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I'm wondering where Jays Nation is. Well, not "Nation". On RealGM, it's more like a little island in the Pacific.

But anyways. All this talk of sending Halladay away. Do we send him away for kids?? If we're going with youth, then do we blow it up and send away Rolen and Overbay and of course Wells?

Do we trade just Halladay for pieces that can maybe help us now, since we're always trying to compete?

Or do we keep Halladay because we were always supposed to aim for 2010? And you need your ace if you want to make the playoffs.

Next year we may have some pitchers coming back, but pitching isn't our problem. It's this up and down offense.

I don't think a complete rebuild is the answer.

Getting rid of Wells and Rios would be nice to try and bring in some better players and roll with it next year on hopes our pitchers can stay healthy.

Getting rid of Wells will be near impossible.

I think its time to retool. Even if our injured pitchers come back to 100% form (not a guarantee) there is absolutely no guarantee that Rolen, Scutaro, and Hill continue having the career years they are having this year. I've always been a big fan of Hill, but he's never been a 40 HR type bat which he is on pace for now. Scutaro went from utility infielder to one of the best SS in the league, and Rolen went from an often injured declining player to a .330 hitter.

I'd try to move guys like Scutaro and Rolen regardless of what happens with Halladay because their value right now is as high as its going to get, and the likelihood of them staying at this level isn't that high.

i don't think we will contend next year unless Hallerday stays, and i also think wells is unmovable. We need a power hitter and/or start the running game with Wells. Rios, and Batista (who has decent wells).

The Jays need to make some decisions. One of them is whether to keep JP Ricciardi on past 2010. And another one is whether to rebuild. Both of these must be made right now before any trades are finished. I have my own opinions on this (keeping JP and not rebuilding), but if the Jays are planning to seriously cut payroll, I think the organization probably has to do the opposite of that.

I don't think it's as bad as it seems at the moment. If you think about it we've played most of the season with only one starter who had any sort of major league experience. If you toss in a couple of decent pitchers in and a healthy bullpen, the Jays would still be in a contending spot.

Given the way things have gone this season, I'd like to see this team pick up some free agents next offseason (and not lose any of the current assets) and play with a proper staff. I don't think we are that far from being legit.

rkid wrote:Given the way things have gone this season, I'd like to see this team pick up some free agents next offseason (and not lose any of the current assets) and play with a proper staff. I don't think we are that far from being legit.

They have the 5th best run differential in the majors. They aren't far at all from being a very good team. Unfortunately ownership has shown no desire to take the next step and actually make them a true contender.

I would blow it up and have been of this opinion for about a couple of season. The first thing that I would do is hire a competent GM (e.g. Terry Ryan). Having a brilliant front office and scouting staff is the most cost-effective way of building a team. They get paid relative peanuts and have the most influence over the direction of a franchise. IMO, this team is probably at least a good 5 years away from being able to legitimately compete if they use their chips right. But, you want your players to mature at the same time (kind of like what happened to the Rays). So, imo, the Jays would be much better off going after prospects with high ceiling that those that are close to the majors. Unfortunately, the Jays seem to want almost ready prospects, which is just going to mean indefinite mediocrity.

Suggesting that JP Ricciardi isn't a competent GM is just wrong.

Mustard_Tiger wrote:

rkid wrote:Given the way things have gone this season, I'd like to see this team pick up some free agents next offseason (and not lose any of the current assets) and play with a proper staff. I don't think we are that far from being legit.

They have the 5th best run differential in the majors. They aren't far at all from being a very good team. Unfortunately ownership has shown no desire to take the next step and actually make them a true contender.

Ownership basically gave him an extra $30-35M/yr on the payroll and got very little in return. I would not trust him with handling my team's money if I were owning a team. He has no plan and it shows with the result that this team has had over his tenure. I saw the whole Jays are going to loose Halladay a few years ago when the organization decided that it was a wise move to backload their contracts and rushed to spend their new found money (instead of waiting for the right moment and spending it judiciously). JP is on the same level as Ash, which translates to not good enough in this division.

dirtybird wrote:

Mustard_Tiger wrote:

rkid wrote:Given the way things have gone this season, I'd like to see this team pick up some free agents next offseason (and not lose any of the current assets) and play with a proper staff. I don't think we are that far from being legit.

They have the 5th best run differential in the majors. They aren't far at all from being a very good team. Unfortunately ownership has shown no desire to take the next step and actually make them a true contender.

Ownership basically gave him an extra $30-35M/yr on the payroll and got very little in return. I would not trust him with handling my team's money if I were owning a team. He has no plan and it shows with the result that this team has had over his tenure. I saw the whole Jays are going to loose Halladay a few years ago when the organization decided that it was a wise move to backload their contracts and rushed to spend their new found money (instead of waiting for the right moment and spending it judiciously). JP is on the same level as Ash, which translates to not good enough in this division.

Sorry, you are really asking for a lot from your GM to win in the AL East with a 80M payroll. And yet, over the last 4 seasons, there haven't been that many teams as successful as the Jays in baseball (winning over 80 games in this division is extremely difficult and an achievement in itself).

Here are the adjusted standings for this year, taking out the luck factor: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/stati ... ndings.php

Saying he doesn't have a plan is also wrong. He's built a very good team here, and it's supported by many of his draft picks and trade acquisitions.

FWIW a lot of that initial spending was done to keep Halladay around. It was supposed to be our show that we were building a contender. Halladay signed an extension shortly after we got Ryan, Burnett, Glaus etc.

Ownership also made Vernon Wells the posterboy of the franchise and then outright forced JP into signing him to the ridiculous contract because they wanted to send a PR statement that we weren't just going to let our "stars" walk and send an image of a team building to contend.

JP is an average to possibly slightly above average GM who talks too much. I'm not sure if he's the guy moving forward but he's been backed into a few corners and in this division you have to either be really really good or get really really lucky to build a contender. JP, and our organization (Godfrey and company) were neither.

Let's not kid ourselves, we will not be competing in 2010. We have way too many question marks as far as the pitching staff goes and the inconsistent hitting. The pitching has been better than you can expect and the hitting has overachieved as a whole as well and we're still a .500 team.

It's also going to be next to impossible to convince Doc to stick around and if you're going to trade Doc, you might as well rebuild. You can't contend without an Ace.

The first step is to trade Scutaro, Rolen and Overbay if possible. Scutaro and Rolen are at the highest value they will ever be and some team trying to contend will add them and give up something of value in return. We also have to make sure we get some near ready prospects at those positions if we do trade these players. They're all on the other side of 30 and we have nobody in the farm system even close to being ready to assume their positions.

With Wells, we are more or less stuck with him and there's no way any team trades for him unless he was packaged with Halladay. I would just pray for a bounce back year and hope a high payroll team is willing to swallow his contract.

I don't agree with trading Rios as he is also at rock bottom value currently. His contract is also not as bad as most make it out to be. 10 million a year is not that bad for a 5 tool player who can do a bit of everything. Other than his average, his numbers are projecting out to be close to how they usually are. He also tends to get on streaks when he is on fire. His defense and speed often gets overlooked as well. I can live with a boneheaded play every now and then. I think what pisses people off is his demeanor that makes it look like he isn't trying out there, which I don't believe to be the case.

Mustard_Tiger wrote:Sorry, you are really asking for a lot from your GM to win in the AL East with a 80M payroll. And yet, over the last 4 seasons, there haven't been that many teams as successful as the Jays in baseball (winning over 80 games in this division is extremely difficult and an achievement in itself).

Here are the adjusted standings for this year, taking out the luck factor: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/stati ... ndings.php

Saying he doesn't have a plan is also wrong. He's built a very good team here, and it's supported by many of his draft picks and trade acquisitions.

I'm asking him for one to spend the money he gets wisely and if he were to get a good bang for his buck, then I'm sure there's a justification for giving him more. But if he hand a bunch of players longterm contracts that the team regularly keeps eating big chunks of them I don't see any justification on how he should be given more money to misspend. And he has habitually bought high on players (that to me is the antithesis of Moneyball). He himself said when he was hired that he could win with a lot less. I'm confident that if you gave JP the next 25 years to get in the playoffs that the Jays would not make it once. If you're satisfied at the team winning 80 games and never having a shot at the playoffs and call that successful or competitive then so be it. I prefer to think of it as unacceptable and mediocre. And I prefer to find someone that can succeed in the circumstances that he's given rather than finding someone who uses his circumstance as an excuse while never coming close to solving it.

There's no point in me addressing several of those points (everyone knows Godfrey led the charge on the Wells signing, and that JP attempted to trade Rios before signing him) because this is obviously an idea that you've had in your mind for quite some time and you won't change it. Even with all of JP's players making contributions, it's quite obvious that your frustration at his team not making the playoffs will override all of the good things that he's done in his regime.

Anyway, without more luck, a different GM isn't going to do any better than Ricciardi has.

Mustard_Tiger wrote:There's no point in me addressing several of those points (everyone knows Godfrey led the charge on the Wells signing, and that JP attempted to trade Rios before signing him) because this is obviously an idea that you've had in your mind for quite some time and you won't change it. Even with all of JP's players making contributions, it's quite obvious that your frustration at his team not making the playoffs will override all of the good things that he's done in his regime.

Anyway, without more luck, a different GM isn't going to do any better than Ricciardi has.

I used to hate JP, but last few years he has really improved. HE has drafted alot better, and made a lot of good moves in general. Now i dont feel as bad about bringing him back.

I think Wells' contract itself makes it a little hard to rebuild. There aren't too many teams, I expect, that would take on that contract, especially the way he's been playing this year.

But overall, I don't suggest trading Halladay, so I guess that means I don't suggest rebuilding. If the Jays could trade Rios for something good, I'd be all for that (same goes for Wells).

Plus, I think 'rebuilding' in the AL East spells nothing but disaster for the next few years... but maybe it's because my definition of rebuilding is a little different. Any time I hear 'rebuilding', I typically think it means trading away the better (and older) players for prospects. And that, to me, would be disasterous... rebuilding like that would likely put the team out of contention after the first month for the next 3-4 seasons -- likely even longer. That, to me, is a lot worse than being somewhat competitive every year, which is what the Jays have been doing. Just because the Rays managed to do it doesn't make it a good strategy, especially because prospecting young players is almost a crapshoot. High draft picks don't mean much, and legit good prospects don't turn out the way they usually should. Hell, the Twins got 2 good prospects (and 2 decent prospects) when trading Santana, but looking at it now, they practically got nothing. If my definition is correct, then no, I wouldn't suggest the Jays rebuild. If they can manage to trade Rios and/or Wells, however, I'd be all for that.

Wilner said he thinks there could be 4 or 5 teams interested in Wells, where they wouldn't insist on us paying half his salary. If that's true, I say the Jays explore it.

The concern is although we were supposed to contend next year, that was because our pitching would suck. But actually, our pitching hasn't been too bad, even with the injuries. On offense, there are these guys having career years that we can't really count on for next year. Scutario, Rolen. Can we really count on Overbay for a whole other season?

One angle is for the Jays to spend some money and get some more punch in the lineup. This lineup desperately needs a power hitter. Another angle is to blow it up. I don't see how we can go into next year just thinking some added pitching will make a difference.

In a league without a salary cap, Wells' contract would not be that big of a problem if they were going to go the route of rebuilding. It would just mean he'd be stuck on the team which isn't that big of a deal if he can live with it.

The problem with rebuilding is that it takes a lot of patience from fans, and from management. Many times when teams try to rebuild they get tired of waiting and decide to scrap it and go after free agents once they get a little competitive. With the way ticket sales are down this year I don't think they would want to go down that route at this point in time.

I don't think "going for it" or "rebuilding" is too much of a worry for Jays management. When was the last time a fan felt we were going for it? At most, in the last 15yrs, it was supposed to be about 2010. That's why I'd say maybe we should just wait out 2010. Keep Halladay. Let him walk if he so chooses after 2010. Maybe we trade him at next year's trade deadline. But stick with our guys till next year and try and add that power bat.

The tricky part is that it may take trading away youth to get that bat. Do we want to trade away a young pitcher or pitchers if we want to rebuild a year from now?