Toronto Blue Jays fans are staring another long-term building project straight in the face, and the equivalent of the ground-breaking ceremony takes place when pitchers and catchers report to Dunedin, Florida for spring training this Monday.
That means two things: the verdict is in on the J.P. Ricciardi era, and the page has been turned. It turns out the general manager and the slick-talking moneyball apologist from Worcester, Massachusetts never could deliver on his promise of building a team that would compete with the big boys of pro baseball. Many among the armies of his detractors no doubt found great vindication when team president Paul Beeston dismissed him on the second-last day of the regular season.
Ship Blue Jay will now be captained by Alex Anthopoulos, Ricciardi’s long-time assistant GM. Young enough to have very recently graduated from U of T had he not gone to McMaster, his baseball background is as non-traditional as they come: when he was in his early twenties, he phoned Expos GM Jim Beattie out of the blue and begged for any job in baseball. Answering fan mail led to writing scouting reports “just for fun,” and soon he was a highly-regarded baseball man. He now holds the destiny of his country’s only remaining professional team firmly in his hands.
What will probably be remembered as Anthopoulos’s most significant decision has already been made. In December 2009, he pulled the trigger on a deal that sent long-time Jays ace Roy Halladay to the Philadelphia Phillies, and in doing so he brought back two players who will invariably be cornerstones of any future Jays success. One piece of the puzzle is Kyle Drabek, an electric young pitcher ranked the 17th best prospect in all of baseball. Another is Brett Wallace, who actually did not come from the Phillies—the Phils sent the Jays Michael Taylor, who they then instantaneously flipped to Oakland for Wallace. Wallace ranks one slot ahead of Drabek and promises to be a corner infielder capable of smashing the ball in a way that’s almost scary. High-ceiling catching prospect Travis D’Arnaud also came over from Philadelphia, though he won’t be in the big leagues as soon as the others.
The Jays glide into 2010 knowing they won’t be competing. They bring with them lame-duck manager Cito Gaston, who faced open criticism from nearly every single one of his players at the end of last season. Gaston has only one year left on his contract and there are probably fewer than a dozen intelligent baseball people outside of the Jays brass who honestly believe it makes even a little bit of sense to let him lead the team this year. It isn’t likely that Anthopoulos and company believe in Gaston, but he is the apple of the fan base’s eye, and cutting him loose, for all the baseball sense it makes, would be a PR disaster.
One of the season’s biggest stories will be the starting rotation. The only thing that’s predictable is that there will be season-long change. Consider the list of players who could crack the rotation out of spring training: Shaun Marcum, Brad Mills, Brett Cecil, Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, Robert Rae, Marc Rzepczynski, and Scott Richmond. There’s a good chance that everyone on that list will get a shot at starting at least once during 2010, but who actually sticks in the big leagues could be key to determining how soon—and if—the Jays will be able to contend for the playoffs.
Which leads to the question of how long the Jays’ eternally waiting fan base will have to wait this time for a shot at October baseball. The top tier of prospects, led by Drabek and Wallace, should be making a splash in the majors by 2012, so 2012-2015 seems the most likely window for success.
One source of hope for Jays fans can be drawn from the words of team president Paul Beeston (who led a year-long search committee as interim president to name himself the permanent one). He has consistently said that when the team is ready to compete, ownership will provide them with the financial resources to do so. That’s to say that as this crop of elite prospects matures, they will be supplemented with top-notch free agents to fill in the missing pieces.
But a final word of warning to those who were so visceral in their disdain for the long-gone Ricciardi and took such pleasure in his dismissal: if Anthopoulos is to enjoy any success at all as GM, it will be on the strength of the foundation left by his erstwhile boss. Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Travis Snider, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Brad Mills: all likely key parts of a playoff-bound Jays team, and all Ricciardi’s draft picks. That, above all else, could be the greatest reason to hope.
