Highlights of J.P. Ricciardi Conference Call

The Blue Jays conducted a post-trade deadline conference call this afternoon and here are some of the highlights of GM J.P. Ricciardi's comments.

It seems Scott Rolen asked to be traded for personal reasons and the Jays managed to accommodate him while at the same time making a decent deal that brings back, in addition to Edwin Encarnacion, earning $4.75 million next season in the final year of his contract, two good young arms. Righthander Josh Roenicke, 27, will report to the major-league team tomorrow, while righthander Zach Stewart, 22, will be assigned within the minor-league system. His future role as a starter or reliever will be determined.

Ricciardi indicated that he received calls from about 10 teams regarding Roy Halladay, but that only 2-3 seemed serious about meeting the Jays demands for one of the best pitchers in baseball. None of them blew him away with any "wow" factor.

He did not deny the possibility that a Halladay trade could be explored again in the off-season or that any team looking to trade for Doc might be allowed to negotiate an extension for the pitcher before the trade is finalized. That option, of course, would increase the value of the package the Jays might get back.

The Jays will pay the remainder of Rolen's salary for 2009.  

Comments

[Anonymous]

Wow does rolen hate Toronto or something? I remember when we first got him how St. Louis fans said that we were getting a whiner....If Edwin walks after this year, we have nobody to replace him since Kevin Ahrens was a bust.

[doug]

I would like to hear Rolen say that not J.P. as he has zero credibility and has this habit of running his mouth off....

[shuda_gonetobed]

Encarnation's main claim to fame was his 23 errors in 143 games in 2008. This year he had the lowest average in the majors thru May 1 and is now hitting a robust .208 with 5HR. He'll only cost $4.75m next year; a small price to pay for making Vernon feel better since he'll no longer be the worst hitter on the team. The pitchers rank 13th and 15th among Reds' prospects. Stewart has a funky delivery thay will likely lead to arm problems, and Roenicke is a bubble guy. All this and we get to pay some of Rolen's salary too! I was ok with the idea of trading Rolen while his value was high. Problem is we just dumped salary; we got zero back in the way of potential players.

[J]

What?!! Why is JP starting a PR a battle? He's just trying to make Rolen look bad. We need a Canadian GM who returns the calls of local reporters!!

[FDuquette]

The Rogers ownership inherited a thoroughbred horse with Skydome and the Jays; here they are trying to attach a plow to it to see if it can run like a tractor. At least with Interbrew you knew why Ricarrdi was GM: to save money and sell beer, like a good tractor should.
Jim Balsille should seriously relieve them, it hurts Rogers, it hurts the team. Its existential: we run telecommunications, not ball clubs. You need an eccentric billionaire type..
The big loser in this is Halliday. WHat do you think the chances of a post-season run are next year with Rolen (and Barajas and Scutaro) gone?

[DB]

Too bad. One of the few Jays I'd actually pay to go see play. Really sad to see him go. Be interesting to see why he wanted to leave. Edwin's numbers are - atrocious, hope we can get rid of him next year. Can we please just get rid of JP and start over again.

[A S]

Dump JP.
This is ridiculous - trades like this do not a contender make.

[Stanley]

From Keith Law on ESPN:

The Jays get a tremendous return on Rolen. They get longtime enigma Edwin Encarnacion, a horrendous defensive third baseman who has shown glimpses of big offensive potential, including both patience and power, but has never put it all together for a full season and had clearly worn out his welcome in Cincinnati. If anyone can make him playable at third, it's Toronto bench coach Brian Butterfield, who turned Orlando Hudson and Aaron Hill into Gold Glove-caliber second basemen, but if not, Encarnacion should be ticketed for left field. He missed two months this year with a wrist injury and has hit .276/.375/.526 since his return at the start of July. It's a great buy-low move.

The Jays also get two very live arms in right-handers Josh Roenicke and Zach Stewart. Roenicke, who's been clocked up to 100 mph, sits in the mid-90s with a hard swing-and-miss slider in the mid-80s, while Stewart, who is in just his first full year of pro ball, is up to 96 with sink, has a grade 55 or 60 slider, and has already reached Triple-A, meaning that the Jays got upside arms who are also close to the majors.

Sounds good to me!

[TMF]

Okay, so who will be the rent-a-veteran-third-baseman next year?

[J]

This is a good deal for the Jays. Rolen is an injury waiting to happen, the worst thing that could happen is that he would get hurt again and then his value would be down to zero. Encarnacion strikes out too much but he can hit. His numbers in July which are very good. His numbers were down before due to a broken wrist. Encarnacion is 8 years younger, and at this point probably has more power. They save money and also gain what looks like two power arms. It's pretty hard to fault this trade.

Rolen's desire to be traded probably has less to do with the city and more with wanting to play closer to his home and get off the terrible RC turf.

[Gerald]

He got out while the getting was good. I wouldn't want to be on a team that was seriously considering trading the best pitcher in the league either.

[KingM]

Just looked up Encarnacion's stats. Not too inspiring. At least, Halladay is still in town. But for a long?

[Paul Boudreau]

so another bubble pitching prospect (because the farm doesn't have enough of these), another bullpen guy, and a third baseman whose defense is inferior and offense is a wash to the player he replaces... all the hallmarks of a ricciardi trade. The best move that ricciardi made was the one he couldn't, namely the halladay trade (although I'm firmly agreed with R-Griff on this one... the trade talk was probably just smoke and mirrors to raise JP's profile so that when the jays (finally) sack him in the off season he has some kind of name recognition to get himself the peanut sellers job at fenway he so desperately wants. Sad to see Scott Rolen go, he was a positive face around a club that has me remembering what it feels like to be a leafs fan in the winter in the summer... although it was funny to watch the game tonight and see them still running the "rockin' Rolen" drive-thru ad on sprtsnet... i guess someone didn't gt the memo.

[Sammy]

Wow, you guys know nothing about Zach Stewart. He does not have a funky delivery at all... He was in Louisville's bullpen to limit his innings since he was a closer last season and was made a starter this year. Zach features a 93-97 MPH FB with heavy sink and run along with a plus slider and an above average change up. He too this point has never had an arm problem ever.

[Stanley]

Encarnacion had a bad wrist injury this year and has hit very well since he came back. He can't field, but even in left field or DH he has the power that the Jays could use. He did hit 26 bombs last year.

[Mark]

Rolen wanted to leave for "personal" reasons? In other words, he "personally" didn't want to be in Toronto! He should have waited a year. Things will be different when the GM is replaced.

[Ken in Kingston]

It's silly to bash JP for this move.

Rolen is getting on in his career and wanted to be closer to home. What's wrong with that?

The two pitchers JP got from the Reds look like decent talents, better than you'd have been expected. Taking Encarnacion off the Reds' hands was the price the Jays had to pay to make this trade work. Simple as that.

Let's hand JP for other things, but not for this trade. It was a good one for all concerned.

[Chris - Dayton, Oh]

I really wish people had to pass an I.Q. test before commenting here. It's H-A-L-L-A-D-A-Y people! You feel so compelled to whine and cry about this team, yet you can't spell the best player's name!? Holy hell!!! Then you expect me to respect your opinions on prospect pitchers?!?!

I understand that this is mostly the monkey army that Griffin riles up with his slanted reporting on Riccardi, but please attempt to sound intelligent when you're expressing your views in a forum that the whole world can see.

FACT - Riccardi is limited by ownership when it comes to acquisitions.

FACT - Vernon Well's contract was not a GM decision.

FACT - The Blue Jays are hamstrung when it comes to free agents because they're located in Canada.

Is Riccardi the best GM in baseball? Not by a long shot. However, he is in a very frustrating position, and my bet is he doesn't get fired from this job - he walks away after next year.

If you want to compare the Jays and Rays, consider this. If the Jays would have been as bad as the Rays were from 1998 - 2007, which resulted in the glut of talent the Rays now have, they would have been contracted. This team HAS to at least be a middling franchise, or they are at risk of relocation or contraction. Management was never in position to tear it all down. They still aren't.

This team will NEVER content until ownership ponies up the resources to do so. And that will probably never happen until you people start going back to the dome.....and learning how to spell the players' names wouldn't hurt either.

[Ash]

This is a Reality Check on how the Blue Jays attendance got to be what it is - sitting at 15,000 per game for many games.

It all started with Interbrew buying Labatt's.

Prior to that event, attendance used to be 54,000 per game, Pat Gillick was still the GM. Jays were spending as much or more than the Yankees. Mr. Gillick probably saw the future coming, went to Baltimore, and took Robbie Alomar with him. Robbie only had about another 7-10 years of great baseball left in him.

The future? That is when the salary budget started to be reduced. Just after a strike, for a team drawing 50,000+ per game, with recent championships in the hopper, the business decision was to reduce salary.

Let's look at the dollars: Conservatively, 50,000 minus 15,000 is 35,000 per game. If average ticket prices are $30 (this is low), that gives you $1,050,000 per game in lost ticket revenues alone = $85 million in ticket revenues alone per season. How would some of that look in the salary budget for the Jays now?

Interbrew destroyed baseball in Toronto. Now it is seen as a small market team. You mean, this is smaller than tiny Boston? Do people know the population of Boston and area? How is SWO smaller than that?

The attendance problem has been caused strictly by ownership. You devalue the product, you need to expect smaller crowds. And here is a forecast:

If current ownership does not start to invest heavily - in the NYY mode, they should forecast further declining attendance. Two years from now, 15,000 will appear large.

[Conn Smythe]

'This team will NEVER content until ownership ponies up the resources to do so. And that will probably never happen until you people start going back to the dome.....and learning how to spell the players' names wouldn't hurt either.'

Wow, Chris is Dayton, Ohio, you are just as smug and arrogant as JP is. Thanks for informing us dumb Canadians all about the game of baseball.

As for your comments above, if ownership wants fans to come to the games, it has to spend money. Bottom line. It doesn't work the other way around. Why would fans want to watch an inferior product when they can spens their entertainment dollars elsewhere?

[Ash]

Indeed, let's carry the analysis a little further, before we start to feel sorry for Rogers, the current owners of the Jays:

1. What's the salary budget? Going by memory, I heard $85M. In 1992-1994, it was already over $50M. That's fifteen to seventeen years ago. A 70% increase over fifteen years. Non compounded, that's 4.7% per year. Does that sound like a lot to you? It sounds like peanuts to me. Is 4.7% enough in the Sports Industry?

2. Rogers got an amazing deal on the purchase of the Skydome. Good for them. I just do not see their corressponding investment.

3. Every fan that does not go to watch the jays, feels this in their gut. Bluntly, Rogers, the message is - be in the NYY sphere, and when I know that you mean it, I will come back. Hey, it is your asset, not mine. Why should I make you richer than you already are, if you won't give me what I want - your investment.

4. I want you to retain your best players, and go after players in mid season. Then I will know you are investing to get me in the door. My time is my most valuable commodity, and I am not going to waste it where there is no hope - not live and not on TV.

5. I want to feel good when I support a team. I want to see them win consistently. Attachment to teams is emotional. When my team loses, I feel bad. That's OK for a while. For the Jays, that while elapsed a long time ago. Jays fans are normal humans, not masochists (dig intended). I have no "feeling bad" time left for the Jays. There are many other activities that make me feel good.