Continuing the first installment of the year in review, here's the next chapter in the Batter's Box Roster roundtable:
Jordan: Is the bloom off the Ricciardi rose altogether? Were players and coaches poorly selected, or was bad luck the predominant feature of the year? Or does the primary fault lie, as many are now saying, with a $50M payroll that is simply $15-20M short of what even a low-budget team can compete with? (cf. Oakland, $60M+ this year)
Mike D: I see two distinct failures on JP's part:
1) April's bullpen by committee. I didn't think it was a good idea to put every reliever's job on the line in meaningless spring training games, and I really didn't think it was a good idea at the end of spring training to decide...not to decide. From a management perspective, it might sound nice to play the hot hand and be liberated from "the book" in using one's relievers. But from the players' perspective, they read the situation differently: a bad outing, and they'd risk "demotion." The '05 Jays can tinker with the 'pen as the season goes on, but let's please give our relievers peace of mind coming out of training camp.
2) The steady June diet of Berg, Clark, Estalella et al., while Phelps sat. The plan, presumably, was to avoid starting the service clocks of the Jays' youth. With the benefit of hindsight, it didn't work, as the team eventually called up Rios and Gross anyway.
But even without the benefit of hindsight...major league playing time is a precious commodity that should not be doled out lightly. Every player needs to be spelled by backups from time to time. But with your day-in, day-out lineup, you need to play (a) a player that will help your team win ballgames, or (b) a player that will learn from struggling, because you're counting on him to eventually help your team win ballgames. If the plan was really not to start service clocks, then it was incumbent upon JP to look for immediate help -- credible, Menechino-type players who won't go out day after day and get overmatched by big-league pitching. (Especially at first base!) The Jays owed it to both their fans and to the competitive clubs in baseball to send out a respectable lineup.
In this business, you rely on your paying customers and must respect them. I don't think the Jays could have expected loyal and enthusiastic support for a team that appeared to be neither trying to win nor allowing their youth to get people excited.
Pistol: Well Lilly and Speier were the only players that JP brought in this past offseason that had success.
Batista regressed
Hentgen bombed
Ligtenberg bombed
Adams bombed
de los Santos pitched 12 innings
That's about $10 million this year that was poorly spent for one reason or another.
We can talk about how the Jays would be better with a larger budget but JP hasn't exactly shown much success signing free agents, particularly pitchers. So to suggest that the team isn't competing with the superpowers of the division solely because the budget is too low is too easy of an excuse for me. It's part of the problem, but other problems are there as well.
Having said that, there's not too many other people I'd rather have as GM of this team.
Coach: Management's failure was in not having a crystal ball. Ligtenberg's hip, Batista's back and Hentgen's dead arm were not foreseeable. No team can survive losing its 2-3-4-5 hitters and the best pitcher in the league for extended periods of time. Under those unfortunate circumstances, the front office and coaching staff did the best they could. The urge to blame someone by way of explaining the debacle is hard to resist, but nobody was at fault.
Mike Green: On to the draft. The 2002 draft (1st 4 picks- Adams, Bush, Maureau, Adam Peterson) was good, and is starting to bear fruit. The 2003 draft (1st 4 picks- Hill, Banks, Marcum and Isenberg) was fabulous and we'll be seeing the results in 2005-06. As for this year, David Purcey looks great, and others (Lind, Thigpen, Klosterman, Hall) might contribute, but I honestly don't feel that the organization had the best of any club as I felt in 2003. That is obviously an impossible standard to meet year after year, and the draft is obviously a strength of JP's.
Gerry: The 2004 Jays were mediocre all around, hitting was 12th in the league, pitching was 12th in the league. Injuries played a part; some acquisitions did not work out; and some players took a step back.
For a low payroll team to succeed you need to do a good job, or be lucky, with free agents and/or trades. I have not seen a comparison of the moves JP has made to those of other GM's, but I can say that his record has not been good enough to get the Jays into contention. In particular his pitching moves have a poor record. I don't know who is in the group that decides these things but they need to re-evaluate how they decide which moves to make.
Dave Till: Before I invest any more emotional energy in this team, I'd like to know whether the current payroll suffocation is just a temporary speed bump or whether this is the way things are going to be forever. I can see not spending a lot of money in this offseason; if the Jays are at least two years away, there's no point in signing a bunch of players to push a .400 team to .460 (as the Orioles did this year). By the time the kids are ready, any aged free agents would become a drain on the treasury. But perhaps Rogers just doesn't have the money available to fill the invariable holes that will remain when the current farm crop matures - or, perhaps they have the money, but are busy investing in their primary business, and don't really care about baseball.
The worst-case scenario - a very real possibility - is frightening to contemplate. Because farm system development is a crapshoot, the current kids might not work out. The team might have to start all over in 2007, and try again with a new batch of kids. By then, any remaining fan interest will have dissipated, and a Montreal Death Spiral will become a very real possibility - especially if Rogers decides to bail out. I don't think there is any guarantee that there will be baseball in Toronto ten years from now.
I wonder whether MLB will become annoyed with the Jays for not spending enough money. The Jays receive generous revenue-sharing payments, and at some point somebody might wonder why baseball is subsidizing such a large market (population-wise).
Mike D: I sure hope that JP's "maybe we can kinda, sorta contend, sometime in the future" interview with Allan Ryan was a message to the ownership that he wants more payroll. Otherwise, it's a completely unacceptable way to conceive of a franchise. The goal is to win with as realistic of a budget as possible. The goal is never to adhere to a budget, come what may on the field. JP reasonably believed he could win with $50 million this year. I think it's unreasonable to think that for 2005 or 2006. He needs more money.
Now, if either Rogers or Godfrey believe that there's a chance of the Montreal Death Spiral, or even if they believe that there's a chance of the Jays becoming a Farm Team To The Stars (tm), then they should sell the team immediately. We can understand and accept it when a team's payroll is low because of its particular station in the success cycle. But if there is a plan to be forever cheap...why exactly to fans owe that franchise any support? Deep down, I just don't think this is the case.
Dave Till: I don't think there's anybody else in Toronto who would buy the team. If Rogers sells, it would probably be to somebody who wants to move the club elsewhere. (And call me paranoid, but I suspect that there are some people in baseball who would be happy to see the Jays move to an American location.) Rogers may just be seeing the club as a cheap source of content for its sports network, but they're all we've got.
I fear that I would lose interest in a Farm Team To The Stars. How do you market that? "Come see the Yankees Of Tomorrow!"?
As for fan support: the fans will return when the team contends. The Jays' attendance is doing about as well as could be expected, given the club's lack of success over the last decade. While some critics bemoan that Toronto is merely a hockey town, the Jays' average attendance, 22,444, is greater than the seating capacity of the Air Canada Centre (and is better than that of the Cleveland Indians). There were more Jays tickets sold this year than Leafs and Raptors tickets put together.
Mike D: Also, I'm tired of this "small market" or "economic realities" stuff. The Jays have a 4 million-plus metro area and a nationwide TV audience. Fans will come out only when the club's winning -- not that they ought to behave that way, but that's the reality. They'll come, and pay good money to come, if the team's playing meaningful baseball. They'll still watch on TV if the team's out of it. Toronto, in short, is not apathetic about the Jays or baseball, even if empty seats or incessant hockey coverage makes it seem that way. (And if the NHL lockout lasts the entire season, then it's even more of an opportunity for the Jays).
Does this mean that we have to triple the payroll? Of course not. But a plan must be in place to invest in sustainable success, because Toronto fans won't be impressed by a club that finishes seventh in the AL with the twelfth-highest payroll, and pats itself on the back for doing so.
If the priority is to keep payroll down forever, pass the savings on to fans in the form of affordable ticket prices and a family-friendly environment, and hope to catch lightning in a bottle with a surprise contender every five years or so fueled by a good farm system, then the Jays should (a) say so publicly, and (b) get more people on the ground in Latin America and Asia.
But if the plan really is to invest in a winner when the time is right, then they can score PR points with wary fans and a more-than-cynical local media by announcing their commitment to do so right now.
By brushing aside charges of cheapness with references to a "five-year plan," Toronto brass isn't doing itself any favours. Let's articulate a philosophy, get the community's expectations on the same page and go forward from there. Because for heaven's sake, we've got to put an immediate stop to the "Jays Could Follow The Expos" stories, which pose a severe risk of appearing every time the Star sports section has a slow news day.
Like Red said in The Shawshank Redemption...they've gotta "get busy livin', or get busy dyin'."
Dave Till: I agree that if the team will bump up payroll when the time is right they should announce it now. I think the fans need to have some reason to believe in the mighty Plan, whatever it is. And Halladay, among others, needs to have his faith in the club rewarded by giving him a chance to pitch in games that matter.
Coach: Very little blame for this season should fall on Carlos Tosca. The ex-skip's biggest mistake may have been in spring training, when he didn't clearly define the bullpen roles. His in-season "audition" to find a closer was made more difficult by an epidemic of physical woes, as Ligtenberg was never right, and Speier was less than 100% long before either of them went to the DL.
It was clear that Tosca wasn't going to get another chance in 2005, so making the change early to see how John Gibbons would handle the team was a good idea. In addition to Bush, Frasor, Rios, and the cups of coffee that will help the development of Adams, Gross, Quiroz, Chacin and Crozier, Gibby has been one of the positives.
Pistol: Am I the only one bothered by the apparent lack of consideration of other candidates outside the organization?
Gibbons might have been the best choice, but at least look around. The Jays could have contacted former managers like Dierker, but they couldn't have talked with guys like Randolph, Breeden, Washington, etc. who are on other teams until their seasons were over. Why not wait? Gibbons wasn’t going anywhere.
To me a one year deal shows a lack of commitment and/or a lack of faith in Gibbons. Do you think a candidate from outside the organization would have agreed to be manager of the team if they were given a one year deal? Do you think JP would have agreed to be the GM of the team if he was offered a one year deal?
I suppose when want a job and you have little to no experience major league experience you'll agree to just about anything for 1 of 30 jobs. But by only offering Gibbons a one year deal JP is saying that he isn't the best candidate. If he was why would you risk letting him get away after one year?
It seems like everything that's being said about Gibbons now are the same things that people said about Tosca after he took over from Buck Martinez - the team plays hard, he knows how to work with young players, etc.
Jordan: Maybe so, though Gibbons at least has previous managing experience and has played in the majors, neatly combining the only qualifications of both Martinez and Tosca. I personally can't get too exercised about the choice of manager, since I don't think there's a huge variance among managers generally, from top to bottom; good teams seem to have good managers, by an amazing coincidence. The worst managers certainly can make a good situation mediocre and a mediocre one terrible, but I'm still not sure I could name three great managers over the last 20 years. If the Jays have money to spend this year, I'd rather they invest it in upgrading on the field. Gibbons is at the very least a replacement-level manager at league-minimum prices, and he could well be more.
Dave Till: I think Gibbons is as good a choice as any. I don't think the choice of manager makes much difference at this point unless the manager damages the young arms by overusing them, and I don't think Gibbons is going to do that.
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Part III tomorrow will head onto the field to examine some of the players.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20041108111648999