Well, there he goes again. Love him or hate him, JP Ricciardi was always a good quote. Wednesdays with JP on the Fan 590 were interesting because JP would speak his mind. Sometimes that was good and sometimes it got him into trouble. On Friday last JP spoke with WEEI in Boston and he had some things to say about three of the Jays top relievers. He had praise for one and he slammed another. And he also had a couple of teasers of trades not made. Can you figure out who he is talking about?
Lets start with the relievers. There are differing opinions of the trade market for relievers. Buster Olney thinks the market is terrible. But Ed Price reports that both the Yankees and Red Sox are interested in Scott Downs. JP Ricciardi was asked which Blue Jay reliever the Sox should target.
Well if you are asking me to put Theo’s hat on for a minute — and not speaking for him, but just evaluating — I would think [Scott] Downs would be at the top of the list to me, personally. He gets right-handers out. He gets left-handers out. He can give you an inning and two-thirds, even two innings at a time. [Jason] Frasor to me, he would be the least of the guys. The tighter the situation, the worse he pitches. I would be a little worried about that. And as far as [Kevin] Gregg goes, I don’t know if he’s a guy who could pitch outside of that closer role. They obviously have a closer, and they all come with a price tag.
That's quite the slam on Jason Frasor. And a little shot at Gregg, but Downs appears to be target number one and the player who could bring back the most in value.
There was a report I saw earlier, forget the source now, that said Colorado could be interested in Gregg.
So if we were to estimate the chances of an trade it looks like Downs - 75%; Gregg - 50%; Frasor - 20%.
Here is a cryptic JP comment, can you figure out who he is talking about? Was this Carlos Delgado?
We’ve also had players, this is another big-name player that I can’t mention right now, but that had a chance to go to the Red Sox the year they won the World Series in ’04 and he exercised his no-trade clause. He had a chance to play on a World Series team, but he didn’t want to opt out of his no trade, so that’s the other thing that happened at the trade deadline. A lot of guys have no-trades and you go to them and say, “Hey, we have an opportunity to move you, would you be interested.” “Let me know what team it is.” And you come back with a team and then they sit their for 24 hours and say, “No, I am not interested.”'
And another one about a trade not made.
I can’t say monumental, there has been enough stories of really come close and not pull things off on just different types of players. But I had a trade done a couple of years ago where the trade was finalized, I won’t mention the players, but a pretty prominent player. Had him traded, everything was all set, told the president this is what we are trying to do, kept him in the loop. I went back, already signed off with the team, I said, I’ll just get right back to finalize, let me run it by my president.
I went and told the president and the president told me, You know what, I’m a really big fan of that guy, and I think the fans are, too. I think if we trade him, we’re really going to catch it. And I said, OK, it’s your call. I said I recommend we do this, but he said no, and we didn’t trade him and the guy we could have traded him for is absolutely tearing it up right now. So, that’s why you can’t be a fan when you make those choices.
The full transcript is here.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20100719154341304