The Blue Jays ongoing 10-year rebuilding plan

[polo007]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/m ... _of_o.html

Anyhow, in late 2004, bleeding money from all sides, the Chicago consortium that owned the ballpark finally caved and sold the SkyDome to Rogers for pennies on the dollar. A ballpark that cost taxpayers more than $300 million in the late 1980s was sold to Rogers for only $25 million. Initially, the consortium had wanted well over $100 million. But Rogers merely waited them out to get the bargain basement price, sacrificing a half-decade of Toronto baseball in the process (a fifth year was spent getting the stadium up to snuff before the team began signing free agents in earnest).

Oh yeah, there was one winner from all the years of slashed payrolls. According to Forbes, the Blue Jays were able to keep their franchise value hovering around the $170-million mark while they waited the consortium out. It didn't grow, but it didn't crash either.

Once they got the stadium, that value skyrocketed from $169 million in 2004 up to $214 million in 2005. The team promptly threw its "Moneyball" approach out the window and shoved big money at A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan and a bunch of other free agent types it had spent five years ignoring.

Those expenditures weren't thought out all that well, but no matter. With the stadium in hand, franchise value kept on growing -- up to $353 million in 2009, when Ricciardi was finally fired after years of seeing his "rebuilding plan" go nowhere.

But even as the team kept on turning in mediocre performances and attendance kept dwindling, the baseball team kept gaining in and later consolidating its franchise value.

One reason was that -- for all the new money it was taking in -- parent company Rogers was actually spending a lot less on annual Blue Jays payroll then it had been in the early Ricciardi years.

[U_Mad]

i guess we'll just be stuck in this cycle of mediocrity

[Kurtz]

One interesting point from that article:

"The Blue Jays fielded a payroll of roughly $50 million in 2003 at the height of Moneyball hysteria. Every dollar of that cost the team roughly $1.50 in Canadian funds because of the exchange rate.

In other words, they spent $75 million Canadian on that year's payroll.

This year's Blue Jays opened with a payroll of roughly $70 million. But the Canadian dollar at the time was now -- at worst -- on-par with the U.S. greenback. In plain English, it spent roughly $70 million Canadian on this year's team.

So, in terms of real money spent, the present-day Blue Jays with their new stadium and all are spending even less money than they were in their cheapest of the cheap years under Ricciardi and his Moneyball-likened cost slashing.."

[WpgPage]

This one writer in Toronto -- Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star -- has been on to the whole Rogers/Moneyball/money saving ruse for most of the past decade and is as clued-in with baseball insiders as anyone in Canada. At least he's still asking the tough questions.

And there's where It got really bad, nothing against Griffin but I haven't seen a tough question article from him in years.

[baulderdash77]

As of now our projected team salary for next year with Arb is 67 million. This includes the 5.3 million for Mark Teahan who will be our 2nd highest paid positional player (3rd overall).

With a local TV contract that should be worth >80 million that the team sees $0 of because of internal transfer pricing, we continue to act like a small market team while being a large market team.

Yes it's safe to assume that profits for Rogers have never been higher.

[WpgPage]

Believe it or not there are other costs associated with running a baseball team.

[Skin Blues]

Stocking thsoe pop machines really adds up after a while.

[dagger]

This one writer in Toronto -- Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star -- has been on to the whole Rogers/Moneyball/money saving ruse for most of the past decade and is as clued-in with baseball insiders as anyone in Canada. At least he's still asking the tough questions.

And there's where It got really bad, nothing against Griffin but I haven't seen a tough question article from him in years.

The media here either work for Rogers or want to work for Rogers. Now it's Sid and Tim coming from the Score to Fan590. I'm telling you, it's like the Propaganda Ministry has silenced all critics, only here, they buy them instead of breaking their legs.

I especially like that Baker calls out the fans - and we have a lot of them here - who have bought into the horse manure, especially with their advanced analytics. If you have a $100 million payroll, you can afford to make a mistake or two. Screw the analytics. The Angels took on Vernon Wells contract and we all laughed and laughed but the fact is, they also signed Pujols and Watson and have a much better shot at a World Series than we do. Why could they do this? Because they have a lucrative new TV contract. You can bet your last dinero that Rogers' TV rights are worth a fortune, only the truth is buried. Think of it - 162 games, broadcast nationally in English Canada - to a population of over 25 million. If they sold those rights to another network, with all of the multi-platform content potential, do you think they'd get less than $60 million per year that would be added to the team's books? I surely don't.

We're being played for saps. And fans that support AA are getting an eyefull of his limitations when he can't compete with the contenders on a level playing field.

At some point, AA is going to get fed up and take an offer from a real team with an owner serious about winning. Are you going to wait for that to happen, or get mad now?

At the very least, I want to see every Jays board raging mad at ownership. If the media won't educate the fans, we have to light a fire under the media. There is always one guy whom Rogers wouldn't hire who might turn around and become the torch-bearer.

[Hendrix]

One interesting point from that article:

"The Blue Jays fielded a payroll of roughly $50 million in 2003 at the height of Moneyball hysteria. Every dollar of that cost the team roughly $1.50 in Canadian funds because of the exchange rate.

In other words, they spent $75 million Canadian on that year's payroll.

This year's Blue Jays opened with a payroll of roughly $70 million. But the Canadian dollar at the time was now -- at worst -- on-par with the U.S. greenback. In plain English, it spent roughly $70 million Canadian on this year's team.

So, in terms of real money spent, the present-day Blue Jays with their new stadium and all are spending even less money than they were in their cheapest of the cheap years under Ricciardi and his Moneyball-likened cost slashing.."

When you factor in inflation to get real money spent, it is even that much cheaper.

[Hummus]

If you have a $100 million payroll, you can afford to make a mistake or two. Screw the analytics. The Angels took on Vernon Wells contract and we all laughed and laughed but the fact is, they also signed Pujols and Watson and have a much better shot at a World Series than we do.

I don't want to win that way, nor could I put myself behind a team that is assembled in such a fashion and put together or carries numerous bums. It's like being a Yankees fan, and stomaching the fact that your team spends way more than every other team, yet has trotted out guys like Carl Pavano and AJ Burnett in their starting rotation - here at realGM we salivate over teams like the Rays, who manage to spend every dollar efficiently. We are not mere fanboys here who want to see the team win at all costs, we want to see the team win because management put together a team the way WE would do it.

[augustine]

With a local TV contract that should be worth >80 million that the team sees $0 of because of internal transfer pricing, we continue to act like a small market team while being a large market team.

I get your point, and am equally frustrated. But, it seems that market size is as market size does. We are acting like a small market, so we are a small market.

[Rhettmatic]

This one writer in Toronto -- Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star -- has been on to the whole Rogers/Moneyball/money saving ruse for most of the past decade and is as clued-in with baseball insiders as anyone in Canada. At least he's still asking the tough questions.

And there's where It got really bad, nothing against Griffin but I haven't seen a tough question article from him in years.

Well the article was written by Geoff Baker, a former Toronto Star reporter/Griffin colleague. So it's not really surprising.

[Rhettmatic]

If you have a $100 million payroll, you can afford to make a mistake or two. Screw the analytics. The Angels took on Vernon Wells contract and we all laughed and laughed but the fact is, they also signed Pujols and Watson and have a much better shot at a World Series than we do.

I don't want to win that way, nor could I put myself behind a team that is assembled in such a fashion and put together or carries numerous bums. It's like being a Yankees fan, and stomaching the fact that your team spends way more than every other team, yet has trotted out guys like Carl Pavano and AJ Burnett in their starting rotation - here at realGM we salivate over teams like the Rays, who manage to spend every dollar efficiently. We are not mere fanboys here who want to see the team win at all costs, we want to see the team win because management put together a team the way WE would do it.

I don't think that's really true, though. Yes, we all geek out over high-value acquisitions but most of us do want to see the team win. I don't really care if we do it with a shoestring budget or not.

And 12 teams started 2011 with a payroll over $100 million. Reaching that threshhold doesn't make you the Yankees, it just means you're spending slightly more than the average team. With the market size we have here, we should easily be in that group.

[Myth111]

Market size does not matter if the fans in it do not care about the team.

Do people really think that Rogers is making tons of money and just want to keep the spending down? I have a hard time believing that.

I do not care what Randle or Dagger think on this topic so they can ignore the question.

[WpgPage]

I made this point in the payroll thread but the disparity in the TV dollars can't be that much more than 5-10 mil. The players and other owners would be down the Jays throats because they are trying to circumvent the CBA and basically embezzle money from the ball club. In my mind we are 2 years into a rebuild, the team built up and went for it in 2008 and injury's and underproduction cost us a playoff spot. The problem was that the system was not built to handle failure it was a weak top heavy system that collapsed with the MLB team. So they Jays try'd to stay competitive for a few more years when it became clear that they could not they fired JP hired AA and restarted from scratch.

[Mattd97]

with bell and rogers duking it out over the potential tv deal im pretty sure itd be huge with the numbers the jays still draw. if you eliminate the competition you won tget as much. the average you say they use comes from a tonne of markets where there isnt the same dynamic and im sure they get much less than we potentially could if the jays were owned by, say, labatt

[sule]

One interesting point from that article:

"The Blue Jays fielded a payroll of roughly $50 million in 2003 at the height of Moneyball hysteria. Every dollar of that cost the team roughly $1.50 in Canadian funds because of the exchange rate.

In other words, they spent $75 million Canadian on that year's payroll.

This year's Blue Jays opened with a payroll of roughly $70 million. But the Canadian dollar at the time was now -- at worst -- on-par with the U.S. greenback. In plain English, it spent roughly $70 million Canadian on this year's team.

So, in terms of real money spent, the present-day Blue Jays with their new stadium and all are spending even less money than they were in their cheapest of the cheap years under Ricciardi and his Moneyball-likened cost slashing.."

When you factor in inflation to get real money spent, it is even that much cheaper.

According to the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, 70 million in 2003, adjusted for inflation would be worth 88 million dollars.

[YogiStewart]

you guys all harp about market size.
with our market size, we should be filling the Dome for Jays games and Argos games.
but we aren't.
we should be selling out each and every Raptor game.
but we aren't.
market size means jack **** if you don't have butts in the seats.

oh, and remember when the Jays signed Roger Clemens to a big contract to put butts in the seats? and the butts didn't come?
or when we had the best pitcher in baseball, but home attendance went up by a fart's breath when he pitched?

[WpgPage]

with bell and rogers duking it out over the potential tv deal im pretty sure itd be huge with the numbers the jays still draw. if you eliminate the competition you won tget as much. the average you say they use comes from a tonne of markets where there isnt the same dynamic and im sure they get much less than we potentially could if the jays were owned by, say, labatt

Its not the average of all markets its a market analysis of the Blue Jays market people are not getting this. THere is no massive TV windfall that Rogers is sitting on they are making as much as they can reasonably be expected to make in this market.

[WpgPage]

you guys all harp about market size.
with our market size, we should be filling the Dome for Jays games and Argos games.
but we aren't.
we should be selling out each and every Raptor game.
but we aren't.
market size means jack **** if you don't have butts in the seats.

oh, and remember when the Jays signed Roger Clemens to a big contract to put butts in the seats? and the butts didn't come?
or when we had the best pitcher in baseball, but home attendance went up by a fart's breath when he pitched?

Thank you!