An interesting piece by our old friend Rich Griffin in yesterday's Star deserves a few comments (none of them venomous). Griffin spoke with Paul Godfrey, who said there'd be no salary dump trades at the end of July and that the Jays would be pushing hard for a balanced schedule in future.

Griffin took from this that Shannon Stewart won't be dealt at the deadline, but I don't think one can assume that. Salary dumps have nothing to do with Shannon, who's on a one-year contract and who will unquestionably be playing elsewhere next season. By contrast, Raul Mondesi and Alex Gonzalez, underperformers locked into long-term deals, were salary dumps of the highest order. Stewart will leave the team in July if he can bring good value in return; if not, he'll be allowed to walk out the same door through which Jose Cruz Jr. strode last winter.

Will there be good value available at the trading deadline? I'd say so. Shannon is a very established quantity: a .300-hitting, .370-on-basing leadoff hitter with sneaky power and the capacity to steal 30 bases a season. Yes, his defence is average at best, but when was the last time a team dealt for a veteran glove down the stretch? Some still think that had Pat Gillick ponied up the price to acquire Stewart in a recent pennant race or two, the Mariners might have rings on their fingers (Freddy Garcia notwithstanding, I suppose), and the Jays might have yet another young arm in their stable.

Thanks to the wild card, more teams than ever are in the hunt at playoff time, including some for whom the clock is ticking -- they need to win now, because they can sense the lean years directly ahead. Shannon could well be one of the top bats available at the trading deadline, and that will not go unnoticed around the league. The extra twist is Kelvim Escobar, whose trade value was approximately 25 Rawlings a month ago, but who seems to have found new life as he approaches a return to the rotation. Many teams have been eyeing Escobar's talent for quite a while now, and if Kelvim flashes even hints of his dominant potential over the next couple of months, his name will be on some shopping lists too.

So barring misfortune, the Blue Jays should reap some return from their impending free agents -- but let's not get crazy excited about it. Rent-a-player deals rarely involve an exchange of top-tier talent, except for the occasional Jeff Bagwell accident. If the Twins are in the hunt in July and come calling, don't expect Justin Morneau to be winging his way to Pearson. Scott Rolen went to the Cards last summer for Placido Polanco and the collected press clippings of Bud Smith, and the Jays have no Scott Rolens available. But it's worth adding that the Phillies, largely through their own doing, had but one team with which to negotiate. If the Jays can encourage a bidding war or two among pennant contenders, the stakes could rise.

Paul Godfrey also talks about his strong desire to change the unbalanced schedule. A couple of years ago, baseball went (back) to an unbalanced schedule, whereby teams played opponents in their own division more often than they did teams in other divisions or the opposite league. The thought was that division champions should prove themselves against teams in their own division. Nice idea -- except the wild card playoff system takes the legs out from under it. There's been talk recently of ditching the unbalanced schedule, and Godfrey -- who I suspect is a bigger player in baseball's ownership circles than he likes to let on -- is front and centre in that effort.

Godfrey's motivation seems pretty clear: with extra games against the Yankees and Red Sox, the Jays are constantly facing off against the two richest teams in baseball, and are constantly at a competitive disadvantage. This would also be a nice idea -- except that the unbalanced schedule also gives the Jays extra games against the Orioles and Devil Rays, which is like having your birthday 18 times a year (or would be if Tampa would trade Joe Kennedy...). I'm not really sure how much attendance figures into the argument -- the Yanks and Sox draw exceedingly well at Skydome, of course, but the O's and Rays are as good as a SARS warning for bringing people out. I think it's a wash.

To my mind, the problem with the Yanks and Red Sox isn't that Toronto plays them more often -- it's that their payroll (and, to be fair, their acumen) virtually guarantees that no other AL East team can make the playoffs. Of course, that hasn't stopped the low-budget A's and Twins from winning titles and wild-card entries in their own divisions. So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, as it often is.