Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin
There has always been budget restraints while Rogers has owned the team. Are you saying that AA could have spent up to the Yankees all those years but just didn't? I'd have to see some proof of that because from everything I've heard AA always had to operate under a budget.
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If someone can actually sit there and say that the Jays GMs aren't under a spending restraint, they clearly have no idea as to what it is they are talking about.
Until the 2013 seasons, the Jays were consistently in the bottom half to bottom third of the league in payroll since Rogers acquired the team back in 2001. There was one small exception in there for the 20072009 seasons where they did increase payroll which lead to lackluster results as it was a drop in the bucket compared to the Yankees and Red Sox.
In fact, that 2007 increase is likely one of the key contributing factors to Rogers' frugality today. BJ Ryan's albatross of a contract was so bad that it showed up on their corporate financial statements, and required a separate note disclosure. This did not please the Rogers shareholders one bit.
Leading up to the 2013, interest in the Jays locally and nationally had hit an all time low. Jays fans were getting very vocal, so much so that is was starting to rub off negatively on the Rogers brand. As a result, Rogers up the Jays budget by an estimated 40M. This resulted in the Jays 2013 payroll jumping up 41.3M dollars which was one of the single biggest increases in payroll for any MLB since the 2000 season. It was the first time in Jays history that their team payroll exceeded 100M.