Shapiro: Lack of depth could make Blue Jays 'fragile'

[Spanky99]

Again where are you guys getting the money figures ?

 

It's the rumoured budget, there's nothing else to go off. This would be the initial budget going into April, who knows how much they can add in late July, this stuff has been noted on many occasions through media links, no one knows, nor should they.

[glory]

And out comes the retarded comparison to the Phillies. For this comparison to even start to make sense we'd have to sign a 3-4 win player, say Kevin Pillar, to a 5 year / 140M contract and then watch him become replacement level overnight like Ryan Howard. Until we at least get to that point I think we should relax with the Phillies stuff, who by the way, still had great players on great contracts (Utley, Rollins, Werth, Victorino were all good past 2011).

 

But then we'd have to hire Amaro to sign terrible guys in free agency and draft literally no one for a decade.

 

LOL. Yes, because AA didn't seem like the type who'd sign players to huge contracts, or trade his prospect base to acquire players with huge contracts. It's not like he had a history of doing it or anything. No way he would have re-signed Bautista and Edwin beyond 2016. It's not his style.

 

Give me a f'n break. If Amaro is a bad comparison, then Dombrowski. Same s***. It's not sustainable, unless he had 2 or 3 more DOnaldson trades in him.

[glory]

LaCava is next, Shapiro is taking over a terrible situation here.

 

It's amazing how I've done nothing but praise Shapiro and I'm suddenly just a hater. In the Gibbons thread, I said in April the guy had no clue how to use a bullpen, and everyone and their mother said I was crazy, only for "Gibby can't use a bullpen" to be a running theme towards the end of the season. Maybe I can see things with my eyes instead of my heart.

 

AA made one great trade (Donaldson) and he ended the playoff drought. THat doesn't mean the way he got there was the best for the organization. If you can't see that, then go root for the Red Sox and their great vision now under Dombrowski where you can geek out that they got Kimbrel's expensive contract for no reason.

[RealAccountant]

Would Shapiro want to win with a team AA put together ?

[saskjayfan]

It kind of sickens me that AA was able to leave the Jays as a hero despite what he's left the team with. I know, I know, he was the GM that ended the playoff drought. Top ten payroll and traded damn near the entire farm to do it and left the team with nothing in the upper minors and a core in their 30's. I'm glad Shapiro is here because he's smart enough not to let sentimental attachment dictate his decision making. This roster needs a retool, and thankfully he knows it. Try to win in 2016 while they have the window to compete, but don't sacrifice any more of the future to do it.

 

AA left this team with a season that generated 50 to 100 million more in revenues than the average of the last several years. It's no longer a theoretical model of what would happen to revenues if the team actually won. Next year revenues could be even higher. Corporate sponsorship and revenues negotiated for ads will be higher and if success is repeated the overall revenues will be higher with even higher attendance numbers. AA built a culture of a group of players who want to be here. We were able to sign Estrada for a reasonable contract because he loves it her. There are reports David Price's preferred team would be Toronto. That may be the first time in history that one of the top free agents has said, Toronto...that's really where I'd like to land. There are players like Estrada willing to give the home town discount because they love it here.

 

We have the reigning MVP who has 3 more years of Control. We have a legit number 2 maybe a number 1 in Stroman being paid league min. We're not in that bad of shape. We don't need sacrifice the future...all the pieces are here. We need to take all the money we made last year and invest it in a quality starter pitcher. It doesn't have to best, just one of the better arms out there. AA woke up a sleeping giant. Toronto is the 4th largest sports market in North America. The Jays are far more than just Toronto, they are Canada's team. We need to stop acting like we're cincinatti and play with the big dogs of baseball. We have a winning culture, the revenues are there and will continue to grow. Spend the money. I think that was AA's vision. People are completely missing the actual revenue generation from an actual playoff experience. Its importance in the future is completely down played by AA's detractors.

[Spanky99]

LOL. Yes, because AA didn't seem like the type who'd sign players to huge contracts, or trade his prospect base to acquire players with huge contracts. It's not like he had a history of doing it or anything. No way he would have re-signed Bautista and Edwin beyond 2016. It's not his style.

 

Give me a f'n break. If Amaro is a bad comparison, then Dombrowski. Same s***. It's not sustainable, unless he had 2 or 3 more DOnaldson trades in him.

 

AA had Bats and EE signed for f*** all contract extensions among others that seemed unfathomable, give the man credit.

[glory]

Like others, I have confidence in Shapiro going forward, especially because he's the team president and will set the vision for the franchise.

 

This I agree with. I've said before the team needed an entire organization face lift. Everyone from the Minors to the Majors needed to be on the same page and have the same vision. I'm far more confident that will be the case with Shapiro. The Jays are in good hands now. Whether it pans out is a different story.

[Spanky99]

Would Shapiro want to win with a team AA put together ?

 

Hnnngghhh..

[dineke]

LOL. Yes, because AA didn't seem like the type who'd sign players to huge contracts, or trade his prospect base to acquire players with huge contracts. It's not like he had a history of doing it or anything. No way he would have re-signed Bautista and Edwin beyond 2016. It's not his style.

 

Give me a f'n break. If Amaro is a bad comparison, then Dombrowski. Same s***. It's not sustainable, unless he had 2 or 3 more DOnaldson trades in him.

 

What huge contract did he hand out? Martin? And how is he similar to Dombrowski? I don't recall him giving 200 million dollar contracts to anyone. I'm not a huge AA fan but you're comparisons don't make any sense.

[Spanky99]

This I agree with. I've said before the team needed an entire organization face lift. Everyone from the Minors to the Majors needed to be on the same page and have the same vision. I'm far more confident that will be the case with Shapiro. The Jays are in good hands now. Whether it pans out is a different story.

 

Shapiro's not the GM, he'll sign off on what he agrees with. It's an excellent perk that he's a baseball exec, no doubt.

[saskjayfan]

They have a very good team in 2016 (barring some major injuries). After that? I don't want to be a team that makes the playoffs once or twice and then goes on another extended playoff drought. If there's a World Series celebration out of it, then fine, but the goal should still be to build a sustainable team. I think Shapiro took over at the right time because there's more than enough time to retool and be right back in good position in 2017 (whether Bautista/Edwin come back or not), but it will take a lot of work.

 

If this was "2013", and the Jays had 3 or 4 more years with this roster, then I'd be OK with it. The Jays practically had two months with this roster, and then 2016. That's it. Then Shapiro will have to go to work. It's doable, but it's not the great position everyone seems to think it is.

 

Billy Beane put together with almost nothing to start with that made the playoffs. In 2017 the Jays will still have this year's MVP for 2 more years and a legit number 2, maybe a number 1 in Stroman at next to nothing for pay. Those two players alone should be enough for a talented, creative GM to work with, not to mention position playing players Devon Travis and Kevin Pillar also providing 3+ wins a year at next to no pay. You're not the most creative baseball mind if you can't find a way in which the Jays could succeed in 2017.

[ElNik2013]

It's amazing how I've done nothing but praise Shapiro and I'm suddenly just a hater. In the Gibbons thread, I said in April the guy had no clue how to use a bullpen, and everyone and their mother said I was crazy, only for "Gibby can't use a bullpen" to be a running theme towards the end of the season. Maybe I can see things with my eyes instead of my heart.

 

AA made one great trade (Donaldson) and he ended the playoff drought. THat doesn't mean the way he got there was the best for the organization. If you can't see that, then go root for the Red Sox and their great vision now under Dombrowski where you can geek out that they got Kimbrel's expensive contract for no reason.

 

 

You are too focused on the GM position, AA in this instance. Owners or team presidents set visions for franchises and give their GM's mandates. AA's mandate was likely to make the playoffs at all cost, especially being in the last year of his contract and with the president who hired him on his way out.

 

Team's situation isn't as precarious going forward as you make it out to be. Yes, Shapiro has some work to do, but hey, he does have to do something, doesn't he?

He could decide to put Donaldson on the trade block and get a haul for him, or at least a young 3b, 2 young depth SP and a top SS prospect.

 

Objectively, AA took over a worse situation.

[RealAccountant]

Hnnngghhh..

 

That's hawt

[glory]

What huge contract did he hand out? Martin? And how is he similar to Dombrowski? I don't recall him giving 200 million dollar contracts to anyone. I'm not a huge AA fan but you're comparisons don't make any sense.

 

He traded two SS's with a combined nine years of control left so he could give Jose Reyes $96m over five years from ages 30-34. He spent years talking about building a staff of hard throwers who could strike guys out, only to send a shitload of prospect capital so he could pay $90m combined for Mark Buehrle from ages 34-36 and R.A. Dickey from ages 38-41 (and I like Buehrle). He valued defense and framing so little from the catcher position that he traded practically every catcher he had so that there was no one breathing behind JP Arencibia, only to spend $82m on Russell Martin two years later while having his media parrot the virtues of framing and defense (if only Yan Gomes and TDA displayed those characteristics).

 

On the other side of being a GM, he took two 20-year old's from A-ball with practically no innings under their belt and put them in the MLB bullpen to start the year rather than let them develop as starters. He let Pompey start the year in the Majors, only to deem him not ready after 3 weeks. He valued Aaron Sanchez so much that he jumped up 3 levels in a season despite not showing a single shred of performance to justify the promotions. And that's just this past season. Does that strike people as someone who has a flippin clue how to develop prospects?

 

And for the 100th time, AA was able to replenish the farm so quickly when he took over because he took advantage of a CBA that no longer exists. The Jays spent nearly $12m on the draft in 2010 and nearly $11m in 2011 (and that's without signing Tyler Beede). There are no more Type B free agents. There are now restrictions/penalties with international signings. He was not going to replenish this system as quickly as he did before.

 

This has gotten off course. I've said my peace about AA enough the past year. I'm just glad he's gone. I'm just telling everyone, don't blame Shapiro if things go sour in 2016 or 2017. What he said about depth and age is 100% correct. The team still has a shot in 2016, and I really hope it pans out, but if you want to sit there and say AA did a masterful job (other than a select few great moves like Donaldson), then I disagree completely.

[Spanky99]

He traded two SS's with a combined nine years of control left so he could give Jose Reyes $96m over five years from ages 30-34. He spent years talking about building a staff of hard throwers who could strike guys out, only to send a shitload of prospect capital so he could pay $90m combined for Mark Buehrle from ages 34-36 and R.A. Dickey from ages 38-41 (and I like Buehrle). He valued defense and framing so little from the catcher position that he traded practically every catcher he had so that there was no one breathing behind JP Arencibia, only to spend $82m on Russell Martin two years later while having his media parrot the virtues of framing and defense (if only Yan Gomes and TDA displayed those characteristics).

 

On the other side of being a GM, he took two 20-year old's from A-ball with practically no innings under their belt and put them in the MLB bullpen to start the year rather than let them develop as starters. He let Pompey start the year in the Majors, only to deem him not ready after 3 weeks. He valued Aaron Sanchez so much that he jumped up 3 levels in a season despite not showing a single shred of performance to justify the promotions. And that's just this past season. Does that strike people as someone who has a flippin clue how to develop prospects?

 

And for the 100th time, AA was able to replenish the farm so quickly when he took over because he took advantage of a CBA that no longer exists. The Jays spent nearly $12m on the draft in 2010 and nearly $11m in 2011 (and that's without signing Tyler Beede). There are no more Type B free agents. There are now restrictions/penalties with international signings. He was not going to replenish this system as quickly as he did before.

 

This has gotten off course. I've said my peace about AA enough the past year. I'm just glad he's gone. I'm just telling everyone, don't blame Shapiro if things go sour in 2016 or 2017. What he said about depth and age is 100% correct. The team still has a shot in 2016, and I really hope it pans out, but if you want to sit there and say AA did a masterful job (other than a select few great moves like Donaldson), then I disagree completely.

 

You've misinterpreted alot of people, again.

[GoJays]

would shapiro want to win with a team aa put together ?

 

wtf

[Spanky99]

A wall of text, of nothing we've heard or interpreted in the past.

[dineke]

He traded two SS's with a combined nine years of control left so he could give Jose Reyes $96m over five years from ages 30-34. He spent years talking about building a staff of hard throwers who could strike guys out, only to send a shitload of prospect capital so he could pay $90m combined for Mark Buehrle from ages 34-36 and R.A. Dickey from ages 38-41 (and I like Buehrle). He valued defense and framing so little from the catcher position that he traded practically every catcher he had so that there was no one breathing behind JP Arencibia, only to spend $82m on Russell Martin two years later while having his media parrot the virtues of framing and defense (if only Yan Gomes and TDA displayed those characteristics).

 

On the other side of being a GM, he took two 20-year old's from A-ball with practically no innings under their belt and put them in the MLB bullpen to start the year rather than let them develop as starters. He let Pompey start the year in the Majors, only to deem him not ready after 3 weeks. He valued Aaron Sanchez so much that he jumped up 3 levels in a season despite not showing a single shred of performance to justify the promotions. And that's just this past season. Does that strike people as someone who has a flippin clue how to develop prospects?

 

And for the 100th time, AA was able to replenish the farm so quickly when he took over because he took advantage of a CBA that no longer exists. The Jays spent nearly $12m on the draft in 2010 and nearly $11m in 2011 (and that's without signing Tyler Beede). There are no more Type B free agents. There are now restrictions/penalties with international signings. He was not going to replenish this system as quickly as he did before.

 

This has gotten off course. I've said my peace about AA enough the past year. I'm just glad he's gone. I'm just telling everyone, don't blame Shapiro if things go sour in 2016 or 2017. What he said about depth and age is 100% correct. The team still has a shot in 2016, and I really hope it pans out, but if you want to sit there and say AA did a masterful job (other than a select few great moves like Donaldson), then I disagree completely.

 

Woah there, everybody knows you hate AA and your reasons for it(basically 100% of your posts) so I don't need an essay on it tyvm. I asked how does your comparisons of AA to Amaro and Dombrowski make sense and you proceeded to list his bad moves which we've all discussed already.

[GoJays]

AA left this team with a season that generated 50 to 100 million more in revenues than the average of the last several years. It's no longer a theoretical model of what would happen to revenues if the team actually won. Next year revenues could be even higher. Corporate sponsorship and revenues negotiated for ads will be higher and if success is repeated the overall revenues will be higher with even higher attendance numbers. AA built a culture of a group of players who want to be here. We were able to sign Estrada for a reasonable contract because he loves it her. There are reports David Price's preferred team would be Toronto. That may be the first time in history that one of the top free agents has said, Toronto...that's really where I'd like to land. There are players like Estrada willing to give the home town discount because they love it here.

 

We have the reigning MVP who has 3 more years of Control. We have a legit number 2 maybe a number 1 in Stroman being paid league min. We're not in that bad of shape. We don't need sacrifice the future...all the pieces are here. We need to take all the money we made last year and invest it in a quality starter pitcher. It doesn't have to best, just one of the better arms out there. AA woke up a sleeping giant. Toronto is the 4th largest sports market in North America. The Jays are far more than just Toronto, they are Canada's team. We need to stop acting like we're cincinatti and play with the big dogs of baseball. We have a winning culture, the revenues are there and will continue to grow. Spend the money. I think that was AA's vision. People are completely missing the actual revenue generation from an actual playoff experience. Its importance in the future is completely down played by AA's detractors.

 

Everything you say is true and if the Canadian dollar was even 90 cents i would agree Rogers would spend but 140 mil US is somewhere around 180 mil. So spending 140 mil is very fair.

[saskjayfan]

Everything you say is true and if the Canadian dollar was even 90 cents i would agree Rogers would spend but 140 mil US is somewhere around 180 mil. So spending 140 mil is very fair.

 

It's true the dollar hurts. I would guess they've hedged some of that currency risk on some of the existing contracts. I wish I could say that the dollar was going to rebound soon, but I doubt that will happen soon.

[BigRed]

They have a very good team in 2016 (barring some major injuries). After that? I don't want to be a team that makes the playoffs once or twice and then goes on another extended playoff drought. If there's a World Series celebration out of it, then fine, but the goal should still be to build a sustainable team. I think Shapiro took over at the right time because there's more than enough time to retool and be right back in good position in 2017 (whether Bautista/Edwin come back or not), but it will take a lot of work.

 

If this was "2013", and the Jays had 3 or 4 more years with this roster, then I'd be OK with it. The Jays practically had two months with this roster, and then 2016. That's it. Then Shapiro will have to go to work. It's doable, but it's not the great position everyone seems to think it is.

 

You're kind of ignoring the fact that payroll was terrible and I don't even think the past owners before Rogers knew what baseball was. Once AA was brought in the team was fast tracked to success. It got derailed in year 3 with a ton of injuries and setbacks that nobody imagined would have happened all at once, but that teams was the odds-in WS favourite. Rogers appears content to commit 120-140M in salary right now (and who knows, maybe more in the future) and they have a good management group. Maybe there's a streak of no playoffs for a couple years, but I don't think you're going to see 20 years of literally no meaningful September baseball, especially with the expanded wildcard.

[Governator]

http://i.imgur.com/wVXpOiv.gif

[GeorgiaPeach]

Again where are you guys getting the money figures ? There is ample room for Shapiro , as far as him taking over a s*** situation , you are wrong . AA was a damn good gm you can't fault a gm who traded prospects and good players (that the jays drafted and developed) for assets to win now , a good gm knows that's the key winning and he had straight up told us that was his plan , WHY DO YOU THINK HE DRAFTED PITCHERS WITH SO MUCH VIGOUR?

 

I'd take the Cards, Houston or Cubs way of building their organization over the Jays. And wouldn't think twice about it.

[Spanky99]

I'd take the Cards, Houston or Cubs way of building their organization over the Jays. And wouldn't think twice about it.

 

This goes without saying.

[Spanky99]

The Jays were on that road, we'll see how the new regime will going forward.

[Followthelight]

Thanks AA.

[JFD]

at least he know's it's a problem. now do something about it!

[baloojayz]

Does this mean 3 X Jesse Chavez instead of 1 David Price?

[puphood]

Everything you say is true and if the Canadian dollar was even 90 cents i would agree Rogers would spend but 140 mil US is somewhere around 180 mil. So spending 140 mil is very fair.

Your point is well taken that the cost is high but that contracted player when signed and resides in Toronto for 6 months is making 30% on his expenses so actually Estrada is pretty smart.

[Jimcanuck]

Your point is well taken that the cost is high but that contracted player when signed and resides in Toronto for 6 months is making 30% on his expenses so actually Estrada is pretty smart.

 

Living expense for 6 months in Toronto is miniscule compared to $15.8M salary. Isn't a factor whatsoever for Estrada. For league min guys, for sure.