If casual baseball fans were searching for clues as to how the Toronto Blue Jays have fared this season, they wouldn’t have to look much further than the fact that the sole Jay selected for the All Star Game in New York is Roy Halladay.
A perennial candidate for the Cy Young Award, Halladay has been consistent in his ability to give the Jays a chance to win. Despite his best efforts, the past several seasons have been characterized by team-wide underachievement, untimely injuries, and a revolving door of excuses and ‘wait-til-next-years’ given by the front office.
This door is about to come to an abrupt stop, however, with general manager J.P. Ricciardi caught in the middle.
After seven years of respectable results (such as building a .500 club on a lower payroll than divisional rivals Red Sox and Yankees), Ricciardi seems to have run out of rope, and his only hope is a late season surge by the sub-.500 Jays. This year was supposed to be the year, but on-field losses have translated to the overall failure of Ricciardi’s master plan.
Riccardi has done little to stay on board until his contract expires in 2010, and he has always maximized expectations while downplaying the importance of not meeting them. In the past few seasons, he orchestrated a handful of public relation disasters that have undermined fans’ interest in the Blue Jays brand and their confidence in Ricciardi’s ability to deliver a winner on the field.
The most glaring offense came early last season when, after admitting that he lied to the media about the nature and extent of closer BJ Ryan’s elbow injury, Ricciardi tried to downplay his deception.
Ryan went on to have season-ending Tommy John surgery, as Ricciardi was vilified for disrespecting fans.
An uglier example of Riccardi’s tendency to say the wrong thing happened in June when he answered a fan’s question on Mike Wilner’s radio show about the Jays’ potential interest in acquiring Reds slugger Adam Dunn. A very frustrated Ricciardi went into a tirade, claiming that the Jays had ‘done [their] homework on Dunn’ and discovered that he ‘didn’t even like baseball’.
The outburst received considerable media attention and was subjected to a sharp rebuke from Dunn who dismissed Ricciardi as a ‘clown’ whom he didn’t even recognize by name. After Ricciardi’s remarks, Dunn, a free agent after this season, ignored the possibility of playing in Toronto.
Ricciardi was caught in even more drama after the firing of long-time personal friend and Jays manager John Gibbons, despite his statement that ‘Gibby’ had the ability to lead the team to the playoffs. It was suggested to Toronto baseball writers that President and CEO Paul Godfrey chose to remove Gibbons, which if true, would show a blatant lack of Ricciardi’s authority. Ricciardi claimed the decision was his, and that he is happy with current manager Cito Gaston.
With a background in politics and a keen eye for public perception, Godfrey must know that fans have almost completely lost patience with Ricciardi. Given Godfrey’s mandate to deliver high attendance figures and black bottom lines, it is difficult to imagine that he will be the one to throw Ricciardi a lifeline for next year as the team limps through the dog days of another wasted summer.
