Stew rips J.P.

Dave Stewart, the man who combined his menacing mound presence with a Betty Boop squeak of a voice, has sounded off on J.P. Ricciardi on his cranky-old-man blog.

Stewart praises the resourcefulness of the usual suspects (the A’s Billy Beane, the Twins Terry Ryan and San Diego’s Kevin Towers), then heaps scorn on the Jays’ J.P. and the Pirates Dave Littlefield.

Of Ricciardi, Stew notes:

"J.P. Ricciardi inherited a pretty good ball club when he was hired by the Blue Jays in 2001. When he took over, he cut back in the scouting department and got rid of good players in order to save money. J.P. drafted a couple of college kids and put them in the majors shortly after they were drafted, but he hasn't had nearly enough good draft prospects to make the Blue Jays a better club…Toronto has been breaking even or making money since hiring Ricciardi, but it's definitely been at the expense of being a competitive team."

Of course, it goes without saying that Stewart felt that he deserved the Blue Jays’ GM position years ago, even though his primary contribution as the Assistant GM was to sign Joey Hamilton (yeesh), and his primary contribution in his begrudging stint as pitching coach was to lay the smack down on John Frascatore (pictured above).