I think the Twins held out too long. To think they could have had a package built around Hughes, and they settle for this?

I echo previous comments - I'm glad he's not in the AL East!!

Any possibility that Johan's health came into question and the Mets still went with the risk at a reduced package.  I'm just throwing this out there because there were reports from Olney that some people suspected Santana's health had deterioated at the end of last season.

From Olney posted on MLB trade rumors:

Olney talked to a talent evaluator who wondered whether the Twins might be concerned about Johan Santana's health. Reduced late-season velocity and less use of his slider could be signs.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/01/olneys-latest-b.html

I'm pretty much in agreement with the public opinion that the Twins didn't get close to enough for Santana. I would tried something like offering Santana to the Mariners and pay the salary difference between Bedard and Santana and accepted the package that they were willing to give up for Bedard. That package appears to be much stronger. And it's kind of funny that Santana is younger than Bedard by a few days, has consistently thrown 200+IP (which Bedard has yet to do once), and has a much better track record and somehow the Twins are going to receive considerably less. If this is the best they could have done, the Twins were better off trying to compete in 2008 and taking the draft picks when he leaves.

Then there's the matter about Santana's late-season velocity as mentioned earlier - could this be another version of the Mulder to the Cardinals trade, where the player is teetering near a catastrophic injury? Just speculation, but it will fun to watch.

By this, I meant fun to watch the outcome of the trade for both sides, not fun to watch a guy get a catastrophic injury.

The Twins let this drag out too long. They may have been able to get Hughes and Cabrera from the Yankees 2 months ago, but wanted to get more, and this was the end result.

With that said, the Twins are weaker and Santana is out of the AL, so that's the good for the Jays. Despite Santana's record against Toronto, he's still a Cy Young candidate every year, so not having him on Boston or the Yankees is great news.

"Even beyond the Boaston and New York offers (which, if rumours were accurate, were way better than this deal), how can Santana bring less talent back than Erik Bedard? That's just craziness."

In fantasy baseball maybe. In reality, Bedard has two full years left on his  reasonable contract while Santana required a massive contract extension to accept a trade.  The money difference is enormous.

A few things occur to me thinking about the package received:

1. We truly don't know what was being offered by the other teams in this deal.  There could be a lot of false information released by the Yankees and Sox to try to get the other to overspend.  Both of those teams might have realized that they were better off with Buchholz or Hughes and $140m over the next seven years than they were with Johan Santana.  They could have been trying to bid up each other, and as a result of a lack of real committment to obtaining the player, the price was actually driven down.
2. If the likes of Hughes, Ellsbury, Cabrera, Lester et al were being offered, it might have only been up until medical information got exchanged.  Perhaps then interest started to fade.
3. Finally, the market bore what Santana was worth.  Seattle is willing to give up more for Berard.  I'm sure the LA's would have stepped up if they felt the price was a steal.  It could be that teams were higher on their own youth than they were on paying Santana $140m.  It could be that the longer it dragged out, the more teams realized that it's fine to spend $140m on a top free agent, or a lot of prospects on a quality, controlled player, but to spend $140m and a pile of prospects on attaining a player is a bit foolhardy.

Well that's what it really comes down to, what do you have to give up in addition to signing the player to a ridiculously long and big and risky contract?  The Jays just signed Vernon Wells, a position player to a 7 year deal and he came down with a bum shoulder in the first year.  Time will tell if he ever completely recovers from it.

I think Santana has probably been the best pitcher in baseball for the last 4 or 5 years or so.  However he's turning 29 in a couple of months and already has over 1300 innings under his belt.  Which direction did Hudson, Mulder, and Zito move in after that particular point in their career?

It's not a certainty that Santana's best years are behind him, but it's a possibility.  Especially if there were health concerns at the end of another season where he approached 220 innings.  I'm not convinced that the Twins didn't do the best they could.  It wouldn't make sense to me that they wouldn't take the best package for themselves.  Hughes sounds like the best player offered in any package unless the Sox were willing to part with Bucholz.

Let's say the Jays reach the end of 2008 and it's another middling season.  You have two years left on the deal with Doc.  Do you try to maximize a return on him at that point?  Do you sign him to a 6+ year extension to try to keep him?  He'll be 31 after this season.  By Billy Bean logic, Doc should be traded at that point to get the best possible return and free up resources for younger players.

Here is what Gleeman says about the trade:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/baseball/fungoes_blog/2008/01/so-long-johan.html

What I don't understand is this:  If the Yankees and Bloodsocks made such good offers before, what has occured to make them downgrade their offers?  It is not like they have filled out their rotations with other superstars in the meantime.

It consistently has an attendance rank worse than its standings rank.

This just isn't correct.  I don't think this happened even once before 1998.  That's over 20 straight years of outperformance, and their attendance the last two years has bounced back impressively.

And you can't blame the fans -- not only have the Jays gone 14 years without reaching the postseason, they haven't played meaningful late-September ball once during that time frame.  I think 2000 was the last time the Jays even held a playoff position at the All-Star Break.  Because the Jays have seldom been truly awful, it's easy to lose sight that in the baseball world, it has been a really long time since they have contended.

This is a big market that loves sports.  Don't agree with you here, CJF.

This just isn't correct.  I don't think this happened even once before 1998.  That's over 20 straight years of outperformance, and their attendance the last two years has bounced back impressively.

This is a big market that loves sports.  Don't agree with you here, CJF.

It's a red herring to compare the popularity of football in the US to hockey in Canada. Is New York associated with the Yankees or the Giants? Is St. Louis associated with the Rams or the Cardinals? Is Houston a home of the Texans or the Astros? You can argue I'm being selective with my examples, but the point remains that baseball is #1A/#1B with football in the United States. Those two sports stay in the public consciousness far more prominently than other sports. To compare the status of football vs. baseball in the United States against hockey vs. baseball in Canada misses the point. Baseball is a distant third to hockey in Canada, as opposed to the #1B sport. (Although the trends may show basketball rising and baseball falling in measures like youth participation, basketball doesn't approach the status of baseball yet and baseball's participation levels in America still are significantly higher than those in Canada.)

The Blue Jays are Toronto's 3rd team right now behind the Raptors, and that's not accounting for TFC, which is still establishing itself on the sports scene but had a very successful first season in terms of attendance and viewership.

John Northey is right. There's no way to prove or disprove the theory until the Jays contend and then take the following offseason to sell based on success.

Doesn't it seem more likely that the attendance decline was caused by the sudden drop from champion to irrelevant non-contender, a status that the Jays have retained for 14 seasons? I don't see a reason to believe that the ACC or TFC had anything to do with it, and as for the Raptors, I think it's just a coincidence that the Jays' plummet to last place immediately preceded their first game.

Doesn't it seem more likely that the attendance decline was caused by the sudden drop from champion to irrelevant non-contender, a status that the Jays have retained for 14 seasons? I don't see a reason to believe that the ACC or TFC had anything to do with it, and as for the Raptors, I think it's just a coincidence that the Jays' plummet to last place immediately preceded their first game.

Ah, the market argument again.

Just two points. One, based on BBM stats from 2005 verses the relevent equivilant US marketing stats, Canadians are statistically between a half to a third as large a percentage identifying themselves as 'Baseball fan - somewhat true' or higher. Of those who do identify at that level (which is what probable market projections are based on), the highest percentages are based in Ontario. Ontario is considered a mixed market, because Detroit, Minnisota, Cleveland and New York all have a demostratable fanbases in the province. In the Canadian market as a whole, Boston and New York possess strong bases in the Maritimes,  and Seattle does in Vancouver. Of all of them, the Vancouver market for the Mariners and the Maritimes for the Red Sox are the strongest. So the 30 million household market is based on the assumption that each is a potential baseball (or sports at all) fan, and that they will naturally gravitate to Toronto based on a nationalistic sense of due, or because of the ease of access that Rogers cable market gives to the team they own. 

Second, Toronto has proven itself to be an extremely fickle market. Gate attendence has not been stable, especially considering that attendence for the Leafs and the Raptors over the same period has been. Big market names haven't shown significant upswings, even during winning sessions. Attendance has been slowly rising, which is a very good thing, but going from 'absolutely terrible' to 'sucks, but not as bad as a couple of years ago' doesn't have me breaking out the confetti yet. There isn't really a finite 'Sports Revenue' number that all teams are competing for, so being the 3rd most popular sport in a city doesn't necessarily say anything negative about your market.

There certainly is a strong market for baseball in Toronto and Canada. I would not consider it to be a top five market because I feel that argument is based on a flawed set of assumptions. However, one thing that Rogers does very well is understanding the Canadian market as a whole. There have been very encouraging moves to grow the brand, open up new viewers and increase the 'current' market, which is very possible. With the right approach, Toronto can certainly be one of the top ten markets in the MLB, even if it isn't right now.

Can I throw something in? I'm not nearly as invested in this debate as some but this is really bugging me.

Yes, Canada is a hockey nation. But how come nobody has pointed out that well, hockey is played in the winter and baseball the summer. I can be a hockey fan and go to hockey games AND a baseball fan and go to baseball games.

Following that train of thought, basketball and hockey are in much more direct competition as their seasons run almost exactly parallel to one another. Baseball has to compete more so against football. Which it always has had to do.

I know this is obvious but.. it just felt like someone needed to say it.

OK, lets dig into a few of these factors...

Big market 'undisputed factors'

• big population - how big?  checking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_metropolitan_areas_in_the_Americas we can see it is ranked #7 between Canadian & US cities.  Factor in that NY/LA/Chicago/Washington-Baltimore/San Francisco-Oakland are split markets and Toronto moves up to #6 for market size per team - over 20% bigger than Atlanta and 50% bigger than Seattle or Phoenix.  72% bigger than Montreal for the doomsayers who feel Toronto is just waiting to be another Montreal situation.
• 15 years ago attendance was great - well, duh.  In each of 1990/1991/1992 the Jays set a new MLB record for attendance.  Not just the dome or winning explain it as other teams also did combos like that without breaking the record 3 years in a row (a 4th would've happened if not for the Rockies and their super-cheap seats in 1993 - they sold thousands of seats each game for $1-2 each).  That is an attendance level the Yankees didn't reach until 2005 after nearly a decade of dominance.

I go over these points to make it very, very clear that the Jays have a market that can and will support baseball to a level that is at least as high as any US city.

Undisputed factors against big market:

• Post 1995 attendance is below average - check the numbers below...
  Checking Baseball-Reference.com (which has league attendance records for each season)
  2007-the Jays were #7 out of 14 in the AL (just above average)
  #8 in 2006 (just below average)
  #11 in '05 (after the disaster of '04)
  #11 in '04 (just behind central division winner Minnesota)
  #11 in '03 (just one team between them and #1/2 in the Central, Chicago & Minnesota)
  #11 in '02 (team announces no hope, rebuilding in progress)
  #10 in '01 (Sirotka/Wells mess solidifies view team is a joke)
  #10 in '00
  #8 in '99 (Johnson mess, Clemens mess)
  #8 in '98 (hope of year before gone by mid-season, Johnson stories emerge)
  #6 in '97 (Clemens arrives)
  #5 in '96 (post-strike, post-horrid '95, etc.)
  Pretty clear trend, solid crowds when doing well or hope exists.  Once the team appears to be run like the Leafs (see '98/'99) fans leave in droves.  Team shows hope of being run well (06/07) fans start coming back.  This isn't a Minnesota/Oakland/White Sox situation (barely getting more than Toronto despite winning year in year out).  Crowds have come before and will again if this team makes or at least comes close to making the playoffs.
• Forbes recognized revenues are low
  Most of Forbes figures are with a Canadian dollar valued at 80 cents or less.  Their last valuation was in April last year when our dollar was over a dime lower than today.  Based on figures the Jays publicly mention 10 cents is worth about $7 million in revenue which pushes the Jays projected revenue from 157 million to 164 million  which moves them up 5 notches to #15, solidly in the middle of MLB pre-2007 when adjusting the figures for a 98 cent dollar which makes sense for a 500 team.
• Team, reporters, and most involved in baseball view current Jays as small market.
  Heh.  The reporters do because it works for a story and after the death of the Expos (a much smaller market and during a time when the Canadian dollar was crap) it really works well for stories.  The team will play on it as it works for them to keep the pressure off, although given their free agent chases the past few years (Ryan/AJ, then Thomas while chasing Meche/Lilly) sure don't speak to a team that thinks they are in the bottom third of baseball for revenue.  As to those who work in baseball, they would probably go on the same thing as the reporters - namely that the Expos fell so the Jays should too, which is about as dumb as saying the White Sox won a WS so the Cubs should too

Hmm.  I seem to dispute all of what you say are undisputable 'facts'.  Sure you aren't Richard Griffen in disguise? :)

Factors supporting either that are in dispute:

• Impact of the Raptors, ACC, and TFC on market
  These impact sales to a degree, especially corporate booth sales.  However, TFC is a very minor factor (might as well mix in the Rock as well) as soccer has never held on here for long and needs to prove itself before anyone will strongly factor it in.  The biggest factor would be on Rogers Centre overall revenue due to the ACC being far more usable than MLG was but that doesn't directly impact the Jays.  The Raptors and TFC will draw some fan dollars but at this stage I don't see them being a bigger impact than NBA teams in other markets are to their teams, after all basketball is far bigger sport in those markets and unlike the Jays haven't had a major playoff run yet (one series won does not a playoff run make).
• temporariness of the impact of the last 15 years performance
  Win and they will come.  Everything in the Toronto market's history with the Jays, Raptors, Rock, and even the Leafs to some degree shows this.  I have yet to see anything that suggests fans won't come back if provided a winning product
• general baseball interest in Canada / Toronto
  See stats above.  When the team shows hope of winning the fans start to filter back in.  As to general interest across Canada note that the ratings for their games were in eyeshot of NHL games on the same network and in the past (when the team was a winner) those ratings were NHL playoff level, or if you prefer far higher on a per-capita basis than in the USA
• ability to hide revenue from baseball via cable company
  Hiding is fairly easy, just compare to teams with a similar metro area and de-emphasis the non-Toronto area market.  Still, MLB is run by fairly smart people so I doubt it will last forever.  Still, the biggest advantage is the fact they immediately get revenue from improved performance, and immediately lose revenue when they suck.  No 5 year deal where the team can rest and take in the cash for 4 years, do well in year 5 and hope for another big contract.  This is a very good thing for fans imo.

Well, long piece but shows where I am coming from with a few figures to help show stuff.  As to the 'conventional wisdom' of middle-10 payroll - wasn't that bottom-10 just a couple years ago and top-5 a few years before that? :)  Also, who do you feel is a higher revenue team, if all else was equal (namely if that other team was in the AL East and stuck in 3rd place for a decade)?  The NY's and LA's I'll give you.  Philadelphia should be despite how they act most of the time.  Who else?  Boston has a lot of revenue limits the Jays don't (smaller tv market, but far more loyal) but could be higher revenue if all else is equal.  Cubs are similar to Boston (small park, shared market costs them lots but very loyal fans).  Then I get stuck.

I am finding this discussion fascinating.  Let me toss out a couple of other factors to consider, on both sides of the argument:

• Despite the ACC often being sold out for Raptors games, NBA basketball is not terribly popular in Toronto.  Many of the corporate boxes and higher-priced season's tickets for the Raps are sold because MLSE requires customers to buy them if they want Leafs boxes/season's tickets.  I know that prior to the hiring of Brian Colangelo, when the team was performing terribly, there was major concern about dropping attendance.  Certainly Raptor television numbers are comparatively poor as well.
• Although the Greater Toronto Area has a very large population, much of it is culturally disparate, from cultures with no background or tradition of playing or following baseball.  I am 54 and grew up in Toronto playing baseball and following MLB- we used to sneak radios into school to listen to World Series games, back when they had those in the daytime.  That tradition is not part of the background of many, perhaps most, of the people living in the GTA.
• I don't view the TFC as a serious challenge to sport/entertainment dollars being spent on the Jays.  TFC's attendance was excellent in their first season, much of which may have been because of the novelty of a new team and a new stadium.  It will be interesting to see if the attendance figures remain strong if the team continues to have a poor W/L record.  In addition, TFC is not viewed by most Torontonians as a "major league" team - many diehard soccer fans see the MLS League as a joke or poor imitation.  Torontonians tend to look down on lesser leagues and just not attend - witness the Argos until recently and the Toronto Marlies.
• Apart from the Leafs, Toronto sports fans will support winners.  Jays attendance was not very good until they became contenders.  While the Dome may never be full most nights again, fans will come if the Jays contend.

Can I throw something in? I'm not nearly as invested in this debate as some but this is really bugging me.

Yes, Canada is a hockey nation. But how come nobody has pointed out that well, hockey is played in the winter and baseball the summer. I can be a hockey fan and go to hockey games AND a baseball fan and go to baseball games.

Following that train of thought, basketball and hockey are in much more direct competition as their seasons run almost exactly parallel to one another. Baseball has to compete more so against football. Which it always has had to do.

What's the FIRST WEEK of the NFL season? I don't think many care about preseason football. In 2007: Week 1 was September 10. How many sports fans, even if they prefer baseball by a huge amount, already knew their team wasn't doing anything by Sep 10? I would argue that by Sep 10, or, at worst, by Sep 24, week 3 of NFL, 95% of sports fans who follow baseball knew what their baseball team was going to do in 2007. Outside of insane hope, I knew the Jays were toast. Many fans of other teams knew long before then. So, sure, baseball may compete with NFL for maybe 5% of the fans (continually shrinking as teams keep getting eliminated), for 1-4 weeks, until it all wraps up in early October.

1. The South Side of Chicago is not a nice place to go.  I grew up in Toronto, have lived in a variety of North American cities and have visited many of the major cities in the world.  47th Street to say 25th street in Chicago is one of the most unwelcoming regions in the world.  This is not a new phenomenon either.  As long as baseball makes its living off of corporate money and the upper ends of income earners, the ChiSox are not that attractive of a market.  I've been to about a half dozen games at US Cellular / New Comiskey in my lifetime.  I refuse to drive there because it's not safe to leave my car.
2. The Cubs brand is much stronger than the ChiSox.  Comparing the Cubs and Sox is almost like comparing RC and Coke.  I can't explain the history behind it and how the Cubs came to be loved and the Sox didn't (maybe the Black Sox have something to do with it), but this should be something that goes without saying.
   

It's competition for dollar.  While I agree with most of what branttelfer said above, this is one area that I disagree with him, so I'll respond to him here as well as you - while there isn't a "finite 'Sports Revenue'" market, there is definitely competition for the dollars in that market.  Adding the Raptors may have raised the overall size of the sports market in Toronto, but not in a 1+1 = 2 sense.  In other words, the revenue that the Raptors make is not completely new revenue to the sports market in Toronto.  Some may be (as people chose to attend Raps games versus Phantom of the Opera), but a lot of it likely came from the Jays. 

Yes and no. While it is a compatition for the dollars, the market isn't a fixed pool until you're bringing in the entire Toronto market as a whole. There are many people who attend Raptors games that would never attend a Jays game, and vice versa. Or people who are happy to be fans of hockey, but won't shell out $80 for a crappy seat, but will drop a twenty to go to a Jays game. Same as people who won't pay for Phantom tickets, but will go and see the new Harry Potter film. Same general area (entertainment) but very different markets. The market is extremely protean and subdivided, so that the number of sports entertainment interests that overlap is smaller than you might think.

Interesting little aside: did you know Toronto supports 42 different full time non-English language radio stations? It's one of the most ethnically diverse and engaged markets in North America. The growth curve on Toronto FC is going to be huge in a couple of years. 

Now, granted, you've got a family not making great money, one big blowout a year to go to an event will be a competition, but those types of attendees are actually not considered a major portion of revenue in your financial considerations in these kinds of industry. It's like in the restaurant industry; the family that comes out once a year for the expensive dinner is considered a nice bonus, but the financial stability of your business relies on the repeat business of regular diners.

Now, it's been a little over two years since I last worked with the Jays marketing organization, so this might be a little dated, but at that point, one of their big reasons for buying the SkyDome was that season ticket sales didn't diminish all that badly between 1996-2003. Based on those, and the box revenue, they decided the investment was safe. All they needed to avoid a major loss was to keep the brand strong enough to maintain that level of regular business.

So, yes, the revenue the Raptors bring isn't completely new revenue, but it also isn't particularly overlapped with the Jays either.

Now, John Northly normally brings excellent information to his posts, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's got. But if anyone else is looking for proper rankings and such, the only unbiased Canadian source is the BBM for both radio, television, and market research. I think bbm.ca is the web address.