J.P. Ricciardi was fired the other day as Blue Jays GM, which I am happy about. Ricciardi’s reign as GM resulted in no World Series victories, no playoff games, heck, not even anything close to playoff contention. His time had come, and the Jays now need to rebuild and go in a different direction. But that’s not to say that Ricciardi was a terrible GM. Here’s a list of his best and worst moves, and I’ll list my personal favourites (in both respects) below. Note for the record that I wrote well over 2/3 of this article before finding that link, so I’m not just summarizing it.

Ricciardi certainly made some bad moves. He negotiated an expensive contract for Alex Rios, then allowed Chicago to claim him on waivers, getting nothing back. He signed Reed Johnson to a contract and then released him a month later, only to replace him with Shannon Stewart, who got injured and released within a couple of months. He paid both B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnett a ton of money – each had one great season and a couple of not-bad ones. He also released Ryan and Frank Thomas with a lot of money left on their contracts.

But he also made some good moves. Bringing in Overbay was a good move. He got Jeremy Accardo for Vinnie Chulk and the grumpy Shea Hillenbrand. He grabbed Matt Stairs, Joe Inglett, Scott Downs, and Rod Barajas off waivers. He traded two players I’ve never heard of for Marco Scutaro. Trading for Glaus was good, but then he wanted out. So Ricciardi turned him into Scott Rolen. Then Rolen wanted out, and he got a couple of young pitchers for him. He drafted Hill, Marcum, Litch, Lind, and Snider.

Some players didn’t work out (Royce Clayton, Tomo Okha, Victor Zambrano), but they were cheap anyway. Just about every pitcher spent time on the DL, but that’s not Ricciardi’s fault. In fact, I’m surprised there wasn’t an investigation of some sort into the Jays’ pitching coaches at that time.

You might notice that I did not include the Vernon Wells deal in the list of bad moves. You can’t deny that Wells hasn’t earned his eleventy gazillion dollar contract since it was signed three years ago. OK, so he hasn’t even come close to earning it. So from that point of view, this is a terrible deal. But nobody complained about the deal when it was made because Wells was coming off a couple of great seasons and looked poised for lots more. Three mediocre and injury-filled seasons later, it seems obvious that Wells is not the superstar we all thought he was at the time. He’s simply a very good player that had a couple of great seasons. Should Ricciardi have seen that coming? Maybe, but nobody else did. If instead of signing Wells he had traded him or let him go, he would have been ridiculed endlessly (which he likely doesn’t care about) and not taken seriously by other GMs (which he likely does). He had little choice but to sign Wells to the contract and hope that he wasn’t a flash in the pan. Oh well.

Ricciardi was touted as the next Billy Beane, an expert in the whole Moneyball concept, and should therefore be able to bring a winning team to Toronto without increasing the payroll astronomically. This was key because the Jays play in the same division as the rich Yankees and Red Sox, who have no trouble outspending the rest of the league, and seem ready to sign any and all free agents regardless of the cost. But eight years later, what did Ricciardi whine about the most? “We can’t win because we don’t have the payroll of the Yankees and Red Sox. I don’t have enough money to do what we need to do. We can’t win in this division without increasing payroll.” Um… isn’t that why we hired you and not someone else?

I think Ricciardi’s biggest problem was that he didn’t know when to shut up. Every time there were trade rumours, Ricciardi was right there telling everyone who’d listen who he was offering, who other teams were offering, what deals didn’t happen and why, and so on. He would talk to the media and tell them whether certain players were interested in re-signing after their contracts were up, even if the players hadn’t come to a final decision yet. That’s the kind of stuff that does not need to be published. He publicly questioned Adam Dunn’s work ethic and passion for baseball. Even if he was right (and I have no reason to believe he was), you don’t say stuff like that. When rumours started flying that he was shopping Roy Halladay at the trade deadline this year, Ricciardi didn’t deflect attention and didn’t refuse to comment – in fact, he talked on and on about it, and even gave a meaningless “deadline” before the real trade deadline. In so doing, turned the thing into a media circus. On the day of the deadline, the FAN was doing minute-by-minute reports on whether or not Halladay was still a Blue Jay. Then there was the thing with B.J. Ryan, where Ricciardi knew that Ryan required Tommy John surgery but told the media that the injury wasn’t that bad. When the truth came out and he was called on it, he famously said “They’re not lies if we know the truth”, which simply told everyone that they couldn’t trust anything he said.

Having said all that, Ricciardi wasn’t the worst thing ever to happen to the Jays. No, they never made the playoffs during his time, but at least he didn’t turn the team into a laughing stock (lookin’ at you, John Ferguson Jr.). They only finished last in the East once, even made second place once, and finished above .500 for four of the eight seasons Ricciardi was here. He took a mediocre team and turned them into… a mediocre team. There were times over the past few years that the Jays had the best hitting team in baseball, and other times where they had the best pitching staff. Unfortunately those times never coincided. He didn’t leave the team in total shambles – there are certainly some players that can figure prominently in the Jays future plans. They have some good young hitters, a really good bullpen, and if all the injured pitchers return next season (OK, that’s a big “if”), they could have an excellent rotation (how does Halladay, McGowan, Marcum, Litch, and Romero sound?). As I said before, Ricciardi has proven that he’s a pretty good baseball guy and I’m sure he’ll land on his feet somewhere. In any division other than the AL East, he might even be successful.

The Jays announced their September call-ups today: Dirk Hayhurst, Brian Wolfe, and Joe Inglett. That’s it. Notably absent: Jeremy Accardo, who is 2-1 with a 3.10 ERA, 26 K’s, and 12 saves in 29 innings in AAA. Kind of a lot of hits given up (32), but not terrible, and only 7 walks. At the major league level, Accardo has a 2.50 ERA with 14 K’s in 18 innings. He missed most of 2008, but was awesome in 2007 and seems to be doing better than fine in Las Vegas this year. So given that this season is effectively over for the Jays, why is Accardo still in Vegas? I don’t know, and neither does he.

I loved this quote from the article:

“There’s really no rhyme or reason to some of the decisions that are made, and that’s out of your hands as a player,” Accardo said Saturday before the 51s’ x-x win/loss over/to Reno at Cashman Field. “All you can do is pitch, and pretty much this whole year I’ve thrown well. I feel better than I ever have, and my stuff is as good as it’s ever been.”

Looks like somebody forgot to finish their research before publishing the story.

Anyway, the Jays will finish no better than fourth in the AL East this year, the eighth of Ricciardi’s reign. In that time, they have never had a sniff of the postseason, and have only finished higher than third once – and that was when they grabbed second place on the last day of the 2006 season. They were never in contention that year either and finished 10 games back of first. Since Ricciardi was hired as Toronto’s GM, every other team in MLB has either made the playoffs at least once or fired their GM. Now, I have questioned many of his moves, but to be fair, he’s made some good ones too, and honestly, I think Ricciardi has proven that he’s a decent baseball guy. He might have some success in a different division, but being in the same division as the Yanks and Red Sox, the Jays need either a decent baseball guy and bucketloads of money (i.e. $150-175 million), or a great baseball guy. Since they’re not likely to get the bucketloads of money, they need to fire Ricciardi and begin the search for the great baseball guy. What’s Pat Gillick up to these days?

The Jays let Alex Rios go the other day, and by “let go”, I mean “let go”. They got nothing back for him, they just put this 28-year-old speedy power-hitting great defensive outfielder on waivers and watched Chicago pick him up. There are those who have said this is a great move because it frees up some money, but looking at the team now, what’s the best thing they could do with that money? Find a young speedy power-hitting great defensive outfielder. Sorry José Bautista, but you’re just not going to be the starting right fielder for the Jays World Series run next year.

J.P.’s strategy confuses me. He didn’t trade Roy Halladay because the offers he got weren’t enough, and he wants to keep him for the playoff run next year. Romero is blossoming nicely as is Brett Cecil, and if Marcum, Litch, and Janssen return from injury (from what I’ve heard, McGowan’s return is unlikely, and it’s possible he may never pitch again), we could have a seriously good pitching staff. Rolen wanted out so we got a couple of young pitchers for him – that’s great, but now we need to find a full-time third baseman. Sorry Edwin Encarnación, but you’re just not going to be the starting third baseman for the Jays World Series run next year. So if 2010 is the year of the World Series drive, why dump Rios now? Ricciardi has said that this was not a salary dump, but what other explanation is there? Sure Rios isn’t having an MVP season, but he’s not having a terrible year – it’s not Vernon Wells bad. But instead of working on getting a third-baseman, Ricciardi dumps Rios, so now we need a third baseman and a right fielder. Rios was making some good coin (and yes, I agree he’s overpaid given his performance this year and last), but can Ricciardi get a starting third baseman and an outfielder that’s remotely comparable to Rios and pay both of them with Rios’s salary? Perhaps Ricciardi believes Travis Snider will be ready next year and so all he needs is a 3rd baseman. So why is Snider still playing in Las Vegas? Shouldn’t they be giving him as many major league at-bats as possible? Well, he has been injured for much of this season and so perhaps he needs the rehab. But then it’s a bit risky to bet the farm on his being able to be a starting outfielder at the major league level next season. Plus he’s a left fielder, as is Adam Lind. Who’s playing right?

Some J.P. apologists on Twitter are saying that this is a good move because it gets rid of a bad contract. But didn’t J.P. give Rios the contract in the first place? You bring a player through your minor league system, watch as he blossoms into a bona fide star player and give him a rich contract, then a couple of years later let him go for nothing because he’s too expensive. And J.P. is hailed as a genius for getting out from under a contract that he created. I don’t get it. J.P. said that he talked trade with Chicago for a while and couldn’t come up with anything. I guess Chicago never considered “Tell you what – you give us Rios and we’ll give you nothing. How’s that?” Obviously Ricciardi would have jumped at that deal – and eventually did.

Update: The Jays called up Randy Ruiz from Syracuse Las Vegas to take Rios’s spot and what does he do? Hits a home run in his second at-bat as a Blue Jay. Problem solved!

Every year, baseball writers around North America vote on which retired ball players, coaches, and managers will be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The voters have rules to follow, since you only want the best of the best in the Hall. But not all of the rules make sense, and there are some unwritten rules which are just ridiculous.

There seem to be some voters for whom precedent is extremely important. For example, no player has ever been inducted with more than 98% of the vote. When Cal Ripken became eligible, there was no doubt that he belonged in the Hall – every baseball fan (and writer) knew this. But some writers purposely did not vote for Ripken because they felt that if they did vote for him, the vote might have been more than 98%. The baffling logic is that if Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and George Brett didn’t get 99%, then Cal Ripken shouldn’t either.

One of the rules that has always confused me is that only a certain number of people can be inducted in a single year. Why? What is the point of limiting the number of inductees? Maybe there’s a good reason for such a rule, but I don’t see it. But that rule is responsible for this one: there have been people voted in after several years of eligibility because they didn’t get enough votes in their first couple of years. This means that some voters did not vote for player X one year, but did the next. What changed? The player in question has been retired for years anyway, his numbers didn’t change, the “intangibles” and “leadership” (and all those other weasel words that they use on players whose stats may not stack up as well as others) didn’t change, so why was he not worthy last year but he is now? The voters’ reasoning on this is a direct result of the rule limiting the number of inductees: player X does deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, but maybe he deserves it slightly less than some other potential inductees. So we’ll vote for those other players (unless of course we think they might get more than 98% of the vote) this year, and then vote for player X next year.

I don’t get it. The Hall of Fame is not an ordered list of players. If someone deserves to be there, vote for him. If he gets 100% of the vote, well good for him, but it doesn’t mean that he’s better than Ruth or Cobb. If there’s no limit on how many can get inducted in one year, then whether someone gets in on the first ballot or the third is irrelevant, so just vote for who deserves to be there and be done with it. Who knows – maybe in another ten or twenty years when the dinosaur writers of the “old boys club” have all retired, some younger writers with less of an agenda might clean up the voting process a little bit and get rid of these insane unwritten rules.