Typical Rumblings From Blue Jays Way
A lot of Jays fans, after all these years of glorious underachievement, have come to the conclusion that JP Ricciardi is some kind of fucking moron. I don't think P.R. Ricciardi, as Parkes aptly calls him, is at all a fucking moron. In fact, I figure that when he's not shooting his mouth off for no good goddamn reason, making it virtually impossible for the Jays to sign a guy like Adam Dunn or to sell their souls for a guy like Giambi without eating a giant bag of crow, he can be pretty devastatingly calculating.
So, if you ask me-- which you didn't-- there's got to be some kind of reason that he's bothering to tell anyone who'll listen-- most recently Jordan Bastian of BlueJays.com-- that the Jays have no money and expect that they won't be players for any free agents, and that, if they do any retooling, it will be through trades. What that reason might be, I honestly don't even give a shit-- I guess just to lower expectations in case they actually don't get anything done-- but what I know is, there's absolutely no reason to believe this isn't horseshit.
For starters, think way back to last off-season-- before Ricciardi traded for Scutaro, signed Eckstein, traded Glaus for Rolen and very publicly dangled Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum-- when he was bullshitting reporters about how "our club is our club" and "We'll explore and we'll tinker, but I don't see us being involved with a lot of crazy stuff."
Or think about how the Jays are already prepared-- supposedly (Ken Rosenthal is saying it's not true)-- to offer Burnett $13.5M a year, or how Ryan Dempster told a conference call on Tuesday, "There were no firm offers, but we did talk to teams about years (of contract). There were a lot of teams interested. From Atlanta to New York, both the Mets and Yankees, and the Blue Jays."
Or how about how absolutely fucking flush with cash Rogers is. Yes, yes, I know the economy is heading deeper and deeper into the shithouse, but look... if you add up the net profits Rogers has posted over each of the last four quarters (which I assume is a reasonable thing for a layman to do to get some sense of how the company is faring-- and I'm sure I'll be corrected if it's not) it's fucking $1.07 billion.
I hate being a broken record on this, and maybe somehow I'm completely off-base, but are you seriously going to tell me that even though something in the ballpark of one one-hundredth of the profit Rogers made over the last year could make the difference between the Jays season being over (and in the red) before it starts, or them at least staying somewhat competitive and putting up decent attendance and TV numbers for the bulk of the season, they're going to sit idly by and watch this property of theirs bottom out? An organization that's been so fucking hyper-conscious of how best to translate meagre fan expectations into ratings? That, for years, refused to be sellers at the trade deadline for fear of giving off the appearance that they were no longer in races that they clearly weren't in?
I just don't buy it. I mean... unless for some reason Rogers has devised a convoluted plan to set Ricciardi up for failure on the warped premise that they couldn't justifiably fire him right now and get the rebuilding process started.
The Jays are not yet committed to the same payroll for '09 as the were in '08, so, the way I see it, unless Ricciardi actually has some money to play with and is going to absurdly refuse to use it, either Rogers is cutting payroll while inexplicably keeping the GM and preparing to go through a season with a team (regardless of whatever lateral moves they make) that just isn't good enough, or they're willing to let lame duck Ricciardi to decimate the farm system in a last gasp effort to make the playoffs and save his job, or JP Ricciardi is full of shit.
Hmmm...
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He has clever calculating tactics, but he's limited in important ways(probably by his personality) so his overarching strategy is wrong
Indifferent ownership, the division the Jays are in, and luck have a lot more to do with it, I'd argue.
Also, the feeling I get is that, year to year, Rogers is very rigid about what's expected of him in order to keep his job. My perception is that there never seems to be room for him to take one step back in order to move two steps forward. Maybe he wouldn't be interested in that anyway, but I don't think he could operate that way without losing his job-- as in, you've already taken your steps back from 2002-2004-- because I just don't think the relationship between the Jays and Rogers works that way.
about the logo. If I remember correctly ( I doubt it) didnt you guys at one point have a pissed off looking blue jay, with a beer, and a cigar hanging out of his mouth, with a DJF tatoo on his wing? If I wasnt imagining it, that was a pretty badass logo.
maybe jp's just the fuckwit you say he's not?
You're right that it has *more* to do with it. It's not an easy job. And the indifferent ownership doesn't know who would be the right person to replace him with. He's not the worst possible, but there's certainly a GM out there that can design a better plan and who can pull off the right moves
That's fair.
Fred, yeah, we have that logo sitting around, but I think that was the Jays' intellectual property... I think...
wait. Are you telling me that the jays might have a copyright on that logo? That doesnt seem like something a huge coporation would be all about. Fuck. I like the Red Sox, but I would definately rock a T-shirt with that logo on it.
I wouldn't say it's fair. I'd say it's more right
I'll let it go
Nice job Mr. Stoeten.
Best Regards
John
Add Brattain's and Stoeten's posts to the scholarly journals debating the Racciardi system problem
Maybe he's greasing us up for a bit of this...
"Graziano has a source who continues to insist the Blue Jays will explore the market for ace Roy Halladay, who has two years and $30MM left on his deal. ..."
(Hat-tip to MLBTR)
I'm probably the only one, but with the ensuing shit fight that the east is set to become next year and with the plentiful holes in the lineup, maybe sitting this one out and getting young might more interesting than watching Barge-arse swing and miss, Scoot scoot, or VW lumber in center field carrying his $20 million on his back...
*RIcciardi
Paul, I'm writing a post on that right now, it's a very thin report. Plus, look at the Santana trade, it's hardly the slam dunk people think that the Jays could turn their whole system around by trading Doc.
True, but wouldn't it depend on how many wins you think you might get back in return? If internally you're projecting a fairly ominous number of wins already, then subtracting 8-10 more with the loss of Doc + 2 back in return, playing the kids while you wait for the sicknotes to return might stand you in better stead for that run in '10...
I'd still want manny though...
Everybody knows this already but i'll say it anyway.
Successful buisness owners keep their different entities separate.
Aside from the Rogers advertising that is heavily associated with the Jays, maybe Ted doesn't want to use the phone money on the Jays.
Or something.
You're right. Successful businesses invest their past profits in things that maximize future profits. When the management, marketing, accounting, etc. consultants talk to Mr. Rogers, they work out the numbers to figure out what investment dollar value x, generates that peak profit dollar value y. While minimizing risk
can we please get over the "the division we play in" shit?
the Tampa Bay FUCKING Rays just went to the World Series.
keeping businesses seperate is good general rule of thumb...but this is a unique situation, isn't it?
Rogers is in the very competitive telecommunications industry, which seems to value advertising highly as the industry members ceaselessly cram their ads down my throat. i mean, 30% of all the ads i see seem like they're from Rogers, Telus, Fido, Koodoo, ect...
And Rogers heavily uses the Blue Jays for cross marketing purposes, which is also annoyingly evident. The more people are interested in the Blue Jays, the more this cross marketing reaches people.
I'm not saying Manny makes people buy cell phones, just that the general "don't mix businesses" logic may be of less value in this particular businee arrangment.
that somehow makes it an easy division? the rays didn't do it with a boatload of help from high draft picks and guys brought in from trades of their best players at deadlines when they were way out of the race?
besides, every team in baseball, except for the jays, o's and rays, can make the playoffs without having to finish ahead of at least one of the top two payrolls. whether the rays actually accomplish it or not, that still puts those three teams at a gigantic disadvantage compared to any other team in the game.
Maybe one day Rogers will decide to forgot about all the future and future future profits he's losing by investing in this team, and decide that he wants to win a worls series before he cashes out
Maybe the difference between investing $20 million in Manny will make a significant difference in their projected bottom line, and maybe it won't. Maybe it changes risk
We can speculate on the numbers, but the fact is that we don't know which things we don't know
Also, during recessions companies usually spend less on marketing and long term investments
MANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excuses, excuses.
What is one GREAT move that JP has made?
Drafting Russ Adams?
He isn't going to make moves because Rogers doesnt want him to. Why? Because he is out as soon as the new President is in.
MILTON!!!!!!!!!!
Sheesh, no wonder JP had no future as a player in baseball. His form on that throw is absolutely disgusting, he's snapping his arm which puts tremendous pressure on his right elbow. Also, his left side is flown WAY wide open too early, basically ensuring he can't get his whole body into the throw and putting even more stress on the right side of his body.
And JP is clearly full of shit. He will tinker with the lineup, and is talking to free agents. Let's not waste breath discussing things he says for leverage.
That stupid douche Mussina retired.
The funny thing is that even during the season JP tells the media that he's not saying what he desperately needs, because he wants leverage.
Doesn't the fact that he says this, combined with the glaring holes in his team make trying to be secretive with the media a uselss exercise at this point ?
What a stupid kid
Well, the economy changed. It could possibly be perceived as a viable reason to be less interested
One great move that JP made? Geez, I can't think of any.
Could someone remind we which team had the best bullpen in baseball the last two years? And which team finished with a run differential of +104 this year?
What a clown. He must be Bill Bavasi bad.
Fuck off ads!
DJF is uglier than ever.
Careful Anon,
They might put a picture of JP on the banner
Ricciardi is definitely calculating. A good example is the way he jettisoned Thomas last year, which conveniently took $10M or so off the books for 2009.
Payroll makes such a big difference. It gives someone like Theo Epstein so much more room to manoeuvre, whereas JP has to make more high-risk, high-reward moves (like trading for Rolen or acquiring someone like Burnett) to try to bridge the gap between the Jays and the AL East powerhouses. And that doesn't even get into the farm system advantages that a big budget team has.
Fuck off Parkes, brought to you by these shitheads.
Holy fuck... I had never really thought what things might have been like if they didn't release Thomas, and he didn't get hurt the way he did in Oakland, and they still didn't make the playoffs, and they now actually had no money instead of just pretending.
Burnett and Thomas off the books.. dumped Stairs and Eckstein... how do they have no money to spend?
The issue isn't that there's no money to spend, it's that the Yankees have money to spend and positions to fill, and they're going to overspend on everyone good. I can see trades being more economical than spending someone good money on someone not very good, and certainly more economical than spending nobody's that good money.
I did the math early in the season last year. Basically, the earlier comments about smart business operations were correct.
The Jays and the Dome constitute a rounding error for Rogers Corp. Sure, there are cross-marketing promotions. But spend an extra couple million bucks on payroll and that segment's profitability gets completely shot to shit.
So its probably a chicken/egg situation where corporate has no reason to feed cash (profits, as you put it) from the rest of the (strong) corporation to satisfy the needs of the weak margin and very small Jays/Dome segment unless its clear that their will be a payoff to the investment (playoffs recouping that revenue and strong cross-promotes as more eyeballs watch the team). But the team prob can't guarantee competitiveness unless more money is spent. The good news, though, is that if the team is competitive at the time of the deadline, Uncle Ted would probably loosen the pursestrings.
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