Quote:
Originally Posted by CaramonLS
Riccardi has made some decent moves. I'll give him credit where credit is due, he is able to manufacture a half decent bullpen from virtually nothing (downs). He has done a solid job in that respect. He also manages to pull some decent retreads/utility players away from other teams and make them pretty useful (Scutaro).
But it ends there.
Most of his "big money" signings have been disasters. Thomas, Wells, Koskie, Ryan. In 3 of those cases (well soon to be 4 if we ever decide to get rid of Wells, he has had to eat a good deal of the contract). 2 of those players were DFA'd and one was paid 7.5 million over 2 years to play for another team.
Fiscal mismanagement like that has crippled the Jays hopes to compete. Investing the the WRONG players.
Of course that is only a tiny portion of why I dislike the guy, but I don't really feel like writing my usual 10 pager on it tonight.
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Agree completely. JP is good at seeing talent in what most consider marginal players, he was that way in Oakland and has been that way here. However, he has never had a mind of his own. When he came here he was "Moneyball" or bust, which in theory is fine, except he is not the guy who created that type of management so he needed to tweak it the way Boston has. They also worked on the same theory at the same time and look at where they have gone.
To think that Riccardi was actually considered in Boston....maybe we would have had someone who could evaluate top tier talent. The Jays have had some good pieces over the years and have almost always been a player or two away from contending in JP's time, yet he can never find that right guy. If he does, the Jays start filling the 'dome, the money starts rolling in and we can afford a payroll that can compete with the Sawx and Yanks.