A list of his good/great moves in point-form

-Dumped Raul Mondesi, Alex Gonzalez, Paul Quantrill, Brad Fullmer, and Dan Plesac to clear salary early in his tenure
-Used an asset in Orlando Hudson to fill another need. Aaron Hill was coming up and there was a need for a power hitter and a 3B, so Troy Glaus was a great fit
-Turned Glaus into Scott Rolen, when Glaus demanded a trade. That’s a great return for a trade demand
-Got Eric Hinske, who was ROY, then got fat (not JP’s fault)
-Signed Frank Catalanotto
-Signed Gregg Zaun (he was underrated)
-Stole Lyle Overbay for very little (Bush, Gross, and Jackson)
-Got Bobby Kielty for soon to be FA Shannon Stewart who he couldn’t afford at his payroll at the time
-Traded Bobby Kielty for Ted Lilly (fleeced Billy Beane)
-Got Justin Speier in a 3-way trade for Mark Hendrickson
-Stole Tallet for nothing
-Signed Scott Downs
-Signed BJ Ryan who has been excellent despite the big contract and the TJ surgery
-Stole Accardo for Hillenbrand
-Got John McDonald, an amazing fielder, for nothing
-Signed Stairs when everyone pretty much gave up on him
-Re-signed Halladay, Hill, Rios for great deals
-Drafted Marcum, Hill, Lind, Janssen, Litsch, Purcey, Snider and the promising 2007 class
-Traded for Scutaro (fleeced Beane again)
-Has never made a god awful trade like Young for Loaiza or Sirotka for Wells. Actually he hasn’t made a bad trade ever and instead has made some steals.

The bad moves

-The Frank Thomas signing. Should not have been given 2 years with a vesting option for a 3rd. Way too much for a 39 year old. He did have a good first year, maybe the best hitter on the team that year. But he had to be released at the beginning of the 2nd year to avoid the 3rd year and it created the situation where Reed Johnson had to be released so Stairs could DH and an everyday player could play in RF.
-The Wells contract. The vast majority of Jays fans agree that this was President Paul Godfrey’s call.
-Ricky Romero in 2005. To be fair, Romero is still young and improving. He could be in the majors this year. He had to pass over high school players because he can’t pay over slot. But yes, overruling his scouting team and picking Romero over Tulo was a mistake.
-Russ Adams over good players in 2002. This was his first draft and he wasn’t allowed to pay over slot. I’ll give him a break here.
-Royce Clayton, Jason Phillips, Brad Wilkerson, Shannon Stewart, Toma Ohka, and various other minor but poor signings and acquisitions for important roles.

2006 saw a payroll infusion which he used to make some of the above moves. Since then the team has averaged 85 wins which I read somewhere is like top 5 in baseball since that year. He also has drafted pretty well overall despite the reputation he seems to have developed. He got Aaron Hill, Marcum, Lind, Janssen, Litsch, and Snider. Plus theres David Purcey, Brad Mills, the promising 2007 draft class, David Cooper, and Ricky Romero who is improving and still only 23. I’d say that at least an average return from the draft, if not above average.

I’d say the “good” list far outweighs the “bad” list. I invite any Jays fan to argue different.

Since 2006, the team has also been hit be various cases of ridiculously bad luck, injuries, or both. Lengthy injuries to Halladay, McGowan, Marcum, Wells, Burnett, Ryan, and Overbay derailed entire seasons. Simple bad luck derailed 2007 and 2008 as far as run differential, Pythag and other luck metrics show. But the team has still won an average of 85 games despite all of this and playing in the AL East, which at this point isn’t mentioned enough. Oh and yes the Jays WERE a top 5 team last year. I can’t believe Jays fans themselves are denying this. Every metric available and common sense shows this to be true.

JP Ricciardi has assembled a team good enough to have won 3-4 divisions since 2006 and make the playoffs each of those years. He has built one of the best, if not the best, bullpens and starting rotations in all of baseball and the fielding is easily top 5 as well. The minor league talent is as strong as its ever been. If you simply suppress the urge to downgrade JP and the organization because they don’t win in the AL East, it’s easy to see just how good the team has been. Yes, the Adam Dunn thing was stupid, yes running off some scouts was dumb, and getting into a row with Keith Law, but you can’t deny his talent with personnel and team-building.

1. They did not have a few years of huge injury numbers affecting them (way more than the other division contenders)
2. A hitting coach that told them not to hit and wait til you are deep in the count and ruined the natural hitting agressiveness of some of the Jays hitters (Dumbo … er Denbo)
3. Inexperienced manager who was too by the book and did not have that managers feel ie. when to take a pitcher out

If you look at the stats since Cito came back, you see the same players but the stats were much better even near the top of the AL East including wins. They were just too far back.

This year look for the offense to come back to what is should have been maybe not Yankee or RedSox. Unfortunately again injuries have probably the Jays but if luck balances out over time maybe the Jays young pitchers will be a surpise and make the Jays the sleeper team.

Any comments?

JP’s drafting was mediocre (lots of decent 3rd starters/relievers) when he was MR College and he gave up on South America. It’s improved since then.

JP is not the worst executive out there, but he certainly isn’t the best. Toronto is probably the 2nd toughest media market in the world, and he does take some undue heat at times but I don’t think he has done enough in 8 years to justify another LT contract.

Doesn’t that make the Cards worse than the Blue Jays?
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NOT if the intention is rank teams on their likelihood of winning a World Series. The Jays have a much bigger hill to climb (Red Sox, Yankees, Rays) to even GET into the playoffs than the Cardinals do. They consistently have to compete against two of the higher spending teams and better FO’s in the game. The fact that they play two perennial playoff contenders nearly 40 times a year is a huge knock on the Jays’ chances of making the playoffs or the WS.

Basically, the point is that these evaluations cannot be done in a vacuum. We must not simply assume that because team X has a better FO, better scouting, and a better team that they are inherently more likely to win a World Series. For example, imagine if I moved the Dodgers from the NL to the AL East. Wouldn’t you agree that their chances of making the playoffs just declined dramatically? That’s why it’s a tough pill to swallow that the Jays are ranked ahead of the Cardinals. They might be a better team, but they face much stiffer competition.

And I’m not so sure “obsolete” is the word you’re looking for there. I’m betting if you did a meta-analysis using PECOTA and CHONE, you’d be better off with both than just CHONE… So, I’ll look at both, and yeah probably give more weight to CHONE, end figure its going to be something in the middle.