Quote:
Originally Posted by howard_the_duck
I think it's a very silly rule actually. The Jays have a crap stadium, the longest tenured playoff drought in the MLB, and happen to be playing in Canada. There are enough factors where free agents rule out playing for the Jays as it is - the 5 year rule is utter nonsense in my opinion. It would be one thing if they were a small market team, but it's one of the biggest markets in the MLB with the richest owners in the league.
This is all compounded of course by the fact that we play in the AL East, where Boston and New York have no issues handing out these types of contracts. I don't see how we can expect the Jays' fortunes to change if they don't start bending some of their self-imposed rules
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I respectfully disagree. In your first paragraph, there are a variety of reasons why they should do it, for sure. However, it's about managing risk. The Sox and Yanks presumably have much greater TV deals which is why they can spend more (thus taking more risk because of that wiggle room). What you seen these past couple seasons the Yanks and Sox though, has been the inability to sign big name FA's as those long term contracts have handcuffed them. Just because they do it doesn't mean the Jays have to do the same. The Jays may have rich owners, but they're in a different situation. They still have the parent business to run (Rogers), and so have a budget. Can the Jays still work around this? Sure. Front load contracts. Money still talks and the up front money can lure a lot of FA's. Players we thought were good 5 years ago that we could often never foresee as turning to crap are always offered bad contracts and it's an easy way of longer term crippling a team. Who would've thought Pujols, Ichiro, and so many of yesterdays superstars would've gotten so bad so quick? It happens more often than it doesn't and it's better to just avoid that risk. Just because the Yanks and Sox have done it (and failed often), doesn't mean we should make those mistakes. There are smarter ways to do things. If the Jays don't want to disappoint this offseason by not adding to the cap, they should hold reserve funds for the deadline additions if they're in a good position to do so.