Money and Meaning

It's a weird scenario.

Let's say the Blue Jays look at the Oakland Athletics and desire to be just like them after watching Billy Beane's club wildly celebrate a totally unexpected and totally thrilling divisional title yesterday.

First thing, to mimic the A's, would be to slash the payroll. By about 25 per cent. The A's won the AL West with the second lowest payroll in the sport, about $55 million, while the Jays had arguably the worst season in team history with $74 million-plus spent on players.

Weird, but the A's knocked off Texas, a team with more than twice the payroll. Also weird that a few teams - take the Minnesota Twins and their $94 million payroll or Miami and their whopping $118 million payroll - spent significantly more than the Jays and got nowhere with it. The Washington Nationals are in the post-season after having spent about $6 million more than the Jays. So what does that mean?

So it's not JUST about money, just like this lost season wasn't JUST about injuries. There's about 500 variables here.

But somewhere in all of this is an awkward truth, and that is that one of those variables is the politics of the individual cities, the way in which the marketplace feels about the local squad, the optics of what the team does, doesn't do, has done and hasn't done.

Here in Toronto, Rogers faces a hard-to-shake perception that it hasn't spend enough on players to put a winning team on the field. When you're 23trd in the majors in payroll and you've had the kind of disappointing season the jays have just had, that perception becomes stronger, particularly in a city where attendance and TV numbers are up.

So the answer, clearly, is that the Jays must spend, even if they don't want to and have nothing really of impact to spend on.

Spend they must.

One is left to wonder - and it's clearly with loads of hindsight - whether if they were to do it all again the ballclub would have gone much, much harder after Yu Darvish, who has proven (so far) to have been a sound investment for the Rangers last summer.

GM Alex Anthopoulos has never said what the Jays bid, but sources suggest it was about $15-20 million, not remotely competitive with the $51.7 million the Rangers ponied up for the young right-handed power pitcher.

Clearly the Jays didn't want to aggressively be in that market, and they have their reasons and policies. But imagine if they had. They'd have a pitcher with lots of future and would have been able to silence the doubters that proclaim Rogers won't spend even if the 2012 season hadn't gone well.

Heck, imagine if they'd fallen a hair short of landing Darvish and let the world know about it. Again, perceptions would have been changed.

Now, they face an off-season with greater pressure to spend - $100 million seems to be the number, which would put them close to the top 10 - without a Darvish or anything close to spend on.

But the politics and perceptions of the market say spend they must, without much guarantee at all it will get them anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Mark]

Ah the infamous small market baseball team that wins example. There's always one nearby when someone needs to argue payroll isn't a problem or a cap isn't needed, isn't there? Its been the Rays, and now its the A's. But add up all the teams that have had a Rays/A's level payroll in the last 10 years, and all the ones with a 100 million+ payroll, and count the percentage of playoff teams. Count the cumulative win/loss. There are always outliers,and it is certainly possible to win with less. But its harder to do and harder to sustain. I'm not a fan of spending for its own sake. Being a smart small market means never walking from the right deal because of money. It doesn't mean spending because you promised to spend and so and so is all that's available. But arguing that spending is irrelevant to winning is even dumber than arguing that we should spend just because we can.

[Roger McCalmont]

As so aptly said spending does not guarantee a winner. The Jays should go back to the system they used before Interbrew bought the team & messed with the future of a potential dynasty. Load the minor league teams with talent at both the player & coaching levels. If the farm system produces only 1 or 2 players per year the likes of Cal Ripken or Wade Boggs that will be all that is needed to spark a competitive MLB club.
The trick is for the scouting crew to spot the potential, not just in numbers but in heart.

[Jeff]

Both Minnesota and Oakland have teams that play to the dimensions of their stadium. They both employ a defensive system based on fundamentals. Perhaps the Jays should consider movig the fences back and get away from the long ball mentality. Boston and the Yankees will always have guys who hit more homeruns.

[Louis March]

Spending money is not the main problem with the Blue Jays. It is more to do with the quality of player and effort that they get for their spent dollars.Player's performance levels seem to tail off once they arrive in Toronto, or the coaching staff is not able to get the best from them. Look at the players who replaced the injured players this year....not many stepped up and impressed. They all have potential but not much wa demonstrated on the field. The Jays need scouts and coaches that can beetr assess true talent instead of potential talent.