Toronto Blue Jays: Off-Season 2011-2012

Congratulations to the underdog St Louis Cardinals, the new World Series Champions!

Tony LaRussa is retiring.  Too bad he didn't retire last year.  A championship couldn't come to a less likable guy.   LaRussa is notoriously known for arrogance.  Can you believe the excuse he made for the pitching roster mistakes made in Game 5? And he keeps calling his relief pitcher "Rapinsky."  Try "Rzepczynski."  This isn't even a good mispronunciation -- the "R" is silent for gosh sake!  If not bothering to know your own pitcher's name isn't enough (let's give him a break...Rzepczynski only came to the Cardinals in late July -- he only had three months getting used to him) he forgot who his team just defeated when interviewed during the post-Game 7 celebrations!  Now that's arrogance!

In any case, the topic at hand is not the Cardinals or the World Series, it is the Toronto Blue Jays and their plans for the off-season.

The Jays dodged two bullets already and it's only the 1st of November.  First, the Jays' General Manager Alex Anthopoulos announced a change to team policy regarding their staff.  No longer woulf the Blue Jays let any staff member take any job, promotion or otherwise, anywhere, any time they wanted to go. Now, staff would be restricted from talking to other clubs about demotions or lateral transfers. This was dodging a bullet because rumours were hot and heavy about the rival Boston Red Sox's interest in John Farrell as their potential new manager.  As far as the public knows this was just a rumour, but where there's smoke there's often fire.

The second bullet came today when Assistant GM Tony LaCava allegedly turned down an offer to become the Baltimore Orioles new General Manager.  Apparently, in the eyes of LaCava, it is better to be Number Two in Toronto, were things are arguably looking up, than being Number One in lowly Baltimore.  This may be even more true when the majority owner Peter Angelos and his historical meddling ways are factored into the decision.  When Anthopoulos was named GM I worried that it spelled the end of the relationship with LaCava, an extremely valuable employee/asset.  Fortunately, my worries were unfounded, at least so far.

Now comes the part that fans love to speculate about most -- personnel signings.  Edwin Encarnacion's option was picked up.  Jon Rauch's was not.  Neither of these decisions is particularly surprising.  Encarnacion had a poor start to the season but caught fire later on, providing enough reason to stay with him. Rauch was largely ineffective all season long, a season which included injuries, making himself expendable.

Now the real fun begins.  The Jays have question marks at a number of positions.  Other positions are well represented but could still be improved.  The biggest needs are in the bullpen and at second base, with starting pitching, left field and first base as lower priority needs.

The two biggest names in free agency are Milwaukee's Prince Fielder and St. Louis Cardinal Albert Pujols.  Both are first basemen.  Another excellent first baseman, Joey Votto, who happens to be a local product, may be available from the Cincinnati Reds for the right price.

The best pitcher who might have been available won't be.  C.C. Sabathia renegotiated his contract (signed an extension) with the New York Yankees.  He'll be a Yankee for 5-6 more years.  Who can blame him for re-upping with New York.  Given their spending practices and the nature of free agency, they represent the best chance a player has of winning the World Series before a single pitch has been thrown.  They've only won once in the last ten years, but they've been in the playoffs year after year.  It just goes to show that no matter how much better one team may be than another, anything can happen in a short (playoff) series.  The rest of the starting pitchers on the free agent market are not aces and are not likely to be big impact acquisitions for anyone.

There are two closers that may appear on the market.  Boston's Jonathon Papelbon and Milwaukee's Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez are both A-list firemen and are expected to declare themselves free agents this off-season. The winning bidders will likely overpay for what they receive in spite of the fact that both are still effective -- that's the nature of current free agency in baseball.

Papelbon is older than Rodriguez so is less attractive a long-term investment and further, he resembles nothing more than molasses when pitching.  He is the pitching version of "the human rain-delay."  Slow play is one of the biggest problems in baseball today and I find it deplorable and highly annoying.  In general it is a form of gamesmanship and I hate all forms of gamesmanship.  In my opinion, gamesmanship is the opposite of sportsmanship.  Sportsmanship is about respecting the game and your opponents, while gamesmanship is about manipulating or even breaking the rules of a sport in order to gain ill-gotten advantage over opponents.  Respect is the furthest thing from the mind when engaging in gamesmanship.  I won't cheer for Papelbon even he is in the hometown Blues.  I can take or leave Rodriguez, something that is more or less true about how I feel regarding all free agents.  They tend to be real, and real expensive, gambles.

The best bets at second base are...well there really aren't any good bets at second base.  The Jays can re-sign Kelly Johnson, who they obtained from the Arizona Diamondbacks for Aaron Hill and John McDonald.  Both Hill and Johnson were having off-years and a change of scenery was hoped to do them both a world of good.  Hill responded reasonably well in Arizona, but Johnson failed to impress in Toronto.  If they offer Johnson, a type-A free agent, arbitration and he subsequently signs with another team, the Jays will receive a compensatory draft pick and a sandwich pick (a pick between the first and second rounds of the draft).  If they don't ign Johnson, they could go after Hill.  Arizona opted to not pick up Hill's contract option for 2012 (at $8 million --  I thought it was 10...), so he too will probably be a free agent, unless he signs a contract with Arizona for some smaller amount.  Arizona wants him back and will not be due compensatory picks if they lose Hill.

The Jays may be best off if they can lure Hill back and get the picks for losing Johnson.  Most people will think I'm crazy for saying that, but for whatever reason I think Hill has a higher chance of bouncing back than Johnson.  In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if the Jays end up with neither and have to scramble to fill the position with a warm body.  If that happens they can pretty much put off hopes for the post-season for another year.

The Jays GM has stated that he'd rather make a splash in a trade than in a signing.  I think that's insane.  Free agency costs money.  Money is replaceable. The owner, Rogers Blue Jays Baseball Partnership, a division of Rogers Communications, has plenty of money, but they have been exceedingly frugal with it.  There is nothing wrong with trying to avoid bad deals and trying to get the most out of your money, but as far as winning is concerned it is just money.  I agree that keeping your money is smarter than spending it on junk just to spend it or to appear as though you are willing and eager to spend.  Having a higher payroll doesn't inherently increase or decrease your chances of winning.  If a signed deal goes sour, it's a sunk cost and you move on.

On the other hand, trades cost player resources.  In other words, trades hit your team's on-the-field performance, either today when trading roster players, or in the future when trading prospects.  Once those assets are gone, they are gone.  They are not easy to replace   While Toronto has one of the strongest farm systems in MLB that only gets you so far.  If all you do is trade away prospects you will quickly run out of them.  Also, when a trade deal goes sour the opportunity cost is blatantly evident to fans when the players and prospects traded away are performing for some other franchise.  Of course there is the possibility that you traded away what amounted to junk, in which case the fans don't care, but management does.  When trades go bad for your trading partner they are less likely to trade with you in the future and that's bad.

Compared to the perception and visibility of trades, money is largely invisible.  The only risk with money is a potential fan perception that bad money spent will prevent the team from spending money in the future.  There should be no direct relationship between bad money spent anf d the potential or willingness to spend more money.  The merits of each potential signing should be looked at independently, within reason.  In things get out of hand and your budget and performance resemble that of the Mets then management needs to look in the mirror and wonder if it is competent enough to do the job.

Beyond the general reluctance to spend money the franchise is also leery of signing long contracts.  They have good reason to be.  The most recent long contracts signed have all turned sour.  B.J. Ryan blew out his arm.  Or maybe he just got off the juice.  Who knows.  He went from a strong major leaguer to a has been in one off-season.  Vernon Wells failed to develop into a superstar which is what he would have to become to live up to his contract.  Unfortunately, the timing of his fee agency dictated the terms of his contract.  It wasn't really out of line for that year.  Also, the team was under a lot of fan pressure to resign Wells after they had made a big deal out of not re-signing their franchise player Carlos Delgado a few years earlier.  Finally, Alex Rios more than failed to live up to his contract -- he turned out to be a dud.  Not only was his performance criticized, but also his attitude and work ethic.

In general terms, the longer the contract, the greater the risk.  Not only are free agents declining assets with diminishing returns but there is always the risk of serious career-altering or career-ending injury.  The longer the term, the greater the risk of an injury occurring and the more money for which the team may be left on the hook for a worthless and untradable asset.

That having been said, it seems pretty much everybody is doing it.  By everybody, I mean everybody successful, with the exception of the Tampa Bay Rays and possibly the Florida/Miami Marlins.  It must be a Florida thing.  The Jays' GM and President both say that they will put their hopes on higher pay for shorter term.  The theory is that players will be able to test the free agent market a second time a few years down the road and end up with more money over the course of both contracts than they would have received from one long-term contract.  There's just one problem with this.  Most players and nearly all agents will go for the contract with the most guaranteed money.  Why?  For the same reasons that the Jays are reluctant to sign long-term contracts -- injuries are unforeseeable and no lucrative contracts will be had after a major injury.  If they sign a long-term contract it acts as insurance against injury.  The player is paid regardless of their level of ability to perform.  The player under long-term contract is paid like an A-list free agent even after they drop below journeyman-level talent/ability due to injury.

So, the Jays are kidding themselves if they truly believe that they can compete at all in a free agent market with such a policy.  More likely, they are well aware of this and are just trying to appease restless fans with a nice story.  When you factor in the minor inconvenience of cross-border employment, the fact that the team has not been in the playoffs for 18 years and has no recent tradition of competitiveness, and the fact that they are stuck in the same division as the juggernaut New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, the #1 and #3 spenders this past season (and always in the top 3 spenders), that amounts to no hope whatsoever of attracting free agents to Toronto.  They have to hope that the player wants to live in Toronto for the merits of the city to have any real chance of signing anyone of consequence.  Or they can grossly overpay, which goes against their philosophy of the past 10 years, dating back to previous owners and management.

What hope does that leave?  Do the Jays have to become the Tampa Bay Rays?  Do they have to finish last in the Majors with over 100 losses a year for 10 years straight in order to fully seed a farm system enough to sustain a run at the playoffs?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  In any case, there is one other option.  Yu Darvish (short for Yu Darvishsefad -- he's Japanese-Iranian), a Japanese pitching phenom is going to be auctioned off this year.  In order to sign Japanese stars you have to first 'buy' the rights to negotiate with the player from their current franchise.  There will be a massive bidding war.

Baseball has a long and storied tradition in Japan, and players are likely to prefer storied franchises.  If they had been left to an open market it is likely that they would all end up in LA, NY, Boston or Chicago, with a lesser chance at Philadelphia and St. Louis and maybe even Seattle, which has Japanese connections and is a Pacific Rim team.

But it isn't an open market.  The team decides who gets to negotiate with Darvish and it will almost assuredly come down to who offers them the most money.  Once that's done there is still the small matter of negotiating a contract with Darvish, who will likely command a respectable star salary.  In all, this is an incredibly expensive process and proposition.  Why would the Jays be more philosophically amenable to this situation over signing an expensive, domestic fee agent to a long expensive contract?  If you amortize the cost of the negotiating fee and contract over the length of the contract it is exactly like they say they want it -- higher pay for shorter term.  That is assuming that Darvish will even accept a short- or medium-term contract!  Also, Darvish is only 25, significantly younger than any of the other available free agents.  Fielder is close, but Fielder doesn't even remotely resemble what one would call a traditional athlete. While his youth is an asset he is expected to age badly.  Darvish has no such concerns, well beyond the universal risk of signing pitchers.

The only other wrinkle in this proposition is that Japanese pitchers have not fared nearly as well in MLB as Japanese hitters have.  This is unlikely to dissuade any potential suitors.

I believe that the Jays will make a run at Darvish, but I cannot say with any confidence that they will win the right to sign him.  The Yankees, who have Sabathia, a surprising Ivan Nova, an unreliable Phil Hughes, an even more unreliable AJ Burnett and retreads; and the Red Sox, who have Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, then Clay Buckholz (who missed most of the season with a stress fracture in his back), Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lackey (who are both out due to Tommy John surgery) and the ancient Tim Wakefield (who having won his 200th game this season may very well retire) both have big question marks in their starting rotation and neither seems to have even heard of budgets.  The Red Sox have a new GM, Ben Cherington, who may be looking to make a splash right out of the gate.

Beyond the (likely slim) possibility of Darvish, I expect GM Alex Anthopoulos to be true to his word.  I expect minor bullpen signings since they need warm bodies after this years trades and disappointments.  I suspect there might be a big trade coming, but I suspect that people won't like what the Jays give up.  That's it.  No major signings and not much for fans to get excited about. The 2012 Jays will go as far as their starting pitching will take them.  If it bounces back expect up to 90 wins.  If it doesn't, they may finish below .500.  Another blah year, with no real hope for the playoffs unless and until Bud Selig announces an expansion of the playoffs.  Even then, the Jays will have to leap frog at least one of New York, Boston and Tampa Bay.  One might not be enough, with the wild card(s) possibly coming from other, less competitive divisions.  They've finished behind all three division rivals four years running and have not placed above New York (who have made the playoffs every year since the strike except 2008) since the Jays' World Series win in 1993 and have only placed ahead of Boston twice in that same period (1994 -- by 1 game (strike year so no playoffs and so hardly counts), and 2006, by 1 game).

I'm not bullish on their chances until the playoffs change and not much more bullish thereafter due to their inability and unwillingness to go after and sign impact free agents.  Only time will tell...