Quotable

Cito, courtesy of Bastian:

"My gut is that I think Doc wants to be on a winning team -- whether he comes back here next year or is going to be gone the next year. I'm pretty sure that's what he's probably going to do, because he's probably sitting there looking at A.J. out there pitching, knowing that that's where he'd like to be. It's not about money with Doc. It's about him being on a winning team. I can't speak for Doc, but my gut feeling is if he's here next year with us, then he'll probably leave after next year. Hopefully, if that's the case, then we can get something for him before he leaves."

Uh, Cito? I don't want to spend the weekend piling on here....but shut the fuck up already.

Honestly.

If I'm cringing when I read that you're already sending Doc out of town, how do you think your GM feels?

Playoffs!

Oh wait - you've just informed the fanbase that the Jays won't be a winning team in the forseeable future. Got it.

So much for turning the page

Cito Gaston, the manager who completely lost the clubhouse at the end of last season, will be returning to fulfill the final lame duck year of his contract.

Brad Arnsberg, in the biggest non-coincidence in the history of baseball, will not be.

And to think....I was set to post about "turning the page" this weekend and embracing the new Blue Jays front office regime.

Instead - unless I can bottle my rage - I think I'm taking the rest of the weekend off. It's better for all of us this way.

Fuck this.

Friday Rock Out - By popular demand

If there's one thing we've come to understand about this blog, it's that you give the people what they want.

Jet!

Speaking of giving the people what they want
We're of the opinion that the news this week that Paul Beeston will take on the President and CEO role for the next three years will actually result in the three things that would make us happiest: A larger budget, new uniforms and a new manager.

With the manager, we get that Beeston is a good pal of Cito's and defended him at the end of the year. But it seems that it is Beeston's nature to calm the waters in those instances. With Beeston working with the "newish" front office, we could see him casting his gaze towards the future, and asking his pal to work as a ceremonial advisor to Anthopoulos and Tony LaCava. Cito really doesn't seem to have any aspirations beyond next year, and he seemed to be getting much less enjoyment out of the position this year than he did in his triumphant return the previous year. (Which is probably a function of winning...but still.)

And by the way: How awesome is it that the Jays retained LaCava? It hasn't been mentioned that much since the reworking of the management team, but it was a pretty important move in our view. Frankly, we could have seen him take over the GM job, but to have him there as the Ant's right hand man let's us sleep a little bit easier at night.

Also, we couldn't imagine that the Beest is going to let the idiotic Godfrey black cap legacy live on beyond the coming season. Even if it means a nostalgic return to the 92-93 era unis, we'd be happy. Anything that helps us ditch the black is a good thing.

How can you not love Beeston?

No really, this is the question that we've been asking ourselves for two days now. We heard him on Monday's Prime Time Sports (just catching up on podcasts), and it just seemed like everything he said seemed reassuring to us. Even when we thought he was lying, we still found warmth in his pants-on-fire.

Then we checked our wallet, and somehow, we were missing a fiver. Beeston!

What was the point of this...we were trying to get to some sort of clarity here. But we've got no time these days to dedicate to elucidate our thoughts.

Ah, forget it. Just go read Will Hill's interview with the Beest on TSN.ca.

You couldn't get rid of Paul Beeston if you tried

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Globe says the Paul Beeston has decided to remain where he is and remove the "interim" tag from his title. Presumably, so that he can enjoy many years of Alex Anthopoulos' pastel dress shirts.

Not sure what to think of this. Sure, it is nice to know that there's some sense of stability at 1 Blue Jays Way, and that one aspect of the off season equation is taken care of. But on the other side, we've lost an awful lot of faith in Beeston over the past year. (To the point where we've echoed Ghostrunner Drew's assessment of him as a "bumblefuck".)

If the Beest wants to quickly regain the confidence of the fans (and maybe more importantly, the players), he should immediately look to find a harmless consultant position into which he can move his good pal Cito.

It's time to stop living off past glories, and to start creating some new ones.

Long Distance Dedication to Beeston
Because the lyrics seem so appropriate: "The search is over / You were with me all the while." (Also, because this song is now stuck in my head, and I want to share that misery with y'all.)

The Tao's AL MVP Ballot

Hey kids! It's the last in our series of ballots for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance posteason awards.

We've always had some trouble with the whole "valuable" aspect of MVP awards. Mostly because when people start talking about a player's relative value, they point to a whole host of things that are generally beyond the player's control.

Was the player on a winner? A playoff team? Was he on a team that was good enough to get into the playoffs, but not good enough to get there without him? How tangible were his intangibles? And how big of a towel does he need to cover his dong after getting out of the shower?

(Okay, that last one was proabably a step too far. But you get the idea.)

In some ways, this is why we'd prefer to think of these awards as "Player of the Year" awards, so that you can rid yourself of all the extraneous horsepoop. Alas, we'll just play along so as not to be any more difficult than we need to be.

So how do we determine value? Well, as we mentioned in this snazzy interview with the New York Daily News' Jesse Spector, we're more of an OPS dude. Because some of the advanced metrics make our pretty head hurt. So we took a look at the leaders in OPS, then figured it out based upon our particular likes and dislikes and prejudices. (And our apologies to Shin-Soo Choo, who we really tried hard to get into our top ten. Because we think he's awesome. Maybe next year.) Anyways, here's what we came up with.

1) Joe Mauer, Twins - 1.031 OPS, 28 HR,96 RBI, 8.2 WAR: There really shouldn't be any debate about this, because Mauer's year was so far ahead of anyone else's. And if you are so inclined, you can consider the fact that he is a catcher, and heap an extra scoop full of intangible goodness on top. Mauer's season was one for the ages.

2) Mark Teixeira, Yankees - .948 OPS, 39 HR, 122 RBI, 5.2 WAR: There are those who love Derek Jeter, and think the sun shines out his ass, and therefore any of the glow around the new first baseman must just be the refracted light from his glory. But we think that Teixeira's outstanding season stands on its own.

3) Ben Zobrist, Rays - .948 OPS, 27 HR, 91 RBI, 8.5 WAR: In addition to putting up numbers that were stunningly surprising in the heart of a strong lineup, Zobrist also provided unparalleled defensive flexibility. By season's end, Zobrist had played every position on the diamond, save for catcher and pitcher, and provided good defense wherever he played.

4) Miguel Cabrera. Tigers -.942 OPS, 34 HR, 103 RBI, 5.5 WAR: Cabrera is a scary good hitter who more than carried his weight in a Detroit lineup that scuffled for much of the year.

5) Evan Longoria, Rays - .889 OPS, 33 HR, 100 RBI, 7.3 WAR: Longoria's exceptional fielding (14.4 UZR/150) bumps him up on this list.

6) Derek Jeter, Yankees - .871 OPS, 18 HR, 107 RBI, 7.4 WAR: We might hate him and all he stands for, but he had his best season in years, and posted a sterling .406 OBP.

7) Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox -.961 OPS, 27 HR, 99 RBI, 5.5 WAR: Okay, we really hate Youk. And we could make an argument that he should be higher on this list, but we suspect that his OBP is aided by some Fenway calls and his SLG is aided by the the Fenway dimensions. And we hate him.

8) Kendry Morales, Angels -.924 OPS, 34 HR, 108 RBI, 4.3 WAR: One of our favorite breakout stories this season. He has stepped up to the next level, assuming the role of the impact bat in the middle of the Angels lineup.

9) Adam Lind, Blue Jays -.932 OPS, 35 HR, 114 RBI, 3.7 WAR: In the value metrics, he takes a step back because of his dubious fielding and his role as the DH for most of the season. But Lind was the most consistent in the Jays offense, which actually ranked in near the top of the AL.

10) Alex Rodriguez, Yankees -.933 OPS, 30 HR, 100 RBI, 4.6 WAR: Love him or hate him, A-Rod produced in his 124 games this season. In a full season, he would have been in the top three.

Aroldis Chapman, huh?

Let me start by making one thing perfectly clear:

AROLDIS CHAPMAN IS NOT WALKING THROUGH THAT DOOR!

Even still, it is - at the very least - interesting to hear that the Jays are kicking the tires on the live-armed defector. With the Red Sox and Yankees interested, and the unproven Cuban reportedly looking for a contract in the $40M-$60M range (what!?), it's a pipe dream for the Jays to actually be "in" on the player (see what I did there?).....but the fact the team is even being mentioned in rumours has to count for something, yes? Yes.

Is this a peek into AA's money-burning soul? Has Rogers actually opened the wallet? Did this offseason suddenly get a lot more interesting? Are you tired of me extending this post by asking questions we can't possibly know the answer to?

Yeah, I dunno. It's the rumour mill. Take it with a shaker of salt. The team hasn't even set the direction yet - or so we were sorta kinda maybe told by Mr. Tony Viner - so it's difficult to imagine this is anything more than due diligence on a free agent. If even that much is actually fact.

And hey, if nothing ever comes of this, I hear that Kenny Takahashi is available.

Mandatory JP Ricciardi update
So, the Red Sox have offered JP a spot in their front office. Makes sense, right? Of course it does. No, not because Ricciardi is a native Massholian who hated Toronto and secretly made moves with an eye on his hometown team.

It makes sense because the Red Sox are a smart, well run organization. Yeah, I said it.

(And yes, I just choked even typing words of praise to the Sox.)

Alex Anthopoulos is a keener

And trust us when we say that we think that's a good thing.

AA spoke to MLB.com's Jordan Bastian this week, and noted that he's made about 30 phone calls to players and staff since getting elevated to the GM post. You know, just a little chinwag...sussin' stuff out, seeing how people are doin'.

Call us crazy or naive or blindly hopeful, but the idea that Alex is talking one-on-one to everyone in the organization and quietly, privately addressing what was happening with the team and assessing where the players' heads are at makes us think that maybe this team might be taking some steps in the right direction.

We know that the details have been slow to come out, and after a full season of stasis in the front office, we're all a little stir crazy and anxious for the team to start making significant moves. But at the very least, it sounds like the groundwork is being laid for the long winter ahead.

And as much as people have us pegged as a J.P. apologist, we'd like nothing more than to see AA succeed wildly.

Viner speaks, says little
This is ground that was covered well by the Drunks yesterday, but suffice to say that Rogers Media CEO Tony Viner's interview with the Bobcat was something less than enlightening.

That shouldn't be a surprise. It's not like Viner could come out at this point and make any promises about the direction of the team, or promise vast amounts of cash for payroll.

(Although the longer that Rogers types obfuscate and throw out the notion that it could be $50 million, or $100 million or $150 million, the more that we start to think that it will be the middle number and not much more.)

Mostly, is scares us the Paul Beeston is still (allegedly begrudgingly) involved in the decision-making process. Because we've lost a lot of faith in his magical powers.

Pining for Manny Acta

The G&M's Jeff Blair dropped two shots of happy into our drink yesterday when he suggested that it was somewhere withing the realm of possibility that the Jays could make a run at former Nationals manager Manny Acta.

We should probably check ourselves here before we get into some irrational thoughts about what Manny Acta could actually do to make this team better. There is a bit of a Cult of the Manager amongst baseball types (mostly writers and broadcasters), who inherently pass along the credit for any team that appears to be outperforming expectations to the bench boss.

This is why we think that the Manager of the Year Award (or the "Wow, That Team Did Unexpectedly Well Award") is kind of a crock of poo.

At the same time, Manny Acta would bring some very tangible assets to the Blue Jays that we think can only help the club. For instance: He's not Cito Gaston. That's a good start.

Acta is also a young man (40), and while we don't want to be ageist, the MLB season is an eight month grind for which a younger man may have more stamina. Also, Acta can speak Spanish, which in this day and age is a huge asset. Can you imagine how he much more effective Acta could have been in yelling at Alex Rios: "Hola amigo. ¿Por qué es tu cabeza en el culo?"

Mostly though, we're focusing on the whole "Manny is not Cito" aspect of things. That gives us a little hope.

Our 2009 Roy Halladay Award ballot (Formerly the Cy Young Award)

If you ask us, they should just give Roy Halladay the Cy Young award every year, and then let him decide which pitcher in the league he deems most worthy of winning the award. Because you know he'd always pick exactly the right guy, with his trademark precision.

Alas, that's not the case, so indulge us as we go through our charade of a shadow ballot for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance:

1) Stupid Zack Greinke of the Stupid Kansas City Stupid Royals and his stupid excellent numbers (2.16 ERA, 242 Ks / 51 BBs, 1.07 WHIP, 9.4 WAR): There's no question that we want to give the top spot on our ballot to Roy Halladay, but Greinke's numbers across the board are just thatmuch too amazing to ignore. Those are Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez numbers, so it would be a touch hard to defend our homerism if we were to ignore his great season. (Although having said that, we would note that Greinke's numbers probably wouldn't look nearly as shiny if he toed the rubber ten times against the Yankees and Red Sox.)

2) His Roy-al Docness, Harry LeRoy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays (2.79 ERA, 208 Ks / 38 BBs, 1.13 WHIP, 7.3 WAR): Truth be told, there isn't a single pitcher in the Majors that we'd rather have than Doc. And if at some point in the next few years, if he should go to some other division where he's notfacing the Yanks and Sox and Rays all of the time, or if he should go to pitch in the Quadruple-A National League, he'll post numbers that will make people nauseous. We'll give the nod to Greinke because we're having a hard time quantifying the difference between their stregnth of schedules. (So essentially, we can't give Doc the award because we suck at math. We're sorry Roy...we've failed you again.)

3) Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners (2.49 ERA, 217 Ks / 71 BBs, 1.14 WHIP, 6.9 WAR): King Felix's ERA and win totals were better than Doc's, but most of the other relevant numbers are on par and we really could give a shit about wins. Plus, Doc plays in a man's game in the AL East. So we keep Hernandez in third for this year.

Honorable Mention: Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers (3.45 ERA, 269 Ks / 63 BBs, 1.18 WHIP, 8.2 WAR) : We're pretty certain that lots of bloggers will point to Verlander's value metric as justification for him to be on the ballot. But he just got too many easy innings this season in a pitchers' park and a pitcher's division. The big numbers he posted versus the White Sox, Cleveland and Kansas City don't impress us much.

Interesting fun facts!
Although the three non-Halladays mentioned above had good seasons, they were no match for the mighty offense of the Blue Jays this season. Each of them got two starts against the Jays this season, and posted some of their worst ERA numbers against the Toronto Nine:

Greinke: 5.25
Felix: 6.59
Verlander: 10.97

Who knows? Maybe the Jays were trying to put a dent into their Cy Young chances for Doc.

Waitin' on news

Don't get me wrong - playoff baseball is great.

With the Jays on the sidelines (newsflash!), there are still small joys to be found, and I'm wringing every last ounce possible out of the season. It might not result in the same level of enjoyment as, say, a Travis Snider opposite-field shot, but getting the opportunity to yell "SUCK IT, JETER!" as the Captain grounds into a (bogus) double play is still something. Like methadone, I guess.

Yes, the baseball fan in me is still religiously glued to the set as we march towards crowning a new (or repeat?) World Champion, but the raging lunatic Jays fan in me still scours the usual sources for news. And I'm still looking. And waiting.

I seem to recall freshly minted GM Anthopoulos hinting strongly that news on direction would come sooner rather than later, but I suppose it's only prudent to hold the line until Beeston names his successor (if there is one to name). Stop me if you've heard that before.

And so we wait. The guess here is that we're about to embark on a r-r-r-r-r-rebuild (I stutter when I say it), as the young GM looks to rework the franchise in his own mould. I could be wrong (it's happened before). Maybe the front office and ownership really does come through with this magical pile of money we are continually told is there to spend. But honestly, I have my doubts, friends.

I don't want to consider just what that might entail - until I'm forced to.

Grinding axes
Honestly, his body isn't even cold yet, and Griff still feels the need to plant his boot in JP's ribs.

Now, to be fair, Griffin makes several salient and entirely defensible points within his latest mailbag....and I understand that ol' Rich was never a Ricciardi supporter (newsflash pt II!).... but this latest salvo was way over the top.

And I mean, way over, man. Like, past the bounds of decency:

"Not to be overly simplistic, but the difference for the Jays between the Ricciardi regime past and the Anthopoulos years to come is like the difference between two countries - one governed by a dictatorship and another by a parliamentary system. Yes, the Ricciardi statue in the village square has been toppled and democracy takes over, signaling the dawn of a new Blue Jays day."

I've laid down my fair share of outrageous innuendo here in the blogosphere.....but - in my humble opinion - Griff really crossed the lines of good taste just to work another shot in at the deposed GM.

And, uh, about that analogy? Let's hope things work out a little better in "the dawn of a new Blue Jays day" than the "real-life" scenario alluded to.

I disagree with all you crazy bloggers

Part of the fun of partaking in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance postseason voting was the notion that maybe those of us who reside outside of the press box would get it right, and prove just how vastly superior we are to the washed up hacks in the BBWAA.

After reviewing the BBA press release from yesterday (hey, they quoted us!), all we can say is: Oops.

Mind you, our choice for AL Rookie of the Year, the A's Andrew Bailey, took the day with nine first place votes and 48 points total in the 5-3-1 scoring system. But what shocked us was that Brett Anderson, who we even considered as our choice at the top of our ballot, received one first place vote and our second place vote...and that's it.

(And full marks to the kids at Camden Crazies, who had the stones to put Anderson at the top of their list.)

To which we say: Really? Put Anderson's numbers up against second place finisher Rick Porcello (four first place votes), and Anderson pretty much takes the day across the board. Sure, Porcello's ERA starts with a number 3, but he got that tenth of a point by feasting on the lesser lights in the NL Central in interleague play.

We give the young Porcello full marks for his judo hip toss of Kevin Douchekilis, but there's no way he makes it to the top of our ballot.

Other oddities: Elvis Andrus had a good year with the glove, but that .702 OPS is not enough to carry him over the top in our mind. (Apparently, three people disagreed.)

Also, some people seemed to be voting based on who they thought had generated the most hype through the season, or who had the most potential. We can't imagine any other reason why someone would vote for Matt Wieters, or have him at the top of their list (as one voter did).

So to all of you who got your ballot completely wrong (and there seems to be a lot of you), we respectfully disagree. And we fart in your general direction.

Other place where we've been quoted today, aside from in my own brain
Infield Fly Rule has assembled a postseason roundtable, in which yours truly, the inimitable eyebleaf, some soccer loving dude and the lovely and beguiling Katy Unger offer our remembrances of this season past.

There were so many memories, fond and otherwise, that the roundtable will be broken into three parts, so keep checking back.

Our AL Rookie of the Year Ballot

So we've been a little but delinquent with reflecting this, but late in the season, we agreed to take part in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, which is intended to be the blog world's answer to the BBWAA. There are a bunch of interesting blogs covering most of the teams across the Majors (including four Jays blogs), so it's worth a gander.

Mostly, we wanted to get involved with the BBA so that we could vote on the postseason awards. And while we were trying to be magnanimous and allow our fellow Jays bloggers the opportunity to vote on Manager of the Year (an award that we kinda hate anyway), we're jumping in to cast our ballot for the AL Rookie of the Year.

With a few weeks left in the season, we probably would have had a completely different final three, but with a little time to look over the performances of the handful of candidates, we narrowed the field down to three. And so, here's how we saw it.

1) Andrew Bailey, Oakland A's - 1.31 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 91 Ks / 24 BBs, 26 saves in 83.1 IP.

Saves might be viewed amongst the more progressive thinkers as the most overestimated stat in baseball, and as such, a lot of voters might breeze past the Athletics' closer. But we couldn't look past that high K rate, and the excellent ratio. Even if Bailey hadn't been bestowed with the closer role, those numbers out of the pen put him amongst the elite late inning pitchers.

2) Brett Anderson, Oakland A's - 11-11, 4.06 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 150 Ks / 45 BBs in 175 IP.

With much of the focus through the season on the performances of the Tigers' Rick Porcello, the Rays Jeff Niemann and the Jays' Ricky Romero, Anderson's numbers in the end stand out across the board. His ERA was slightly higher than that of Niemann and Porcello, but his K rate, WHIP and K/BB ratio were much better.

3) Jeff Niemann, Tampa Rays - 13-9, 3.94 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 125 Ks / 59 BBs in 180.2 IP.

Given the choice between Niemann and Porcello, the Rays starters' higher K rate tips the scales in his favour.

Falling off the ballot
Among those who fell just short of our ballot were the Tigers' Porcello (not enough Ks, too much of his stats racked up against the NL); the Orioles' Nolan Reimold (good numbers, but not enough to rate a mention); the Orioles' Matt Wieters (he'll be good eventually, but his performance this year didn't stack up); the Rangers' Elvis Andrus (love his defense, but hate the .702 OPS); and the Jays' Ricky Romero (wore out by season's end, and the last six weeks pretty much wiped him off the ballot.)

Briefs: Various and sundry thoughts from a long weekend

Hope you all had a great long weekend, eating spaghetti squash and ham and turkey and watching baseball where Sportsnet deigned to put the playoff games on the air.

Watching douchebags fail makes life worth living
We felt for our buddy the Red Sox fan, who came over to watch the Red Sox-Angels game in the TaoCave on Sportsnet West (the only feed on which the "four-channel offering" could be bothered to run what should be a national sports media property).

Yeah, sure, he roots for a team full of pompous douches and rat-faced little twerps (shine that MVP plaque this offseason, Mr. 72 RsBI Pedroia), but you still have to empathize at least a little bit when you watch his arsewipe closer huff and puff and blow the game for the Masshole Nation.

Nah. On second thought, you don't. Because watching Jonathan Papelbon cough up a three run lead is one of the happier moments we've seen this year.

(And a free tip for Mr. Irish Jig for next season: Mix in an offspeed pitch once in a while.)

Anthopoulos does stuff
If you were wondering whether if Alex Anthopoulos is just keeping the GM seat warm until the mythical creature known as the Next President of the Jays is found, the news that he's brought in his pal Dana Brown from his days with les Expos should at least give a sense that he thinks he's got the job long term.

We'll leave it to those who dig into the whole prospect and development side of baseball to figure out if this is a good thing. The Nats don't seem to have an overwhelming abundance of talent, and the Expos had some pretty fallow years in the draft before moving south (Josh Karp and his $2 Million-plus signing bonus, anyone?)

Simmons slurpage
Speaking of the new GM, the Sun's Steve Simmons could barely contain his glee while writing his love letter to the new regime.

"It all sounds so promising and so anti-Ricciardi that you want to believe every word and you want to run alongside him, just hoping to capture that youthful exuberance," Simmons wrote.

Not that we're wishing ill on Anthopoulos, because the fate of the team that we spend entirely too much time worrying about rests in his hands and in his decisions. But we're getting an impression that the lad is going to get cut a lot of slack over the next few years because he is just so darned nice and Canadian. (Never mind that J.P. was pilloried for years for firing top scouts and minor league staff upon his arrival, while Alex is getting a pass on doing the same.)

A Bad Week for Umpires
It's probably a good thing that the first round of the playoffs has concluded, and that the pack of umpires will be culled by half. While it is understandable that umpires are going miss a few calls and the spotlight of the playoffs will make those mistakes more evident, this year's postseason seems to have had more than its share of botched calls.

The most fun for us, though, was suddenly seeing hundreds of people late on a Friday night landing on an 18 month-old post about Phil Cuzzi, and our general antipathy towards him. Fun stuff.

Happy Reading
Just picked up Stephen Brunt's new book, Gretzky's Tears: Hockey Canada, and the Day Everything Changed, and though we're only three chapters in, we can wholeheartedly recommend it. It's on sale. Go buy it. You owe it to yourself. Brunt is a national treasure, and buying his book will only convince Knopf to keep engaging him to write more of them. Which is a good thing.

The book is so good that about five pages in, we hit ourselves over the head with it, because his eloquent, engaging, and evocative prose is so far beyond anything that we'll be able to write. (And he doesn't even indulge in corny alliteration like we just did there.)

JP Ricciardi didn't walk on water (but maybe Alex Anthopoulos will)

There. Are you happy now? Is that enough for you?

It seems that taking an honest look at the Ricciardi years - and not automatically turning on the hysterics at every misstep - deems one to be a total and complete JP apologist and Wilner hack.

(To be fair, the "hack" part of the equation is quite accurate in the case of present company. I'm not trying to fool anyone here.)

Never mind that I feel like that I've been quite open about negative feelings on some transactions:

Never liked the Frank Thomas signing, though it's hard to argue the production the Big Hurt provided in year 1. It was the 2 years-$20M + vesting option that did not equate.

Was not happy about the Reed Johnson - Shannon Stewart saga. And not because ol' Reeder is a scrappy high socked/dirty shirt ball o' hustle. It was because I though Stewart was done before they signed him; barely less than a warm body in left.

There were more, I'm sure. Doesn't even matter. What is laughable is the "fire JP" crowd's tendency to completely ignore not only the many solid baseball transactions under his watch, but the realities he faced on a daily basis holding down the office of Blue Jays GM.

No playoffs in 8 years? Hard to dispute. Judging on that basis alone, his tenure was a failure. But was it really 8 years of failure? In how many of those years was he really given a clear mandate to build a winner, and not to simply "control costs/be competitive"? Three years? Four years?

Oh, and you're tired of hearing about the difficulties of competing in the AL East? The Jays should be more like the Twins, for example, who get by on limited payroll and sniff the postseason seemingly annually? Hat tip to commenter Peter D for the following:

"over the last 2 years, Twins vs. AL East 23-44, Jays vs. AL Central 47-27"


I don't know how you dispute those numbers. I really don't.

But it's over. JP's done, and even staunch supporters realize it was time and another year under Ricciardi most certainly would not have been healthy for the franchise. And on that note, as far as debating the pros and cons of life under JP, so am I.

So bring on the Anthopoulos years. I'm on board. What choice do we have?

Playoffs.