The Reason Why JP & The Blue Jays Did Not Mesh

[Ken Piffey Jr]

its pretty obvious and straight forward. jp comes from oakland a's organization where billy beane is the gm doesn't spend a lot of money. he picks up scrappy players and hopes for the best every season with solid pitching and scrappy hitting, which does get him far in the america league west. jp who is the blue jays gm doesn't know how to spend his money because he learns from beane who isn't a big spender. our pitching staff is solid because of jp experience from billy but when it comes to hitting he doesn't know what to do. the money he gave the wells and thomas was insane and can't forget aj burrnet.

what we need is a gm that KNOWS how to spend money and has been in a competitive division doing so. jp's style is fit for a small market teams like the a's and the twin's who trade away assests every couple years rather than keeping them long term. basically jp has so much money doesn't know how to spend it.

[Schad]

IMO, none of this is true. People equate JP with Beane because he came out of that organization, but there's little commonality beyond the belief that high school pitchers = organizational death.

It's not that JP doesn't know how to spend money...it's that, unlike Beane, he doesn't know when to spend it. Wells is a great example; Billy Boy would have cashed him in during June/July of 2006, when he was OPSing almost 1.000 and every GM of a contender would have given a king's ransom for him, impending FA or not. Instead, JP stuck it out and signed him to a big contract, then watched as he necessarily regressed, finishing the year with a great (but not elite) 129 OPS+ and sinking from there.

In fact, JP's style is much more attuned to a big-market team than the Jays, who are mid-market with aspirations of playing with the big boys. Burnett is paid tenfold of what a cost controlled, mediocre kid would receive, while producing results perhaps 30% better. BJ Ryan has been stellar, but the difference between his 110 innings of excellent relief and a league-average reliever throwing the same amount is around 28 runs over three seasons; prorating his salary to date in 2008, that's $500,000 per run saved, and with his contract flattening at $10/year, there's no way that he'll come close to matching that pace. Then there's the Clement/Meche near-debacles, where JP luckily had just enough restraint to offer ridiculous contracts...but find himself out-bid.

The only area in which I see any similarities is their handling of the bullpen. Both seem to realize that middle relievers are the most fickle and most easily replaced of all players, and it is thus better to let 'em walk/trade 'em rather than hand out long-term, generous contracts (the Angels are paying over $20m for their excellent bullpen...but the best of the bunch, hands-down, has been a guy making $400k).

[Schad]

Another huge difference: Beane is ruthless (and I mean that in the nicest way possible), and JP tends to be reactive. A month ago, Beane had an overachieving team that was lurking on the fringes of the playoff race, and in a weak division. Rather than getting caught up in the folly of a long-shot playoff bid, he traded Harden and Blanton, continuing the aggressive rebuild started with the Haren trade.

JP looks at a team that consistently finishes with 82-87 wins in the toughest division in baseball and concludes that it's just a 40-18 finish away from having an outside chance at a playoff spot...just as he does every year.

[kelso]

Another huge difference: Beane is ruthless (and I mean that in the nicest way possible), and JP tends to be reactive. A month ago, Beane had an overachieving team that was lurking on the fringes of the playoff race, and in a weak division. Rather than getting caught up in the folly of a long-shot playoff bid, he traded Harden and Blanton, continuing the aggressive rebuild started with the Haren trade.

JP looks at a team that consistently finishes with 82-87 wins in the toughest division in baseball and concludes that it's just a 40-18 finish away from having an outside chance at a playoff spot...just as he does every year.

Your analysis IMo is refreshing and accurate, and it reinforces why JP needs to go. He has failed to make cthe orrect key decisions on at least a half-dozen things which in turn have set this franchise down a course that requires a rebuild.

1. Some bad drafts. Ricky Romero over Tulowitski for instance- oh well, this a crap shoot anyways, but when they guess right, we're supposed to acknowledge they are genious. To further the bad drafting, Russ Adams taken 14th in 2002. Franceur, Swisher, Hamels, Loney, Guthrie, KAZMIR- all taken after Russ Adams.

2. Not trading Wells when his market value was enormous. We could have gotten a King's ransom for Vernon and now all we have is an enormous boat anchor on the payroll tied to a player that in a best case scenario MAY achieve numbers of 25hr/90rbi on an annual basis, while stealing barely any bases and hitting below his average with runners on.

3. Bad trades. Paul Quantrill and Cesar Izturis dealt to the Dodgers for Luke Prokopec and Chad Ricketts, when L.A. was offering Eric Gagne. Felipe Lopez, a future all-star, for John-Ford Griffin and Jason Arnold. Shannon Stewart to the A's for Bobby Kielty. How's Glaus doing in LA right now? To name a few. To his credit he did make a few good deals, but all that gets thrown out when he doesn't keep Carpenter, a future Cy Young winner, for just spending an extra 300k. Stupid.

4. Bad hirings for Managers. Martinez, Tosca, Gibbons. Okay, he inherited Martinez, but Tosca? Gibbons was a good guy, but was .500 with a good roster and now he finally has someone with a resume and to no coincidence they Jays have been above .500 under Gaston's watch so far.

5. Not recognizing its time to do something drastic, when its time to do something drastic. he should have pulled the plug on the season last year and made some moves to set up this year better. Now we are sitting 2 games above .500 and we're going to hear stuff like "we're just a good streak away from getting back into this".....please. The season is over, start working on next year already.

I want meaningful baseball in September again. It's been way too long and I'm tired of a 100million team that finsihes a handful of games above .500.

[whiterasta80]

The Stewart trade was actually with the Twins and not the A's (I know... its tough to believe that JP completed a trade that didnt involve Billy Beane but it happened).

Also, Glaus is in St. Louis and I still like that trade going forward given that Ahrens and Sobolewski are years away.

Nevertheless your points about the futility of this regime stand.

Shad, you can add Eric Hinske, Alex Rios, Aaron Hill, Scott Shoenweiss, and Frank Thomas to JP's list of buying at peak value. Outside of the bullpen and David Eckstein I can't think of anyone he hasn't bought at peak value actually.

Each of those signings had established 1 year of high-level performance (Actually Wells had 2, but that was over 5 seasons). If he had made them prove it over even just 2 seasons, the cost of each of them would have been dramatically reduced. Wells would be making 1/3 of what he makes, Rios about 1/2, Hinske would have made 1/2, Shoenweiss wouldn't have been back with the team and Frank Thomas would have been someone elses GIDP problem.

If he treated the rest of his roster like he treated the bullpen none of those signings would have happened

[Michael Bradley]

Ricciardi is a better small budget GM mainly because it handcuffs his spending. Not that he was particularly good at spending money even when he had a $50 million payroll, but his mistakes were not as detrimental long-term, and his successes (Catalanotto, Zaun, Downs, Myers, Bordick, etc) were much more cost effective. With a $100 million payroll, he had to adapt to a crazy market, and has handed out contracts which are/were either unmovable or unnecessary (or both). Ricciardi was supposed to avoid overpaying marginal free agents by filling holes internally, but his drafting was subpar and he wasted a good chunk of the young prospects he inherited. Ultimately, as exciting as the 2006 off-season was (adding Ryan, Burnett, Glaus, Overbay, and Molina), it was the first indication that Ricciardi failed as GM.

The main difference between Beane and Ricciardi is that JP doesn't know how to evaluate outliers. He's reactionary, impatient, and judges on small sample sizes. While Beane signs Frank Thomas at $500,000, gets an MVP calibre year out of him, and lets him walk for a draft pick, Ricciardi is the one who buys high and signs Thomas a year later to a 3-year deal that Frank couldn't possibly live up to given his age. That's really Beane's main strength. He knows when to sell and he knows when to buy. Looking at draft history, since 2002, Ricciardi may have actually drafted better (which isn't saying much), but Beane has been able to replenish his farm system with trading, and isn't afraid to pull the trigger on a deal regardless of the public perception (though I believe he's part owner so he has more power).

Ricciardi and Beane are really two different types of GM's. Just because they worked together it doesn't mean they implemented their plans the same way.

[whiterasta80]

I think the repeated trading between the teams also contributes to Beane and Riccardi getting lumped together.

[Schad]

Ultimately, as exciting as the 2006 off-season was (adding Ryan, Burnett, Glaus, Overbay, and Molina), it was the first indication that Ricciardi failed as GM.

I would agree up to a point. JP erred in three ways, one a miscalculation with the other two exacerbating that mistake. First, JP clearly believed that the additions (and healthy return of Halladay) would be good for more than seven wins; though Ricciardi is rightly criticized for overestimating the quality of his roster, that was an understandable mistake. Heck, the 2005 team had an expected record of 88-74, so a run at 95 wins was certainly within reason.

However, compounding that mistake was the reality that the Yankees and Red Sox won 95 the year before, with Cleveland not far behind...if 95 was the target (and that's usually the threshold for a playoff birth) it was on the knife's edge of playoff contention in the first place. Again, in and of itself not a damning fact: the playoffs are so much of a crapshoot that building a fringe Wild Card idea doesn't equate to the treadmill of a low-seeded NBA playoff squad.

...but JP's big mistake was failing to take into account the dearth of talent in the minors after the Overbay trade (though I'm still of the opinion that it was a good deal), which left the team with no plan B. If the team entered August within striking distance but outside the playoffs, there wasn't a damned thing he could do on the trade front to ring out a couple extra wins. It was a one-off, and when it became clear that the team (while improved) didn't have enough to chase down the real contenders, the Jays were back in limbo. So yeah, the moves were good but his philosophy -- assuming, of course, that he has one -- was seriously flawed.