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We are solidly into this season’s version of the Blue Jay game of hope.  Hopefully everyone can stay healthy, and hopefully everyone can produce at their normal levels, and hopefully a couple of the young guys will come up and contribute, and hopefully the Yankees and the Red Sox will have down years and come back to the pack. 

So, hopefully Scott Rolen can come back and provide the expected boost to the line-up, play at an MVP calibre pace and is able to—through maturity, leadership and, more importantly, timely hitting—lead the club into contention for the first time since JP took control of the franchise.   And hopefully Matt Stairs will assume the mantle of veteran hitter that Thomas could not hold, and hopefully Overbay and Lind can provide some left handed power, and hopefully everyone can stay healthy (redux). 

Hopefully JP was genuine when he took accountability and admitted on the radio that the mess does indeed belong to him.  Hopefully he has come to the realization that his initial plans for the offense were absolutely and unwittingly askew.  The line-up built with hitters of similar style and similar ability didn’t fool anyone.  It didn’t fool anyone last year and is hasn’t fooled anyone so far this year.  Hopefully he has come to the realization that the fool in this story is him.

Hopefully he knows that he has done a wonderful job of rebuilding the farm system.  There are a number of young players with enough skill to be productive major league players.  Yes, he has done a wonderful job…if his job was Blue Jay Farm Director.  But his job is not Farm Director is it?  I think he should be the Farm Director  It is his calling.  It is his strength.  But if the Jays want to be serious contenders on an annual basis then this club needs someone with a more experienced view of the landscape.  JP has only been GM with one club. 

The explanation for this mess is simple.  He thinks highly of the players he drafted who turned into productive major league players.  He is proud of the players, unproven at the time, that he acquired in trades who have turned into productive major league players.  He values those deemed to be his players more than anyone with any other club does.  In effect he overvalues his players and the result is that he undervalues his club.

He has an affinity for the small scappy infielder who can’t hit, but doesn’t realize that having three of them on an AL roster is preposterous.  In this day and age with the travel and the daily spotlight it is unusual for the same nine players to play a high percentage of the games.  In the AL a club needs to have at least 13 players capable of major league production.  Inglett, Scutaro and McDonald are the same player–why is there three of them on the roster?  Especially when a scrapper like Reed Johnson is sent to the scrap heap to open a spot for one of these players. And to state that Reed needed to go because of budget restrictions is ludicrous.  With a payroll in the $100 million range only a short-sighted executive would leave himself without room for his reasonable salary. 

Too many mistakes.  Hopefully the next guy can add the necessary pieces to compete, and not have to worry about the opposition falling back.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 12:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.