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Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog)

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Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#1 » by LittleOzzy » Thu Feb 14, 2013 7:19 pm

With players reporting to spring training this week, let's look at the offseason the Toronto Blue Jays have had this year, and also have a look back at an article I wrote last offseason, and see what's transpired since.

2013 looks like it could be an exciting year to be a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays. They've added front line starters to their rotation, and all-star positional players to the lineup for this season. Expectations are higher than they've been in quite some time. I recently noticed that Yahoo! Sports has Toronto ranked as the second best team in baseball in their season preview online. A far cry from the 22nd place overall finish they had in 2012. By now everybody knows who the acquisitions are, and how good they could be, so I'm not going to get into that. What I would like to look at though, is just how different everything feels compared to a year ago.

I wrote an article back in January of 2012, addressing criticisms I thought were false and unfair to GM Alex Anthopoulos, and also the owner, Rogers. It was about how fans needed to relax and look at the big picture. And I tried to debunk some myths fans had manufactured. It was a bit polarizing judging by the responses I received, some hated it, some totally agreed with it. So let's see how or if those criticisms have been addressed since.

The major complaints a year ago were how Rogers wasn't willing to spend the money necessary to build a contender. And also that Anthopoulos was unwilling to part with prospects to make moves that, seemingly, would put them in contention. Since then, Anthopoulos has made a number of moves, moving out prospect after prospect to acquire top big league talent. He's moved so many prospects, that the farm system has gone from being ranked in the top five, some even said they were number one, to now being ranked in the 20's by many. Trading five prospects ranked in MLB.com's Top 100 prospects list can do that. The best part is that Toronto still has two prospects left on the list, and have added five all-stars to their roster in the process.

And as for Rogers and spending money, let's see how they did there. Looking at 2012's payroll, compared to what 2013's appears to look like. It seems payroll is up roughly $30 million this year. According to Cot's Baseball contracts, they sit at approximately $114 million for this coming season. It's the highest amount that any owner has ever spent on the Blue Jays. In future years it appears it will continue to rise as well, as they already have more than $105 million committed towards 2014, and that's just to 13 players. They also spent another $10.5 million on signing draft picks in 2012, which ranked fourth in baseball. Then spent $1.45 million more, to sign Franklin Barreto, the top ranked international prospect in the July signing period. Looks like the owners are spending lots of money.


http://www.sportsnet.ca/fanfuel/2013/02 ... _schedule/
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#2 » by satyr9 » Thu Feb 14, 2013 7:56 pm

If you're using 114m from Cot's, I'm not certain you should just write -8.5 into the Jays budget for this year. To me, it makes the most sense to apply that 8.5 straight to Buehrle's last two years instead of as a flat negative this year when trying to factor out what they're budgeting with their moves.. Also, Buehrle is 1m/yr to high as Cot's includes the average of his signing bonus that MIA paid, so he's 11/18/19 instead of 12/19/20. I personally see it as 4.25 off the last two years so he looks like 11/13.75/14.75. That makes Buehrle cost 3/39.5 instead of 3/48, so more R.Dempster, D.Haren, or E.Jackson level than A.Sanchez type money.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#3 » by flatjacket1 » Fri Feb 15, 2013 1:49 am

I'm the #1 Rogers, AA fan here on the forum, and I'm not ready to really credit either with that much. (One could argue AA did very well, but give anybody 30M+ to spend as well as giving up 5 top 100 prospects and you will end up with a roster similarly capable)

Beginning this year, revenue sharing depends greatly on performance. That's right, in most leagues where there is a salary cap, revenue sharing makes a lot of sense. The typical worse you do more you get made sense. In the MLB, there is a strong correlation between money spent and wins gained, due to obvious reasons. Now this year, to prevent big market teams like the Jays from sitting in the mediocre position they normally do and raking in dollars the Yankees make, they made the new CBA worded so that the better you do, the more revenue sharing dollars you get. We aren't talking a couple million here, we are talking about tens of millions of dollars in the Blue Jays finish in the top 15. If we do that, we get the next 3 years in the same boat, and so if we suck in 2014 we can still enjoy the lovely dollars that we earned in 2013, in 2014 again. What does this mean? It means that the Blue Jays actually may have saved money by spending it, if that makes sense. Incentive to win is at an all time high due to CBA changes. Also worth noting if you are over the luxury tax for 5 years in a row (only Yankees at this time), you pay a large part of your revenue sharing (100% of a specific part) on top of luxury tax dollars. This is why the Yankees MUST be below the 2014 luxury tax threshold, and next offseason will be a time of cutting costs (which shouldn't be hard given the amount of 1 year contracts).

Also, now the CBA words clearly that you MUST spend every penny you receive in revenue sharing on baseball operations. So thus the 250M renovations over the next 10 years. This is the first year revenue sharing is different, so we still shored up all the revenue sharing we could under the old CBA.

Basically, in short, if you don't want to read anything above: Rogers either saved money or spent a fraction of what we believe they spent.

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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#4 » by Randle McMurphy » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:04 am

No, there's still Lind. And that's quite enough in itself.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#5 » by Santoki » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:17 am

I'd just like to point out McGowan is injured again and owed $3.5 million uninsured. That would have been a nice amount to spend on the bullpen near the deadline or down the road...
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#6 » by BigLeagueChew » Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:28 am

Arencibia is still our starting catcher.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#7 » by Schad » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:08 am

flatjacket1 wrote:I'm the #1 Rogers, AA fan here on the forum, and I'm not ready to really credit either with that much. (One could argue AA did very well, but give anybody 30M+ to spend as well as giving up 5 top 100 prospects and you will end up with a roster similarly capable)


Yes and no. I agree that the biggest chunk of the work was done before this off-season, both in the stockpiling of talent and the shedding of unnecessary salary (hi, Vernon!) that made it possible to take on some much money in such a short time.

But inertia reigns in baseball; you either have to deal with agents who will often wait until you bowl them over or drag out the process until someone does, or swing complicated deals, and neither is straightforward...especially in the winter, when there is no impetus for opposing GMs to make the deal right this second, unless you give them a good reason to.

I still have concerns about the long-term ramifications from the volume of young talent shipped out, but it's the manner in which AA addressed the realities of the Big Move in baseball: he made offers that weren't going to be turned down. He turned a pursuit of one player into a megadeal that filled 3.5 holes. He overcame the Mets' reticence of creating a fan backlash by offering more, until their resistance broke. Not every GM could, or would, have done what AA did; it took balls, and it took a willingness to fully commit that is rare in a generally risk-adverse profession.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#8 » by flatjacket1 » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:57 am

Schadenfreude wrote:Yes and no. I agree that the biggest chunk of the work was done before this off-season, both in the stockpiling of talent and the shedding of unnecessary salary (hi, Vernon!) that made it possible to take on some much money in such a short time.

But inertia reigns in baseball; you either have to deal with agents who will often wait until you bowl them over or drag out the process until someone does, or swing complicated deals, and neither is straightforward...especially in the winter, when there is no impetus for opposing GMs to make the deal right this second, unless you give them a good reason to.

I still have concerns about the long-term ramifications from the volume of young talent shipped out, but it's the manner in which AA addressed the realities of the Big Move in baseball: he made offers that weren't going to be turned down. He turned a pursuit of one player into a megadeal that filled 3.5 holes. He overcame the Mets' reticence of creating a fan backlash by offering more, until their resistance broke. Not every GM could, or would, have done what AA did; it took balls, and it took a willingness to fully commit that is rare in a generally risk-adverse profession.


I agree, AA put himself in a good position to add salary, but once the okay was given, it's not really all that impressive what he put together. I'm sure we could give you 30M and the right to trade away what he did and we'd end up with something similar. I also believe in his long term plan, meaning that if this offseason didn't happen I still think we are on pace for success.

I think it's pretty much common knowledge that after the next 3-5 years we will be chained down by big contracts, or just flat out without enough talent to compete. The sustainability model of this franchise is totally out the window. This is why I was so against the RA Dickey trade at the time, we risk losing a cornerstone and 6 years of a good reliever (floor). Sure it's not for sure, but neither is RA coming over and pitching 200+ innings of baseball the way he did last year. He started off slow last year, he had an ERA of around 4.5 after his first 5 starts, and sure it's more promising that he finished so strong but people need to realize there is a decent amount of risk in both. I accept the Dickey trade for what it is, I would of never had the balls to pull off something like that myself, and I'm sure there are GM's that would have never done it either.

Overall I'm happy with the offseason, but if you allow a GM to trade away what he did and pay what he did, and we aren't talk about putting together a masterpiece. I liked the Marlins deal although a lot of sabers argue with me that we could of traded the prospects for a Moore type pitcher, and signed EJax with a much lesser hit on prospects and salary cap, but I still would of done it even though really they are right. The Dickey trade is really freaking ballsy, and I would have never done it, but I've accepted it and hope for the best. I hope we get a WS within the next few years, because if we don't, it will be quite a while before there is good baseball in Toronto again.
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Post#9 » by Schad » Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:16 am

Again, I think that you're underestimating it. In Melky, Dickey, Buerhle, Reyes and Johnson, we added five players who posted a combined 19.6 WAR last year. No matter what resources one might have at their disposal, it ain't easy to add 19.6 WAR over the course of an off-season.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#10 » by Raps in 4 » Sat Feb 16, 2013 5:25 pm

AA's entire tenure has been near perfect. There hasn't been much to complain about for a while. Rogers' unwillingness to spend was really everyone's only complaint.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#11 » by flatjacket1 » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:44 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:Again, I think that you're underestimating it. In Melky, Dickey, Buerhle, Reyes and Johnson, we added five players who posted a combined 19.6 WAR last year. No matter what resources one might have at their disposal, it ain't easy to add 19.6 WAR over the course of an off-season.


I think that you are over crediting him.

First of all, Melky is an exception. We signed him for market value (any GM had access to him, he didn't give us a discount), which was 6M/year despite his 4.6 fWAR season. So lets take out 6M of the payroll (let's say we added 24M in salary) and his production (4.6 fWAR). So we are left with 24M in salary to add + prospects for 15 fWAR.

Let's dumb it down again. 1 fWAR is worth around 4.8/4.9M so let's make it nice and round and say we added 5 fWAR with the 25M salary, which brings us to 10 fWAR.

So now you are tasked with adding 10 fWAR through trading Henderson Alvarez, Travis d'Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, Jake Marisnick, Adeiny Hechavarria, Yunel Escobar, Anthony DeSclafani, Justin Nicolino, Jeff Mathis, and Wuilmer Beccera for 10 fWAR.

I bet we could easily add 10 fWAR with those guys. Maybe more.

It's also worth noting we added closer to 40M/year in salary, just due to back loaded contracts.
UssjTrunks wrote:AA's entire tenure has been near perfect. There hasn't been much to complain about for a while. Rogers' unwillingness to spend was really everyone's only complaint.


AA did a lot, but this offseason is maybe the least impressive part of his tenure. Give any man what we gave him and you'll end up adding quite a bit of fWAR. Rogers only spent because they had to, in order to save money.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#12 » by Schad » Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:39 pm

flatjacket1 wrote:
Let's dumb it down again. 1 fWAR is worth around 4.8/4.9M so let's make it nice and round and say we added 5 fWAR with the 25M salary, which brings us to 10 fWAR.

So now you are tasked with adding 10 fWAR through trading Henderson Alvarez, Travis d'Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, Jake Marisnick, Adeiny Hechavarria, Yunel Escobar, Anthony DeSclafani, Justin Nicolino, Jeff Mathis, and Wuilmer Beccera for 10 fWAR.

I bet we could easily add 10 fWAR with those guys. Maybe more.


There's some truly unusual math involved here, because you're suggesting that the money itself equates to 10 WAR, which fails to take into consideration that virtually any player added is going to bring salary with them, not to mention the fact that it's not solely finding those wins above replacement, but finding them in the necessary spots. We could perhaps have acquired ten players, each worth 2 WAR, but that ain't the game.

That's no small consideration. Last season, fewer than thirty starting pitchers posted more than 3.5 WAR; we acquired two such pitchers, plus another guy who -- prior to last year -- had posted five consecutive years above that mark. We topped it off with someone who has been top three at his position rather consistently.

We needed three starters, an outfielder, and a shortstop, and lo, that's what we got. Having the money and the prospects made that possible, but the acquisitions themselves are a little more complicated than waving the money-and-kiddies wand and having the necessary pieces appear.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#13 » by flatjacket1 » Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:10 am

Schadenfreude wrote:There's some truly unusual math involved here, because you're suggesting that the money itself equates to 10 WAR, which fails to take into consideration that virtually any player added is going to bring salary with them, not to mention the fact that it's not solely finding those wins above replacement, but finding them in the necessary spots. We could perhaps have acquired ten players, each worth 2 WAR, but that ain't the game.

That's no small consideration. Last season, fewer than thirty starting pitchers posted more than 3.5 WAR; we acquired two such pitchers, plus another guy who -- prior to last year -- had posted five consecutive years above that mark. We topped it off with someone who has been top three at his position rather consistently.

We needed three starters, an outfielder, and a shortstop, and lo, that's what we got. Having the money and the prospects made that possible, but the acquisitions themselves are a little more complicated than waving the money-and-kiddies wand and having the necessary pieces appear.


You have to get young upside guys, like Gio who doubled his fWAR 1 year after being traded. Guys who are making the minimum.

We gave up like what? 50 years of control for market price 10 years worth?

SS a position of need? I beg to differ.

All I'm saying is that I bet there are GM's out there that could of had a better last few months. You seem to be dodging that.
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Post#14 » by Ado05 » Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:29 am

UssjTrunks wrote:AA's entire tenure has been near perfect. There hasn't been much to complain about for a while. Rogers' unwillingness to spend was really everyone's only complaint.

Pretty much this.

AA did a great job building up the farm and we were definitely happy about the future of the team.

Now Rogers steps and AA makes some bold moves that change everything about this team and franchise, and were now entering one of the most hyped seasons in Blue Jays history.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#15 » by flatjacket1 » Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:11 am

Adrian_05 wrote:Now Rogers steps

Worst misconception ever. They actually saved money by finishing in the top 15, because of the new revenue sharing.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#16 » by Ado05 » Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:22 am

flatjacket1 wrote:
Adrian_05 wrote:Now Rogers steps

Worst misconception ever. They actually saved money by finishing in the top 15, because of the new revenue sharing.

Im not saying Rogers is actually spendingé=/losing money, im saying that Rogers is finally letting the payroll up.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#17 » by Schad » Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:38 am

flatjacket1 wrote:You have to get young upside guys, like Gio who doubled his fWAR 1 year after being traded. Guys who are making the minimum.


They weren't going to jack up the payroll and farm system on guys who hadn't been there before, rightly or wrongly. And there aren't many pre-arb or first-year arb guys posting 4-5 WAR who are on the market.

We gave up like what? 50 years of control for market price 10 years worth?

SS a position of need? I beg to differ.


It was once the team decided that they didn't want Escobar around, and it seems fairly clear that they soured on him.

All I'm saying is that I bet there are GM's out there that could of had a better last few months. You seem to be dodging that.


Your initial statement was:

I'm the #1 Rogers, AA fan here on the forum, and I'm not ready to really credit either with that much. (One could argue AA did very well, but give anybody 30M+ to spend as well as giving up 5 top 100 prospects and you will end up with a roster similarly capable)


I'm pointing out that the notion that any GM could pull together 20 WAR in players over the course of a off-season even with the payroll bump and bounty of prospects is asinine; getting elite-level players is tricky, full-stop, which is why it's not uncommon to see teams panic and end up well below that threshold while still committing considerable resources, as the Royals did.

I think that Anthopolous overpaid. However, the possible opportunity cost of not overpaying is that we'd have had to go a different route than immediate contention. I was okay with that. But as far as attaining immediate contention on a greatly-expanded-but-still-finite budget, he did a pretty bang-up job.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#18 » by TwistedLogic » Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:22 am

If a single Jays fan is able to complain at this point, it goes to show how much the Jays have spoiled their fanbase over the past few months. There are a lot of people that, in every point of their lives, will sit there and complain about what they lost rather than be happy with what they received. They'll be focused on the cost rather than the reward. This is why taking the entire offseason as a whole, you might look at all the prospects we gave up and think that we paid too much. Looking at it through a different lens though, you can start to get some clarity on the value that we truly gained. Instead of looking at it like "to get these players we had to give up ALL of this", here's another way to look at it.

People complain about the cost of what we gave up because they see it all as a whole. Let's break it down into smaller hypothetical trades and see if you get a different view of the past offseason. What if, instead of making the two big trades (one seven player trade and another twelve player trade), what if Anthopoulos made these six smaller trades?

Trade 1
Sent: Jeff Mathis
Received: Josh Thole, Mike Nickeas


Do you have anything to complain about in this trade? Three scrub catchers, nobody cares.

Trade 2
Sent: Anthony DeSclafani, Wuilmer Becerra
Received: Emilio Bonifacio


Emilio Bonifacio stole 30 bases in 64 games last year. That is a pace of 79 steals over 162 games. He has a career OBP of .329 and is one season removed from posting 3.3 fWAR. You give up two low-A prospects that most people probably never heard of, two prospects who have an incredibly unlikely chance of even making it to the majors based on how far away they are, I can't think of why anyone would have a problem with this trade.

Trade 3
Sent: Justin Nicolino, Henderson Alvarez
Received: Mark Buehrle


The lowest of the lansing-3 and a pitcher who can't figure it out for arguably the most consistent starter in the majors for more than a decade. Over the past twelve seasons, Buehrle has averaged 219 innings per year, and for every 219 innings he has pitched, he has accumulated an average of 3.94 fWAR. If either of these pitchers end up putting half the numbers that Buehrle has over either of their careers, it'll be considered a success. People don't realize this, and to be honest, I didn't either, but if Buehrle can actually continue being Buehrle for just a few more seasons, he will have a pretty strong hall of fame case for himself.

Trade 4
Sent: Noah Syndergaard
Received: Josh Johnson


You're giving up one unproven prospect, one that, though he has a big ceiling, has many question marks and has been said to have a possible end as a reliever. You're trading him for a guy who has posted an All-Star caliber season in three of the past four years, one of those seasons being Cy Young-level and the only exception being the year he was injured. The Royals traded the #1 prospect in the game, Wil Myers along with Jake Odorizzi for James Shields. Even without an extension this trade is easy. If they can work out an extension, it's a highway robbery.

Trade 5
Sent: Yunel Escobar, Jake Marisnick
Received: RA Dickey


If anyone argues against this trade, it'll be on the basis that "Dickey is a 38 year old knuckleballer pitching in the AL East", which will only go to show that they know nothing of what they're talking about. Even if any of those concerns were enough to be wary of Dickey, the price of Yunel Escobar and Jake Marisnick is ridiculously hard to pass up, especially given that Marisnick showed signs of struggles throughout the season, while Escobar was on his way out anyway.

Trade 6
Sent: Adeiny Hechavarria, Travis d'Arnaud
Received: Jose Reyes


You turn Adeiny Hechavarria into Jose Reyes and the cost of that monumental upgrade is the best catching prospect in the game. If someone were to try and make a case against this trade, their points would likely be based on Reyes' injury history. The fact that he has had hamstring trouble and is moving to play on turf. Even if you step over the fact that playing on turf has nothing to do with taking a toll on your hamstrings and the fact that playing on turf is actually a huge benefit for a slap-hitting speedster like Reyes, this argument, in its most bare and futile form, is still further broken. This is true because now that same injury concern can be pinned to d'Arnaud. While he hasn't had as many DL days as Reyes, he also has 0 major league experience, and his one major injury was a leg injury at the catcher position.

All six of those individual trades look like big wins, all trades that, based on what we know now, look heavily in favor of Anthopoulos and the Jays. Yes one of these prospects could end up an MVP and one of these All-Stars we acquired could end up with a career-ending injury, but those are not things you can account for when making a trade. When it comes to the criteria in making a great trade, when it comes to judging a trade's winner and loser, Anthopoulos is a clear winner in each of these trades. So whether you look at them individually or all together, the result is the same. A very successful offseason for the Blue Jays, one that no, not many others could achieve, even if given the same resources. That itself is a disastrous fallacy because Anthopoulos was not given those resources, he acquired them himself. He created that payroll space through shrewd decision-making like dropping Rios on waivers and trading away Wells. He added those prospects. You can't say "give those resources to another GM and they'll have just as successful an offseason". How about give the 2008 Blue Jays to another GM and see if they even get to the point of accumulating those resources and that level of trust with the owners in the first place. You can't say you're a fan of AA and then take away the credit for everything he has done and say anybody could do the same. That is not true in the least bit.
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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#19 » by MikeM » Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:38 am

flatjacket1 wrote:
I agree, AA put himself in a good position to add salary, but once the okay was given, it's not really all that impressive what he put together. I'm sure we could give you 30M and the right to trade away what he did and we'd end up with something similar. I also believe in his long term plan, meaning that if this offseason didn't happen I still think we are on pace for success.

I think it's pretty much common knowledge that after the next 3-5 years we will be chained down by big contracts, or just flat out without enough talent to compete. The sustainability model of this franchise is totally out the window. This is why I was so against the RA Dickey trade at the time, we risk losing a cornerstone and 6 years of a good reliever (floor). Sure it's not for sure, but neither is RA coming over and pitching 200+ innings of baseball the way he did last year. He started off slow last year, he had an ERA of around 4.5 after his first 5 starts, and sure it's more promising that he finished so strong but people need to realize there is a decent amount of risk in both. I accept the Dickey trade for what it is, I would of never had the balls to pull off something like that myself, and I'm sure there are GM's that would have never done it either.

Overall I'm happy with the offseason, but if you allow a GM to trade away what he did and pay what he did, and we aren't talk about putting together a masterpiece. I liked the Marlins deal although a lot of sabers argue with me that we could of traded the prospects for a Moore type pitcher, and signed EJax with a much lesser hit on prospects and salary cap, but I still would of done it even though really they are right. The Dickey trade is really freaking ballsy, and I would have never done it, but I've accepted it and hope for the best. I hope we get a WS within the next few years, because if we don't, it will be quite a while before there is good baseball in Toronto again.


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Re: Jays fans running out of things to complain about (Blog) 

Post#20 » by Randle McMurphy » Sun Feb 17, 2013 2:49 pm

flatjacket1 wrote:I hope we get a WS within the next few years, because if we don't, it will be quite a while before there is good baseball in Toronto again.

Even if this was true (it isn't, AA could very easily strengthen the farm system over the next few years and any positive success at all will lead Rogers to continue spending additional amounts on the big league payroll), what was the better option? Trading away all the current stars for prospects and waiting even longer for a contending team just as good as the one we have now? A team that may never have come?

We've already been through 20 years of bad/mediocre baseball and going that route would have only ensured a few more of them with no guarantee of anything beyond that. I'll take a few years of actually trying to win with a high-ceiling team. Heck, I'll take a few years of actually trying to win at all. And if the Jays' ticket sales this year are any indication, most others would too.
One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

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