From Richard Griffin"

"Certainly Ricciardi's handling of a roster within the guidelines of a budget is more effective than the free-spending, injury cursed ways of his predecessor, Ash. But the fact is that in J.P.'s first two years (2002-03), the Jays won 164 games.

Surprisingly, in Ash's final two campaigns, forever ridiculed by the three-headed Rogers' media monster, the Jays won 163 games. That's an awful lot of fawning over one's self for one extra victory in 324 games"

He boils my blood!!!!!
Ash's team won games with aging over paid players, while JP is winning with younger developing players. The next 2 years will tell the tale.

Place it in, oh, the late 1980s, and he'd be one more piece of a grand plan inevitably leading toward a World Series championship, or something awfully darned close.

Is it just me, or does it seem as though Brunt lurked yesterday's Doc thread, particularly Jordan's post.

And because I didn't say it there: Jordan, your post yesterday was great.

Just had to read the Griffin article. Interesting how he starts by mentioning how Halladay was a Gord Ash draft pick (like any of JP's could've made the majors in his first two seasons). IIRC Halladay was Ash's first draft pick ever, which might explain the extra help Halladay got after his nightmare season, while no other player has ever been given the same.

Still, all-in-all, it was about as nice as Griffin gets with JP. Funny how he mentions the one more win the past 2 seasons than in the final 2 of Ash's time, but doesn't mention how it was done for about $50 million less. After this year, with any luck, the Jays should push JP's tenure well above Ash's for any 3 year stretch.

Oops, that post of Jordan's to which I was refering was in the Delgado 2007 thread.

I was very curious about this Griffin line:

Delgado will be gone next year. He's not now and never has been a J.P. guy.

Huh? Okay, Carlos makes more money than Ricciardi would like, but other than that, is there any reason to suggest that Ricciardi doesn't like him or want him around?

http://economics.about.com
Is it just me, or does it seem as though Brunt lurked yesterday's Doc thread, particularly Jordan's post.

The funny thing is, I thought Griffin was the one lurking through posts to write his article. Take some of the "Delgado isn't coming back" posts, turn the volume from 4 to 11, and there you have it.

And because I didn't say it there: Jordan, your post yesterday was great.

I couldn't agree with you more, Leigh. Yesterday I browsed the TSN.ca messages about the deal, and a few Primer threads. The difference in quality of the posts on this board relative to those two is immense. Primer has some great stuff, but the low signal-to-noise ratio makes it pretty much unreadable.

Cheers,

Mike

Ryan,

I didn't understand that comment either. To me, other than how much money Delgado makes, he is the quintessential JP kinda guy. High OBP and slugging numbers. JP always seems to be willing to give up a little defense for offense and that is exactly what Delgado brings to the team.

Griffin: the three-headed Rogers' media monster

Hmm ... Griffin rags on the Jays because they're owned by the competition. Is it really that simple-minded and childish? Or am I reading this wrong? I'm not from Toronto (or Canada) so I'm not up on who-owns-what.

http://me.woot.net
J.P. isn't giving up much defense by having Delgado out there at first; contrary to popular belief, he is at worst a slightly-below-average defender, and at best slightly above average.

Bottom line, which basically agrees with the point given, is that you're not too likely to find a statistically significantly better defender at 1B whose offense hasn't dropped off a cliff relative to Delgado's.

The continuing grudge against Griffin on this board cracks me up. It's like watching a television show that you hate every week and then complaining about it for more time than it takes to watch it. Just my two cents.

The Brunt article was very well done. The Jays continue to push hard for the expanded playoffs. It would certainly makes things better for us and in my opinion, for baseball in general, so long as the regular season is pared down a bit too.

While I really, really like this contract, and am happy to have Roy staying, I agree (*GULP!*) with Griffin's suggestion that this means that Delgado's likely gone.

But Griffin's belligerence is ridiculous, as is the comparison to Ash, and the insinuation that JP doesn't want to keep Delgado. Come on, Richard.

Griffin rags on the Jays because they're owned by the competition. Is it really that simple-minded and childish? Or am I reading this wrong? I'm not from Toronto (or Canada) so I'm not up on who-owns-what.

Yeah, it's that simple-minded and childish. Of course, it gets WAY more simple-minded and childish than just that (the sports guys are far less catty than other parts of the papers), but that's a good start.

Anyway, I agree with Smirnoff. Let's try a moratorium on all Griffin-related comments for 24 hours!

I think an expanded playoff format could be done. Just add one more wild card to each league and then have the 2 WC teams play each other in a 1 game series on the Monday after the season ends, with the rest of the playoff schedule remaining the same.

This way you get another team in the playoffs, but at the same time reward teams for winning their division, and penalizing teams for not winning the division. In addition to having to play a play-in game of sorts the WC won't get to set its' rotation like the division winner would.

Smirnoff- the problem with expanding the playoffs, is that it seems unlikely that baseball would also reduce it's regular season schedule. So then you devalue even more regular season games.
I'm intrigued by... i think it was Jayson Stark, who said that each league should have 2 wildcards, and the Wildcards play each other in a one game playoff. That gives more teams a chance later in the season, but is a pretty big penalty for those teams that don't win their divisions.

http://economics.about.com
I think an expanded playoff format could be done. Just add one more wild card to each league and then have the 2 WC teams play each other in a 1 game series on the Monday after the season ends, with the rest of the playoff schedule remaining the same.

I think it was Jayson Stark that came up with that idea, and I absolutely love it. It allows there to be more teams in the playoffs, while at the same time makes winning the division even more vital. If you gave the Wild Card team with the most wins home field advantage in the one-game series, then there's also a big incentive to finish 4th instead of 5th.

A one-game winner takes all match would also be hilighly entertaining.

Here's the matchups we would have had over the last 5 years if this system had been put into place:

2003 Florida-Houston, Boston-Seattle
2002 San Fran-LA, Anaheim-(Seattle or Boston)
2001 St. Louis-San Fran, Oakland-Minnesota
2000 Mets-Dodgers, Seattle-Cleveland
1999 Mets-Reds, Boston-Oakland

Imagine the TV ratings a 1-game Giants-Dodgers, or Mets-Dodgers series would get. It'd be unreal.

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Looks like Paul D beat me to it with the Jayson Stark reference.

Here's the article that Stark wrote a couple years ago. It looks like he wasn't the one who invented the idea, though he's probably the guy who popularized it:

---
So, here's an idea that several people have mentioned:

Add another wild-card team in each league -- but with this caveat: The two wild-card teams in each league would have to play a one-game playoff on the day after the season just to advance to the next round. Loser goes home. Winner goes on.

Here are the advantages that plan has over the current system:

• It makes finishing first much more important -- because the winner gets a bye and sets its rotation, while the wild card has to play a risky one-and-done game just to get to the Division Series.
  
  
• You reduce the impact of what Hirdt calls "The Pedro Factor" -- i.e., the chance of a wild-card team with one dominant starter stealing a first-round series because that Pedro-type guy starts and wins twice. The assumption is that the dominant pitcher would have to start the one-and-done game, so he could come back only once in the next round.
  
  
• And you get the postseason off to a wild and compelling start, with an NCAA basketball-tournament kind of drama hanging over that one-game playoff.

---
Cheers,

Mike

Here's the matchups we would have had over the last 5 years if this system had been put into place

Mike, let's take it back one year further:

1998: Toronto vs. Boston

I know we're supposed to have the Griffin moratorium going on, but this post is really about me and how smart I am, so I'll put it here anyway.

Yesterday, in reference to the Halladay signing, my wife said to me, "So what's what's-his-name in the Star going to write about this?"

"Who, Richard Griffin? I don't know - wait. I do know. He's going to say that this means Delgado's gone."

Chalk up another point for the kid. (The kid being me.)

http://economics.about.com
1998: Toronto vs. Boston

Yeah, that'd be a good one. :) Clemens pitching against Boston and Pedro Martinez in a playoff game. There'd probably be a lot more Jays fans around today if that game had been played. Particularly if Toronto would have won.

Cheers,

Mike

From what I've read lately, J.P. is now a huge fan of Delgado's. I believe that he will make an effort to try to keep the big guy here.

Though I also believe that Carlos will be able to command more from the free agent market than the Jays can pay (especially since somebody will be willing to overpay him just to land a name). It will basically be Delgado's choice: does he want to stay in a place in which he is familiar, or try to get as much money as he can? (Either of which is a perfectly defensible decision, from his perspective.)

Didn't get to comment on yesterday's developments. It was a great day to be a Jay fan.

Locking up,perhaps one of the top 10 most valuable commodities in baseball over the next 4 years, for a reasonable contract is superb news. I'd read rumblings that Halladay was thinking of switching agents this past fall. No doubt his agent thought going the arbitration route, then hitting the free agent market in Fall of 2005 for a huge jack pot was the way to go. Instead the conservative Halladay elected for the continuity and security offered by the Jays.In the Globe story the Jays are said to be pursuing insurance options for the contract,interesting.

It was also interesting to hear again some discussion about changes to the wild-card. The Jays have never been critical of MLB for being dumped with an un-balanced schedule,in a division with 3 of the highest spending teams in all of baseball. I believe their silence about this disparity is because the wild-card change has been offered to them.

Lastly,Pay Per View. Its the future. Both the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks PPV packages have exceeded all expectations this winter.I suppose the good thing is that now the dilligent fan will have access to all games.

Wildrose - but the casual fan loses access. That's not a good thing for those of us who want baseball to gain popularity in Toronto.

Wildrose - but the casual fan loses access. That's not a good thing for those of us who want baseball to gain popularity in Toronto.

It depends on how many games would be on PPV. Houston's column makes it sound like the Blue Jays would only be selling the games that wouldn't be broadcast in the local market otherwise. If that's the case, the casual fan really isn't losing anything.

I would hope that the PPV games would be the ones that otherwise would not be televised. There were a number of them last season, including away games.

I believe that untelevised games were what prompted the Oilers, Canucks and Flames to offer PPV in the first place.

By the way, I would subscribe to a Leafs TV-style Jays TV, if it were the same kind of price (a couple of dollars per month) and showed the games that weren't being shown on TSN or Sportsnet.

Add to that a mix of old games and news updates (especially an in-depth general baseball news/highlights show) and it would be a great channel. And how about showing the occassional game from the Jays' farm system, or at least news on how they're doing? And all those Spring Training games -- that would be a selling point.

That's what you call some of that "synergy" there, Rogers!

a recap of the days events by David Cook.

Give the man some credit, Moffatt! The piece was by Jon Cook, a good friend of mine and talented journalist. He edits for SLAM! and writes for the new sports/lifestyle magazine in the Sun. He also covers the Memorial Cup.

He's one of the nicest guys you'll meet. Coach, please say hello to him for me the next time you've got a press pass!

A Jays-TV channel would be a must buy for me. Provide minor league games (just steal the signal, or even use a one day tape delay if live is too expensive), old games, show the old manager shows or whatever they were that the Jays used to have every week about a decade ago (I recall it being called something like the 'Jimy Williams show' then having a special episode when he was fired and it was promptly replaced with the 'Cito Gaston show'). I also have tapes of their old season highlights that I'd love to get a good copy of via a Jays TV channel. They could also show other teams games from out of town now that the Score doesn't show those.

C'mon Rogers, lets see it!

http://economics.about.com
Give the man some credit, Moffatt! The piece was by Jon Cook, a good friend of mine and talented journalist.

Oops. I guess I should have had that second coffee this morning. I'll fix that ASAP.

Cheers,

Mike

That Jays TV thing is a great idea. Do you guys think it would be available for people like me who live outside of Ontario? (BC)

Probably not, eh? :(

http://www.newhampshirebaseball.com/fclogo.shtml
Hijack: Lost in the news yesterday was the unveiling of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats logo. COMN

he is the quintessential JP kinda guy
Is Delgado fundamentally wrong for *any* system?

Lastly,Pay Per View. Its the future
I'm rather sour on this idea. See my parents had this wonderful idea that getting cable would encourage my brother and I to watch significantly larger amounts of TV, meaning I've never had more than a handful of channels which are all received using the conventional Broadcast method (now, as a university student, I feel I've gone this many years without TV so a few cases of beer has more value). This also means my capacity to watch a Blue Jays game in my own home has gone from 20-25 games a year (back in the day when CBC and CTV did games) to 0.

Needless to say, I'm not exactly happy about this. It started with TSN buying up more and more games, then CTV introduced Sportsnet and now, because of cost, CBC is out as well. The moral of the story? This is a slippery slope and there are a hundred million examples like it out there to prove user-fees will be inserted incrementally as often as possible. Rogers is a media conglomerate whose interest is in selling subscriptions, which is the downside of hegemonic ownership over communication/technology/entertainment sectors.

http://economics.about.com
This also means my capacity to watch a Blue Jays game in my own home has gone from 20-25 games a year (back in the day when CBC and CTV did games) to 0.

I thought the CBC still did 1-2 games a week (weekend afternoon games). Are they not showing them anymore?

What I really miss is the CBC showing Expos games. I guess it was more important for our state-owned broadcaster to air more Canadian content, such as Simpsons reruns and Disney movies from the 1960's. :)

Cheers,

Mike

I don't believe CBC has any games this year and for the past few seasons they've done their coverage during the summer (end of June-August) on most Friday nights...I think it's safe to assume CBC got cable's leftovers since there probably isn't much of an audience for a game starting at 7:05 on a Friday evening.

http://economics.about.com
I don't believe CBC has any games this year and for the past few seasons they've done their coverage during the summer (end of June-August) on most Friday nights...I think it's safe to assume CBC got cable's leftovers since there probably isn't much of an audience for a game starting at 7:05 on a Friday evening.

I was sure they had some Sunday afternoon games last year, though that might have been 2 years ago.

I don't think CBC has been priced out of the marketplace at all. I'd be surprised if the TV rights for the Jays are higher now than they were 10 years ago. It's more likely that the CBC has noticed how the ratings for Jays telecasts have fallen off a cliff since 1994, and they know they make more money showing "Rick Mercer in Something Else" and "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: The Air Farce Approach to Comedy".

Cheers,

Mike

I don't know why more fans wouldn't abandon the Jays on TV in favour of the radio. Tom and Jerry are better than whoever Rogers is going to be using this year. I must have listened to more than twice as many games last year as I saw on TV.

CBC has a limited amount of funds so you may be correct in assuming they no longer see the value of putting on a Jays' game due to an inability to generate advertising dollars. But I would be surprised if over the past 10 seasons the price a network pays to broadcast a game hasn't increased 5-fold or more. To ask CBC to compete against the TSNs and Sportsnets of the market is totally unreasonable. It would be responsible corporate citizenship if Rogers were to allow CBC a reduced rate because of the role CBC plays in Canadian culture.

I have no opposition to scrapping a half-hour of Air Farce to give Mercer the full hour. The man is nothing short of brilliant, though he could use one competant supporting cast member in his new show -- maybe Mary Walsh? (though that might make poaching This Hour's concept a little too obvious ;-)

http://economics.about.com
But I would be surprised if over the past 10 seasons the price a network pays to broadcast a game hasn't increased 5-fold or more.

Prepare to be shocked.

In 1996, the value of the Jays broadcast rights didn't rise. They were slashed. In half. See:
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting

I believe they went from $50 million to $25 million a year. I recall there being a big stink about this, because the CRTC believed that CTV was taking unfair advantage of their market position, as they owned both CTV and Sportsnet at the time.

If anyone has more details about this, please chime in, because my memory is pretty lousy. :)

RE: Mercer. I like Mercer but he's overexposed enough as it is. Why can't they put a guy like Kenny Robinson on more? That guy is truly funny.

Cheers,

Mike

Greg Dunnett's article, heaping praise for JP, was posted at the top by Mike M. Now, it's Chris Black (McMaster Silhouette), who counters with Griffin-like zeal.