it. When you look up and you're under eight...within striking distance of the wild-card and there's still two months to play, I don't we ever thought about us as 'Hey we're going to be sellers.' We've taken on the thought process that if we continue to add without taking anything away from us going forward, that we would try to do that.

What the JPRBT 3000 spit out:

We tried to work out a deal with the Seattle Mariners over the last few days so that I could placate a bunch of moronic fans out there who still believe the Jays actually have a shot at making the playoffs. Please allow me to address those fans right now and talk for the next few paragraphs about how, even though anyone who has ever watched baseball over the course of a season knows that we're out of it, we're still right in the middle of things because I'm such a good GM.

Please keep buying tickets and watching your Rogers Blue Jays on Rogers Sportsnet. Please. I'm fucking begging you, please.

Depending on the players being given up, it's actually not that much of a cost to the Jays. Pay a third of Ibanez's salary for the rest of the season and convince some fans that you're still making a push. In the off season, offer him arbitration for the next year. If he accepts, you have an above average bat for one more season as a stop gap until Travis Snider is ready. If he doesn't accept, you get a draft pick or two, and some freed up cash to go after Manny Ramirez.