Although Rogers did not specify the amount of the new payroll, it appears that he has approved the specific proposal from Godfrey and Ricciardi.  So, what was that proposal?  Godfrey won't say, but Jeff Blair says the figure could be as high as $100-million.   Or at least that's the "blue-sky" figure that the executives were looking at.   Wouldn't that be nice?

     Here is the link:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060906.ROGERS06/TPStory/TPSports/Baseball/

 I don't know when Gibbons decided Downs was a LOOGY. Is he under the impression that guys named Scott should only pitch to lefties? Downs is neither dominating against lefties (.253 average) nor ineffective against righties (.264 average), and he's perfectly capable of pitching multiple innings at a time. Jeremy Accardo is more of  LOOGY than Downs, with lefties hitting .204 and righties hitting .292.

  I remember when Gibbons took over from Tosca, and his bullpen management seemed so rational and restrained. What the hell happened, Gibby? You've got a lefty up, followed by a righty, then another lefty. Even if you insist on using Downs as a LOOGY, why not let him pitch to Garko, even if it's only to walk him, so he can face Choo?

  I liked Gibbons, but it seems like he's getting worse with experience.

Roy decided to get some strikeouts, and racked up 9 over his 7 innings

I watched on and off last night but the strike zone appeared to be huge.

Throughout the 7th inning various Blue Jays relievers were announced to be warming up (me Grimlock counted four) by the scoreboard. Though many callers to Wilner took issue with pulling Halladay, me Grimlock had no problem with that -- he had started to miss his spots, falling behind, getting a lot of 3-ball counts. He looked tired. However, the decision to pull Downs was a real head-scratcher (given all the guys who were warmed up, me Grimlock remarked, "Does he intend to have 3 guys get 3 outs here?), as was the one to leave Accardo in as he imploded. Hell, he didn't even pull him right after the grand slam! It took a hard-hit single to pull him.

It was a surreal 1996 Cito-esque moment when he finally did pull Accardo. It reminded me Grimlock of the Woody Williams Game. This one guy in our section started chanting "FIRE GIBBONS." He was alone for a few minutes, but he kept at it, and by the time the inning ended, he had guys hitting chairs and chanting along with him. Maybe it wasn't that many people, but with the crowd dead silent in the 9th, me Grimlock never expected to hear the chants in stereo sound.

Lastly, what's the deal with fans who get up to go home, on a 3-2 count, with the tying run on 3rd with one out in the 8th? Me Grimlock completely missed the tying run because of these numbskulls who have NO knowledge of the game. Would you get up to leave during a breakaway at a Leafs game? ME GRIMLOCK SMASH!

"This is nothing new," Selig said. "Those three teams have complained in the past. (Red Sox G.M.) Theo Epstein said (recently) that (the Sox) can't compete with the Yankees. I guess you can say there are four teams saying how difficult it is."

Selig, however, said he isn't going to realign the divisions to mollify the Jays, Orioles and Rays; no other team would want to play in the A.L. East. Nor is Selig going to abandon his cherished unbalanced schedule, which requires the A.L. East also-rans to play nearly one-fourth of their games against the Yankees and Red Sox.

The solution, Selig says, is to tweak the revenue-sharing formulas "as much as humanly possible" to give teams such as the Jays the best possible chance. The game's cyclical nature also should help, though Ricciardi said that the Yankees and Red Sox are eliminating potential down cycles with their mammoth payrolls.

Next year's bullpen:  Ryan, Accardo, League, Tallet, Downs, McGowan, Rosario, Towers, Speier?

Potential callups: Taubenheim, Janssen

Unless there is a lot of off season moves, I don't know how adding an additional bullpen arm is feasable.  The only one on the major league roster with options left is Accardo......League might have one, but I'm sure he'll be on the roster full time next year.

The bullpen actually has some depth....SS does not.

Baseball has been played for over 100 years, and there use to be a time when pitchers would throw 280+ innings in a season/130+ pitches in a game.

  I don't have an answer to this, but the examples people always bring up seem to be "Juan Marichal did this," or "Nolan Ryan used to do it all the time", which doesn't really mean a lot - if everyone could do the things Hall of Famers did, they wouldn't be Hall of Famers. If you go through the innings leaders at baseball-reference, you get a lot of elite, hall of fame pitchers, and a lot of guys whose careers were effectively over by the time they were 30.

  I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to be found in pitch counts or innings, but it's not as simple as "why cant' everyone be more like Walter Johnson."

This looks an awful lot like the bullpen this year. Wait a minute, it IS the bullpen this year. And its been well-documented how bad they have been. Remember, way back, oh....last night....it happens every night.

The Jays pen has been pretty average.  7th out of 30 in OPS allowed, 17th out of 30 in ERA despite pitching a lot of innings.  And the pen only has 11 losses, the second-fewest in all of baseball.

Next year's bullpen:  Ryan, Accardo, League, Tallet, Downs, McGowan, Rosario, Towers, Speier?

Funny, I only see 3 guys who were with the team all year.  How are they responsible for all the team's bullpen issues?

The main problem hasn't been the bullpen.  They've been league average.  It's been the fourth and fifth starters.

However, the rotation for next year may not be so bad:

Halladay, Burnett, XXXX, Chacin, Marcum    Spares: Towers, Janssen, Taubenheim

As long as they get a good 3rd starter, and experience less injuries/ meltdowns they may be ok.  Of course, getting a high end starter may be an issue.  Finding someone as good or better than Lilly (who I am sure is not staying) without really overpaying will be difficult.

Interesting to hear that analysis, Ken, and it leads me to wonder whether the likes of Chien-Ming Wang (and the low-K 2006 version of Doc) are the way of the future. 

As plate discipline and power become indispensable even to 8- and 9-hole hitters, the ability of pitchers to coax outs on pitches in the strike zone -- i.e., the ability to induce groundballs and not to get hit hard -- while economizing on pitch counts may well be the prototype for the rotation ace circa 2010.

That's why general manager J.P. Ricciardi says it would take a special case to make him do it again.

"One really worked well for us, one didn't," he said. "I think we probably wouldn't jump into them as fast as we have in the past, so we would be very selective in who we did it with.

"In the Hinske case, that money kind of locked us a bit and we weren't able to go forward so I think we're probably more inclined to go year-to-year with most people."

I don't know about this one.  Looks like JP is a little hesitant to lock young players up long term.  I don't understand that line of thinking.  He had one case that was worst case scenario, and one that was best case.....and overall I think he still saved more money than had they gone year to year with both of these guys.  Seems like a mistake if you ask me.

Here's the full article (although there isn't much else interesting to add):

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/Toronto/2006/09/06/1807842-cp.html

Right now if I were JP I would do the following:

Overbay: sign for two years

Johnson: sign for two years

Rios: let him have another strong year, and then decide.  Still not sure if this is a legit growth year.

Hill:  wait another year

WWJP

- Talked about the reality of the payroll situation in the AL East. It’s very hard to compete with only a 70 million dollar payroll. Mentioned how the average payroll in the AL is 85 million.

- When asked about the danger of having more money to spend but blowing it like Isiah Thomas, JP jokingly said “Ouch”. He said he’s still going to be careful of who he signs. He mentioned how last off-season he made a lot of moves in which the players were brought in for several seasons instead of just one.

- Will not spend 7 or 8 million on a mediocre pitcher

- Believes Curtis Thigpen will be a good hitter, although he won’t have as much power as Lind.

- Wants to bring the Cat back

- Doc told Gibby he was “gassed” after the 7th inning yesterday. That’s why you didn’t see him come out in the 8th.

- Feels like the farm system has produced

- Still believes in Russ Adams

- Will most likely know about the payroll increase before the World Series.

Young was a dead weight since the injury, and I have not understood why Thames would have seen so much benchtime during the second half.

Young's been far from a dead weight since he got oft the DL.  Dimitri Young's line since coming off the DL / rehab: .300 /.339 /.518, with 7 homers in 110 ABs.  Young's release was probably not performance related.

And another question I have is, every scout from here to Minsk knew Russ has a brutal arm and fringe range

50% of baseball fans will say that Derek Jeter has a brutal arm and fringe range. (Likewise, 50% will say he's the greatest defensive shortstop in the history of baseball).

When GMs draft hitters that they hope to be sluggers, they don't look alot at their power numbers as we've all heard "the power will come later". So it's my understanding that they look at the build of the player, how he moves, mechanics, and athletic ability. So when they drafted Adams, I'm sure they were looking more for his athletic ability than his arm strength--arm strength being something that could be improved over time. They took the best athlete, which I totally agree with.

Problem was that they're having a hell of a time improving his arm strength and accuracy.

---------

JP will not spend 7-8 million dollars on a mediocre pitcher

Once we can identify what JP's definition of mediocre is, I think this is early evidence of a plan to make a pitch for Schmidt or Zito. Either that, or nothing at all. I'd hate to give Gil Meche 8 million dollars a season.

2002 draft, JP's first, produced Adams (a disappointment), Dave Bush (soild starter, flipped for Overbay) and Adam Peterson (flipped for Hillenbrand, flipped for Accardo).  2003 draft,  Hill (I like him) and Marcum (I like him, too) were two of the first three picks.  Banks ran into problems in AAA this year, still might be useful out of the pen down the road.  Vermilyea looks like a useful 'pen member, and Mastny was flipped for John McDonald.  2004 draft, Jackson part of the Overbay trade, Thigpen looking like a useful catcher in a year or two, Adam Lind looking ready for 2007, Janssen helped for a while this year...

I don't think these can be characterized as horrible drafts.  Look at the Yankees draft from 2002, 2003 (Eric Duncan the notable exception).  Melky Cabrera was signed as an amateur free agent by the Yanks in 2001, and Wang was signed as an amateur free agent in 2000.  The comparison just doesn't work as a criticism against the Jays.

 Even two years after the 2002 draft, BA still liked it. As John Manuel said in this chat: "Still, I think the '02 draft will yield an everyday player in Adams, two solid relievers in Maureau and Peterson, and possibly two big league starting pitchers in Bush and either Pleiness or Leonard."

Given the increased payroll it doesn't matter too much to the Jays, but it's interesting to look at from Rios' agent's point of view. If the Jays come calling and say "We want to lock up the biggest question mark in the AL East for three or four years," he's probably thinking, Jackpot, but how much can he milk the Jays for? This is such a fascinatingly unique situation (is there anything similar that would serve as a precedent?).

Don't know.  I think Eddie Guardado signed a long-term deal before he emerged as a top closer, and in a year where he had missed time due to injury, but he was more experienced than Rios was.

Brandon Webb signed a long-term deal (3 years plus an option) in June of '04, but unlike Rios he had performed extremely well from the start and wasn't hurt (just wasn't winning).  They have since ripped that one up and Webb is not on a longer deal that runs through 2009 with a club option in 2010.

Rich Harden also got a long-term deal in 2005 but that was just before he got hurt.