Blue Jays Release Reed Johnson

[Michael Bradley]

What I don't understand is, if Ricciardi wanted to save money by getting rid of Johnson, why did he tender him a contract in the first place? Johnson had an awful 2007 season, but Ricciardi not only offered him arbitration but gave him a raise on top of that. Ricciardi could have just non-tendered Johnson a few months ago, and either tried to re-sign him at a lower rate or find a cheap alternative (which Stewart is).

Regardless, for this team, Johnson is a better fit. He hits LHP, can play all 3 OF positions, and is younger than Stewart. Now it's possible that Reed is still hurt, but Stewart presents even more of an injury risk. Now, Stewart does hit RHP better than Johnson, which will be an asset for the Jays (who generally have trouble with RHP), but will he substantially outhit Johnson in that area? Hard to tell. This is not the same Stewart from 1997-2004. He's slower, older, and more fragile.

I wish they just handed the spot to Lind. At least he's young with some upside. Hoping for Stairs to contribute at 40 and Stewart to hit like he did 5 years ago is going to be risky. Not to mention the defensive blackhole that's going to be in LF.

[Kosta]

There has to be more to this story than just a simple waive to make roster space. It was odd from the get go that they went and got Stewart when we already had Stairs and Johnson. I don't want to speculate too much, but there had to be something going on with Reed like a possible health issue that might spring up down the road.

Looking back now I wish we had kept Cat instead of Reed.

We're talking about J.P Riciardi here, I mean this guy is one of the worst GM's in sports, with the amount of talent and resources he started out with here we should have had a perennial contender built by now, this guy continues to make bonehead decisions. I'll call it right now, Reed will eventually sign on with a respected organization, bring a positive contribution to a winning atmosphere and finally get a taste of real success.

[whysoserious]

I'm far from a huge Reed Johnson fan but the more I think about this move the less I like it.

Whoever we keep at the righty hitting LF is going to be platooned with a very weak defensive player (Stairs or perhaps Lind down the road). So wouldn't it make more sense to keep a guy that can defend in the late innings? Stewart is basically a DH defensively at this point.

When picking up Eckstein and Rolen, JP talked about having more 'dirt bags' no the roster. But isn't Reed the ulitmate dirt bag type player? Good defender, hard nose team guy, will accept any role and can play all 3 OF spots. That pretty much makes him the perfect 4th OF compliment, doesn't it? Not to mention that he's loved by the guys in the clubhouse.

Reed had one bad season coming off of a career year but has hit well all spring. Why doesn't he deserve the benefit of the doubt especially if he's only expected to get 30-40% of the AB's and platoon?

So considering all that, is Shannon Stewart really that much better offensively than Reed? They were virtually a dead heat the past 3 seasons so I'm guessing that the difference is minimal at best.

But hey, the Jays save more $1 million in the process. I'm still not sure if it's worth it. Bad move JP.

I think the problem is JP has a moving target of what he's trying to do. He comes from the Moneyball belief, yet trades Stewart away in his prime. He builds a team that doesn't steal bases, plays for the big home run which really isn't Moneyball style. Then he gets lucky with pitchers last season developing, most of which were already in the system pre-JP.

This off-season he gets Rolen and Eckstein to improve the defense on the left side and then gets rid of the best defensive left-fielder.

I swear every move JP is making of late smells of someone trying to do anything to save his job. Why there isn't more heat on him yet I just don't get. He's just throwing s*** at the wall and hoping something sticks at this point.

[Yosemite Dan]

JP is THE worst GM in sports not one of the worst. The guy's budget has increased 100% in the last 3 years and he still fields a team that can barely crack .500 while other teams with less payroll are perennial contenders like Minny and Detroit.

Some of the things he does make absolutely no sense. He trades Cory Koskie and Eric Hinske, which is fine, but ends up getting nothing for them AND pays 2\3 of thier salary to go play on another team. If you're gonna pay most of thier salary anyways you might as well keep them on the bench especially Hinske who didn't bitch and was a good player to backup the IF and OF. Then again Hinske has a decent year as a rookie and JP locks him up for 4 years at way too much money when he didn't have to so i guess he was embarrased by givng him so much money in the 1st place. The biggest bonehead move of them all was giving Burnett an opt out clause after 3 years so if he finally wins 15+ games this year and lives up to his promise he's outta here and if he sucks as expected we're stuck with 2 more years of him. Let's not get into overpaying for Wells whose clearly not a superstar and way too inconsistent to deserve that kind of coin and length. At least Delgado produced while he was getting that cash. Then trying to trade our only bonafide offensive everyday player who actually is capable of being a superstar in Rios for pitchers who are totally unproven. I can't beleive he got Rios to sign the way he's been treated this off season.

Now this Reed release, it's almost like JP for some reason decided he doesn't like a player and tries to get rid of him at all costs while getting 2 over the hill guys to replace him who can get barely around the OF. He's lucky Godfrey has this man crush on him, any other team would of canned him after 2 years.

[NeverGoingToWin]

My biggest problem with JP is his drafting history. Some of his moves have been bad but he felt he had to make them because we have nobody in the farm system that we can promote. I will admit that we have some pitching but how much of that has come from him and where our the position players? Our farm system is a disgrace and that is inexcusable when you have the Yankees and Red Sox in our division who each have terrific farm systems.

[The_Hater]

My biggest problem with JP is his drafting history. Some of his moves have been bad but he felt he had to make them because we have nobody in the farm system that we can promote. I will admit that we have some pitching but how much of that has come from him and where our the position players? Our farm system is a disgrace and that is inexcusable when you have the Yankees and Red Sox in our division who each have terrific farm systems.

This would be number 1 on my list too but the rest of his resume isn't much better. Sadly, I can't really point to one specific area of is job where I can say 'JP is pretty good at that'.

Basically his budget has doubled the past 3-4 years which has allowed to him to keep Wells and Halliday and overpay for some other additions to help keep this team at .500. And he's actually lucky that Gord Ash left him with a pretty decent farm system because they comprise most of the team's core right now.

All that said, perhaps he'd look a little bit better at his job if we were playing in the NL instead of chasing the 2 biggest payrolls in baseball? I'd certainly be most optimistic about our chances playing over in AAAA.

[Schad]

All that said, perhaps he'd look a little bit better at his job if we were playing in the NL instead of chasing the 2 biggest payrolls in baseball? I'd certainly be most optimistic about our chances playing over in AAAA.

Over the past two seasons, we would easily be a playoff team in the NL Central, with a good shot at the post-season in the other two divisions.

The problem is that Ricciardi has failed either to 'go for broke' to build a team capable of a playoff berth in the AL, or admit defeat and begin a long-term rebuild that would leave us in good stead in case either the Yankees or Red Sox falter for a year or two.

The Jays are the epitome of a treadmill team...unfortunately, the playoff structure of MLB insures that we're eliminated in early September every season, rather than having the fortune to get steamrolled in the first round of the post-season.

[Michael Bradley]

Everything leads back to one thing: bad drafting.

Someone mentioned Ricciardi not "going for broke", but how does he do that when he hasn't developed the prospects capable of acquiring star talent? If JP tried for Cabrera/Willis, Haren, Bedard, Santana, etc, who would he have to offer? Probably Rios, McGowan, and Snider. The first two are Toronto's best hitter and quite possibly their 2nd best pitcher respectively, while the last one is their only impact prospect in the minors. The Jays simply did not do well in developing the expendable high upside talent that they were supposed to in order to go for broke when the opportunity presented itself.

Ricciardi couldn't rebuild because he wasn't drafting well, which lead to overpaying marginal veterans and/or taking chances on injury prone players in order to expedite a winning team. If Ricciardi drafted Nick Swisher instead of Adams, does he sign Wells to a long-term deal? Maybe not. If Ricciardi drafted Kazmir/Hamels instead of Adams, does he sign Burnett? Probably not. If Ricciardi drafted Tulowitzki over Romero.....you get the idea. Good drafting makes the entire organization better because it gives the GM a ton of options. The Jays simply have not had many options.

Ricciardi isn't great at anything, but if he was even a mediocre drafter from 2002-05, the team would have been better off. Unfortunately, he didn't draft any high upside talent during that stretch which other teams would find attractive, and he's making matters worse by not even using the players he's drafted (Lind, Thigpen, Adams, etc). No amount of improvement he's shown the last two years in that area will make up for four years worth of mistakes, although I do think Aaron Hill has an outside shot to be an all-star calibre player. Still, that's not enough.

[OldNo7]

Yup. The horrible drafting history is the main reason I cannot stand the guy, and really many of our surrounding problems can all be traced back to bad drafting during his tenure.

[LLJ]

I can't say I could compare Reed and Shannon in a detailed analysis, but I do know that Shannon seems to have a noodle arm and I don't like it.

And while we're on the subject of JP, I am shocked, SHOCKED he's still here. Any other self respecting franchise would have canned him 2 years ago.

Why must Toronto sports teams suck? Even the Raptors, the best pro team in the city, are overrated.

You know what's f*ckin' sad? The Jays have fallen off so far over the past decade and a half that people don't even have a burning anger for the team to make the playoffs anymore. Hard to believe this was a championship team once. I remember reading a recent Toronto poll (last year or the year before) and it showed that Toronto sports fans were relatively more satisfied with the Jays than they are with the Raps or Leafs. WTF!

[OldNo7]

I think the fanbase is complacent, largely because they never expect to duel with the Yankees and Red Sox.

[LLJ]

It makes me mad that the D-Rays may well surpass us soon and in the odd year will occasionally fight it out with the BoSox and Yanks one of these years. What will Toronto fans say then?

[sule]

JP needs to just draft the players with the greatest upside...it'd also be nice if we can get our prospects on the team earlier and not always leave them in AA or AAA until they're 24 or 25.....

i've always maintained that the best way to maintain a constant rebuild and a constant contendership is to bring in your best rookie every year and use your youth as the guys who will plug in your holes...not overpaid, over-the-hill vets

[fliszt25]

I agree with everyone on the drafting. Now granted it has only been one year but I checked on the progress of JP's selections of last year's draft. Not one of them except for Brett cecil has posted decent numbers. Hopefully the prognosis is better for the selections this year but with JP's drafting history I wouldn't be surprised if the status quo of failure is maintained.

My favorite bone-headed JP move was the Frank Thomas signing. It had all the makings of a Hakeem the dream type impact for the Jays with that silly 'we're going to contend now' hype. Yes Frank was coming off a good year but JP just let a guy like catalanatto who hit .300 for him the previous year go. Our offense was fine because we had a table setter like cat and this year he had to invest money in finding another table setter in Ekstein to correct his mistake. Plus Frank is a slow starter and that doesn't bode well for the other hitters who are coming off a disastrous campaign last year.

Honestly the only thing that JP has done well recently is landing Accardo in the Hillenbrand deal. That's it. I can't think of anything else.

[hugehoopsfan]

The Cubs started Reed in center today.

[GYBE]

He's been playing well for us. He's 3 for 6 so far with a double and good defense in center.