I don't know if the Cubs will bid, they are up for sale and will the Tribune Company commit $300 million of the next owners money?  More to the point will Budco help the Cubs get the sale approved if he is upset with them?

The Giants are an option, Bonds contract is off the books and they might be able to step up to $30 mil.  I heard somewhere that they have seat licenses that are expiring and they need to get the holders to re-commit. 

It would be fun if no-one stepped up to $30 mil a year but that kind of fun never really happens with a Boras client.

Magpie - you say "schadenfreude," to that I say "gesundheit!"

As to A-Rod, I say he goes to BOSTON - no question. Here's why - to keep Lowell they'll have to either really "overpay" or "overyear." Might as well go totally gaga and sign god's youngest son. If Boston makes the decision to use the talent they have, the farm they're building and the wealth they're generating to create a dynasty...strike now...the iron is hot! (Sizzling in fact!) 

As for A-Rod, does anyone know how he feels about playing SS? I have the impression that he does not care either way, but has he actually stated a preference?

As for A-Rod, does anyone know how he feels about playing SS? I have the impression that he does not care either way, but has he actually stated a preference?

You forgot the most important part of what Schilling wrote - "For the next 15 days the team that remains my first choice, the Sox, have exclusive rights."

I would guess California, as ARod probably thinks he would make a good movie star.  His "people" will be very concerned about marketing etc.  I would also guess he would want to play in hitters park in order to enhance his chances to break all those records.

Whomever "wins" the sweepstakes, it likely won't go smoothly.  Somehow ARod is always seen as doing something wrong.  Heck, I could see him demanding they move the fences in at Dodger Stadium or something.

All I know is that the owner in Texas probably did a couple of back handsprings during game 4 of the world series.  To get out from under that contract was the best news that franchise has had in awhile.

By the way, why do we hate this guy so much? 

I'm pretty sure, from left to right, A-rod, Reyes, Wright, Delgado would be quite possibly the greatest infield ever assembled on a single team.  I realize Wright/Reyes are still very young, but they're already on the career path to the HOF, while Delgado is sure to get in if he keeps playing, and Arod is already inshrined.  4 likely HOFers?  I mean, yikes.  Not to mention pretty solid defensively too (depending how Wright handled the move).

I could actually see Arod signing with the Cubbies, I think the fire to play Shortstop still burns inside him and show everyone in NY that he is a better SS (defensively) than Jeter.

I think the ARod-to-Boston sequence of events will be as follows. And this is all predicated on ARod not returning to shortstop, a position he has not played for 4 years now.

1. The Yankees' front office has to decide if they will truly elect not to capitulate on their position of not negotiating with the now opted out ARod. I believe they will stick to their guns, not make an offer to ARod and make an offer to Lowell. That the Yankees will reportedly pursue Miguel Cabrera should have no bearing on this, since the continually bloating Cabrera seems destined for first base, anyway.

2. Lowell will also receive an offer from Boston. I believe he will elect to stay in Boston, which puts an end to the ARod business altogether. However, if he does go to Gotham...

3. ... the Red Sox perhaps make overtures to ARod. Do they mess with "team chemistry" and the personal feelings of a 35-year old catcher (who, yes, dons the "C")? Or do they take proactive measures to further distance themselves from the reeling New Yorkers? They seem to be a team in awfully good shape to keep the juggernaut rolling without any major off-season adjustments, but adding the best player in the game would seem a good recipe to ensure this is so.

All that said, I think ARod goes Disney, er, BET. He failed to find any love on the east coast. Time to try out the left coast.

There's another revenue stream that the Angels, and every other team, is now drawing once unexpected millions from: the money created by the success of MLB.com. The annual check that the Angels (and every other team) receive from this source may well exceed $30 million, by now.

I'm pretty sure, from left to right, A-rod, Reyes, Wright, Delgado would be quite possibly the greatest infield ever assembled on a single team.

Possibly, although i'm not sure it would be better than a theoretical Phillies infield with AROD.

I hate A-Rod because he has no respect for the game, his teammates or the opposing players.  I've been a Jays fan since the early 1980s and my girlfriend can attest to my fanaticism, but if he signs with the Jays I will stop supporting the team and Rogers (via my overpriced cable service). 

My guess is the Angels, but the player I love to hate on the team I truly hate i.e. the Yankees seems like a match made in heaven.  I don't see why Boston would sign him unless it's an end run to block the Yankees, and I think he would be a cancer in their clubhouse (not that I feel for the Evil Empire Lite).

Lets say A-Rod would cost us 30 large.

Or, we could have Tejada ($12 large), Schilling ($13 large) and Stairs ($4 large) and 1 large to me for coming up with the idea.

Seriously, what could we do with $30 million per year that would make more sense than putting all that money into one ego?

I'd disagree. There is a very good reason to not go for A-Rod this year, and it is money. There's no metrics to believe that he would boost the Jays domestically, and the American market rating barely wavered even during the 1992-1993 years. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but both World Series (especially 1993) are in the the statistically adjusted worst viewed seasons in the television history (potential viewers vs actual numbers, adjusted for historic percentage). Plus, the Toronto media took a long romp at pilloring him this year, in a sustained fashion. So the 'bump' we'd be looking at would not start to average out until years into his contract.

As well, for all the reasons above, Toronto would have to be substantially higher than $30M to tempt him. We offer a higher local taxation rate, an expensive home city, a small cable base without international interest (and don't use the 30M potential tv viewers. The Jays might be Canada's only existing franchise, but they are far from the only option. The Mariners, the Tigers and the Red Sox all count high six figure Canadian fan bases) in a market that has already villified him. That means to outbid teams with better markets, greater opprotunities for future earnings and a higher profile, we'd need to significantly beat the next best offer.

Getting ARod to Toronto would demand a 10-12 year contract, at a bare minimum of 35 million a year, and likely closer to 40. I see better uses of a third to a half a billion dollars for this team.

I'm with John Northey on this - the Jays can not only afford A-Rod, they could be a fairly attractive team for Alex to sign with right now.

See, he started out in Seattle, the wonder kid, the phenom who exceeded expectations, but when it came time to get paid, the combination of his ego and Scott Boras convinced him that it was all about the money.  So he took stupid money to play for Texas, nobody's idea of a perennial contender, and watched as Seattle took a massive leap forward as soon as he left.  After a while, he gets bored of playing for a crappy team and listening to the loud whispers that his salary is the reason why Texas can't contend, so he decides that he wants to play for a real team.  A team that has both ridiculous money and an obsessive desire to win.  The Yankees.  But now unlike any of his experiences before, Alex is faced with pressure.  Real pressure.  The fans are on his butt.  The media is on his butt.  He even has to swallow his pride and move to third base while knowing full well that he's a better shortstop than Derek Jeter.  He finally gets to the postseason and can't buy a base hit.  Maybe the pressure was too much; maybe the expectations he had for himself were too high; maybe he just wasn't getting the support he might have needed from his teammates and Yankee fans.  So he gets booed in his own stadium despite being the best third baseman in the league; he has the occasional brain cramp like slapping at a glove or calling out 'Mine!' to deke out a scrub.  His agent announces during the fourth game of the World Series that Alex will not continue with the Yankees, and I read that as being a final f--- you to the Yankees.

I'm thinking that Alex's current state of mind might favour a place like Toronto.

- He would no longer be the constant center of attention, since the Leafs dominate media coverage eight months a year, and with the Raptors' ascension, the Jays are not the only game in town.  Obviously he would be the best player on the Jays, but it would take Bob Elliott and Richard Griffin at least half the season to recover from the shock, so compared to the New York media juggernaut, playing in Toronto would be a breeze.

- The Jays play the Yankees 19 times a season.  That's 19 chances to stick it to the team and the city that he may feel treated him badly.  Think Roger Clemens back in '97.

- As he already well knows, the strip clubs in Toronto have some considerable talent.

- There would be far less pressure on A-Rod to perform in the post-season, since Jays fans would just be happy to get to the post-season, and anything beyond that would be gravy.

As Mr. Northey points out, the Jays can afford A-Rod, and if Scott Boras called J.P. tomorrow and told him Toronto was on the list, Ricciardi would already have an offer ready to go.  I think Alex is in the right state of mind to consider Toronto, especially if some of the more likely teams like the Angels or Dodgers don't compete hard for his services.  Hey, who ever thought Roger Clemens would play for the Jays?

<i>You have heard of wins and losses right? And how those help a team get more fans & viewers?

Right now the best estimates I've seen suggest an extra win is worth about $3 million to a team, with the figure jumping if the team is close to the playoffs. If you figure A-Rod is worth about 10 wins (which he is, especially vs McDonald) then $30 million makes sense economically.</i>

And if all media markets were the same, you might have a point. The Toronto Blue Jays media market is a great deal smaller and less leveraged than that of the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Dodgers. As I mentioned before, even the Jays two winning world series did not translate into national success, and that is the only way to expand the brand financially at this point.

The Jays averaged 396550 viewers per game, but the extreme splits between high market teams (New York, Boston) and low market teams (Tampa Bay, Baltimore) runs to close to 200,000 viewers. Unless your position is that A-Rod is worth almost double the viewership, your three million leveraged doesn't work.

<i>As to the Toronto media, they hate (hate might be too mild a word) JP and the current management of the Jays. Yet despite the 'white Jays' and various other media attacks the Jays have increased attendance and tv viewship.</i>

Yes, the Jays have been building the brand slowly. The difference is that someone who has already been reviled means that his worth as a box office draw is limited. This is marketing, and ARod's already been marketed as the enemy. How can you assume that his 'star power' will actually draw a justifiable amount in a poisonous market. Also, who cares about the GM or the manager? Halladay is the gate draw. Wells is the gate draw. Hell, McDonald is turning into a gate draw. If you want to argue the fan economics, there's no substantiated data that a Toronto fanbase would turn out more for ARod. Attendence increased over last year with <i>less wins</i>.

<i>As for tv options, you did notice that the Tigers, Red Sox, and Mariner games were all on Sportsnet right? Plus that if they have 'high 6 figure' fan bases (totalling under 10% of the Canadian market based on that) those fans would also watch Jays baseball when the Jays play their teams.</i>

And this has what to do with ARod? The Jays are not the exclusive holders of the Canadian television market. In some places, they're barely number 2 in viewership. That means 30 million Canadian viewers are not a single demographic. It's only of the most blindly ignorant numbers that sports writers like to push around, and shows absolutely no understanding of how regional, national and multinational television and cable markets actually work.

The Yankees have a much larger base to draw from not because they're in New York, but because they are an international brand. They draw viewers in substantial numbers in virtually every major market region in North America. The Toronto Blue Jays are not, and there's no reason to think ARod would change that. If you want to grow your market, you'd be better off signing a couple of big money Japanese players and catching the Pacific Rim markets.  

<i>$35-40 per year? For 10-12 years? Uh, not sure what you are smoking but I bet Boras hopes team owners are on it too. $30 million for 10 years would get him to sign anywhere, even Tampa Bay (well, Boras would try for more as it is his nature). The funny thing is A-Rod is worth it to a team based on todays economics of baseball.</i>

The Jays offer less incentives across a wide number of reasons for ARod to play here. Therefore, money will have to be the sole deciding factor, and a million above the next best offer will not cut it. There are at least three major market teams that are likely to offer $30 million a year on a 10-12 year contract. If the Jays wanted him, it's a bidding war and that normally inflates the pricing on the player by 10-20%. So, with two or three teams at the $30M range and the Jays jumping it, it is highly reasonable to expect a creep upwards of at least $3-4M.

The reality is that other teams can offer ARod the money he wants, with a better playing environment, a higher profile media market and better positioning on incidential endorsements. The only thing the Jays could bring into that is a truckload of money, and none of your arguments have clearly indicated that the ROI would be a given.

Halladay is the gate draw. Wells is the gate draw. Hell, McDonald is turning into a gate draw.

I don't know that any one player is the gate draw. While Clemens was a Blue Jay, having two of the best years of his career, attendance was not markedly different when he pitched. I think the formula for drawing fans is simple: win games. Winning teams are the gate draw.

ARod's "draw" (not that I have feelings either pro or con on him being a cost effective pickup) would manifest itself indirectly in one simple way: the team would be better, ergo they would win more, ergo they would draw more fans.

Also, if it is to be believed that the Jays are a playoff-precipice team (a whole other argument), then the leverage of potentially becoming a playoff team and drawing playoff revenues warrants expenses above and beyond normal cost justification. This same thinking is what prompted the Yankees to pay such huge money to Clemens this past season, the notion that he alone might prove the difference between making the playoffs and not (a line of thinking that, it turns out, was erroneous, since they made the playoffs easily with Clemens' contributions only being marginal). 

The Giants are consistently at the top in terms of road attendance. The Giants were in 2001: 1st, 2002: 3rd, 2003: 3rd, 2004: 3rd, 2006: 7th, 2007: 5th. The year Barry sat out, 2005, the were 12th. Barry draws crowds.

I'm certain the same would be true for A-Rod. You're also right that we would win a hell of a lot more games with him though, and would get even more fans that way.

He's just such an easy and quick fix for Toronto - no trades needed, no risky player development. If he's willing to play here, then it's as simple as cutting a ridiculous check. He's one of the most consistent and healthy players in the game, so there is not much to worry about.

Chuck, players do draw attention to a team. Beane/Lewis may have stated otherwise, but if you look at the Giants on the road over the last few years, the pattern becomes clear.

I was talking about a player on a home team attracting fans to home games. ARod, as a Blue Jay, would only help attract fans to Blue Jay games via his capacity to make the team better.

I can see that specific players on road teams may draw fans, who rarely get to see those players, but that is an entirely different matter.

Elias Rankings

AL Players

NL Players

AROD's projected salary could be covered almost entirely through the 2007 run up in the value of the Canadian dollar.

If AROD plays SS for the Jays and Glaus avoids a lenghty suspension  we've got the best offensive lineup in baseball for 2008.

Notwithstanding the off-season debate that would surround such a signing come May 1, 2008 all Jays supporters would be A-Rod fanatics. 

AROD could hit 60 HR calling the Rogers Center his home park.

Your ticket price estimate is very conservative - a quick google search reveals that in 2004, the average seat cost was 17.87 US, which would have been around 22.3 Canadian, and I believe that has gone up a bit.

Notably, the Jays do have about 11 million coming off the books next year:

* 2007 payroll obligations for former players:

$3,750,000 (Corey Koskie)

$2,812,500 (Eric Hinske)

$1,500,000 (Tomo Ohka)

$1,500,000 (John Thomson)

$ 500,000 (Jason Phillips)

+

$ 850,000 (Matt Stairs)

Northey, keep up the campaign. 

If we go back further than 2007 to when the 3 year budget plan was first articulated to the fans the amount of real purchasing power the club gains by the strength of the Can $ is even more staggering. 

Just as Canadian industries need to take advantage of our dollar's purchasing power by investing in new equipment and infrastructure the Jays need to re-invest their newfound purchasing power in player assets. 

True, who knows where the dollar will be in ten years, but for the foreseeable future we should be at or above par. 

We're Hogtown dammit, and  its time to start acting like it again.

True, who knows where the dollar will be in ten years, but for the foreseeable future we should be at or above par. 

Well, the Bank of Canada doesn't even have it above par for the next year.  If your going to sign ARod for 10 years based upon an above par dollar then you are setting yourself up for some financial problems down the road.

I can't see ARod bringing a lot of extra people to Ted's place.  Don't take this the wrong way but outside of the Leafs, Toronto is not a great sports market.  By this I mean they don't support sports for the sport no matter what.  In basketball and baseball and Football people wait for a while to see if the team is any good.  If it is they jump on the bandwagon.  If it is not then they stay away. 

I am not even convinced you will ever get 4 million people in the Rogers Centre again.  In 92-94 you had a perfect storm of Playoff teams, a new state of the art building and even a poor Leafs team.

Sure, Toronto is a big media market.  LA is a bigger media market.  How do the Kings draw for hockey?  Hockey in LA = Baseball in Toronto.

You are talking about a 10 year commitment here guys.  Next year maybe ARod helps the Jays beat the Yankees and get into the playoffs.  Look past that and look five years down the road.  Where are all the fans when they have down year?  Where is the Canadian dollar?  What happens when ARod starts to hear the boo birds that he has heard at home every where else because he can never, ever (and no one could) justify his salary?  By paying him that money you set up a target on his back for every losing streak the team has.  The fans will take it out on him.  Then does he become a big draw? 

If you had someone with real character, and a real mythology around him, say Jeter in NY, Stevie Y, Nolan Ryan, ...  ARod has no mythology about him because he is about money, not about the game.  He seems like one of those ancient Greek characters given all the talent but never able to ultimately succeed because he puts himself before all others.  Simply put, ARod will never be loved.

Lets face it, next year it is an attractive proposal.  5 years from now it promises to be a problem.   A problem with a no trade clause.

92-93, I think the Jays would be better defensively if they tried to move Overbay to one of the corners and stuck Bonds at 1B.  I think you underestimate how terrible Barry would be in the OF.

Actually, Holliday is fairly decent in LF
His slugging ways and that rather unfortunate play in the one-game playoff won't do much for his defensive reputation, but he was 4th best in the NL using THT's metrics at +8 runs

For what it's worth Bonds wasn't too horrible at -2
Better than Ibanez, Duncan, Garrett Anderson, Carlos Lee, Willingham, Dunn, Burrell and Manny

I think Bonds would be a very bad LF in 2008, but I also think it's possible to over-state how bad he'd be.  I think the biggest concern is that you wouldn't want him playing LF, not because he's a huge liability, but because you'd want to keep him more durable at 1B or DH.

Yes Paul, I ment move him to the corner OF, I know he couldn't work at 3B because of the Left handed thing.

I'm saying he'd be a better option than Bonds in the corner defensively.

Are complete UZR numbers available through HardballTimes?
That would be awesome

What I was using up there was a spread sheet some Reds fan had compiled using HardballTimes data
Clearly not as meaningful as UZR would be

I'd love to see the UZR info, where do they have it?

However  left handed hitting speed merchant and on base machine would be a valuable asset to his one dimensional team.

Though I'm certain the poster was not advocating securing he services of low obp dugout scrub. At least thats what i read into her post.

More of an issue is that the old-guy-who-can't-field position is already represented by Thomas and probably Stairs in 2008.

There is not really much that fills a need for the Jays, in terms of available FA's this year (A-Rod not being an option). Will J.P. have the wherewithal to make a big trade, that's the big question. Because I think we all have a right to be a tad pessimistic if no significant changes are made.

Al East Baseball Prospectus Hot Stove by way of SI. Pretty harsh criticism of J.P. Writer says he would rather be in the Oriole's position than the Jays.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/30/bp.aleast/3.html

What They Will Do: Hold. Ricciardi has already stated that he expects it to be a quiet winter, which reminds one that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Couldn't have said it any better myself, SI.

Writer says he would rather be in the Oriole's position than the Jays.

And the writer wants to be taken seriously?

Considering Angelos still owns the Orioles and the fact that another Oriole GM just resigned, predicting what might happen in 2010 is a bit of a stretch.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this but Joel Zumaya is lost for at least half of next season after hurting his shoulder moving stuff in his parents' house during those California wildfires last weak (he's from San Diego).  He had what was called major shoulder surgery.

Thank you.  I'm really glad Stairs is back, and hopefully Gibby does the right thing with regards to lineup construction this year (that means Stairs hits 3rd or 4th, not leadoff).

Sadly though, I think this will be the biggest news of the Jay's offseason.  JP, prove me wrong, please.

Stairs is signed: 2 years, $3.5m. 

From the ESPN.com piece: but Stairs can also platoon at first base.

Someone is making a living as a sports writer suggesting that two lefthanded batters can be platooned. Further evidence that we live in a low bar world.

The trouble with the so-called sabermetric experts (emphasis on so-called) like at BPro is that when JP Ricciardi was hired, since he came over from Oakland and was Billy Beane's best friend, they assumed that he worked on spreadsheets in his basement in his spare time. When this turned out not to be the case, like a jilted lover they went all Richard Griffin on him.

This articles says he will split time with Lind.
I wonder if that means Johnson is gone?

I think, as Chuck alluded to, the sportswriter in question - one Amy K. Nelson - is commenting without likely knowing any of the names she is reading off the Blue Jays' depth chart.

I'm with Silver on one thing... they need to pick up a shortstop! Johnny Mac is NOT the answer!

However, his ideas on how to do that are a little off.(Jack Wilson is not much of an upgrade over JM and Bobby Crosby is WAAAAY too big of an injury threat).

Barring temporary insanity (of a good kind) that would put the Jays in the A-Rod hunt, I think they should go after Juan Uribe. He would be both a solid upgrade and not too pricey in the trade market.

What They Will Do: Hold. Ricciardi has already stated that he expects it to be a quiet winter, which reminds one that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And, C...LS says he agrees. I say to both C...LS and SI...hurrumph and what a load of codswallup!

Would we have contended in 07 is not for the following? Injuries (often leading to surgeries) suffered by (in alphabetical order): Burnett, Chacin, Glaus, Halladay, Johnson, League, Overbay, Ryan and Zaun. YES we would have contended. If only a few of them fall off cliffs in 08 we are contenders.

I like the Stairs signing, besides LF and 1st, if Thomas starts to slow he can platoon at DH as well. However, I'd have preferred Bonds. However, However, the Grand Jury on Bonds closes in January and I wouldn't want to invest in Bonds until I saw what they do.

John Northey says: "Now if JP could just trade for Tejada I could stop my 'sign A-Rod' push too :)"

John, you're 100% RIGHT ON! Tejada is the ONLY (doable) move that would be a significant upgrade, at least offensively. We really don't have a lead-off batter unless Reed is back BUT if we had good professional hitters one through nine I would be a happy camper.

Tell me Legacy - the Jays had some of the best pitching in the league last year and the vast majority of those injuries, were in fact pitchers, so why is using the injuries to pitchers a good excuse?

The fact is, this lineup has some serious fatal flaws in it, which is the reason that we aren't going to even sniff the playoffs this year or be legitimate contenders down the stretch, but not so far out of it to do anything such as "sell players for prospects".  We need LEFT HANDED BATTERS.  I've been screaming it for about 2 seasons now because the splits in this team are nothing short of disgusting.  Having Johnson, Zaun and Glaus in the lineup wouldn't have made much of a difference in the slightest (except Zaun), because the both of the other players would have just continued to pad their stats against the 25% of the league we already do pretty well against, ignoring the other 75%!!!  Overbay was really the only player we missed who, if he was healthy, could have made the difference we needed, but even when he was, he was poor at best.  Hopefully, he is able to get it turned around this year.  However, expecting this lineup to perform significantly better than last season is very wishful thinking.  You have to factor in additional age declines for both Glaus, Zaun, Thomas, and possibly Overbay (but better than last year).  That still doesn't change the fact, even after all of those calculations, that this team needs a facelift and a shipping off of one of our Right handed Sluggers and replaced with a good left handed bat (or a righty with little-no splits [aka AROD]) in order to get this team back on the right track.

Barring that, we'll see a similar result to this season as we saw last year and the season before that.  And you can take that to the bank, my friend.

Would we have contended in 07 is not for the following? Injuries (often leading to surgeries) suffered by (in alphabetical order): Burnett, Chacin, Glaus, Halladay, Johnson, League, Overbay, Ryan and Zaun. YES we would have contended. If only a few of them fall off cliffs in 08 we are contenders.

If your team can't win despite having players on the DL, that's a strong suggestion that your team can't win.  Every team has injuries, and the Jays were extremely lucky that the pitching and Matt Stairs performed as well as they did during injuries.  If the Jays chances for the postseason next year depend on not on person getting hurt, their chances are very small.

Lopez has now had exactly 1 season with an OPS+ above 92, and 2 seasons with an OBP above 315. This from a guy viewed as a poor defensive SS. Izturis? Lifetime OPS+ of 67 with 60 and 57 OPS+ the past two seasons - lets call him a younger version of John McDonald. Mixed together into one player these guys could be darn good, but as is they are no more than useful backups. Phelps fell apart it seemed (although he did get a 135 OPS+ over 183 PA last season) and Wells is still here. I'd say JP picked the right one of those 4 to keep although at far too many dollars. Escobar is the only pitcher from that team we'd still want here today (Carp was hurt almost all of last year and makes mega bucks for the next few years) outside of who JP did keep (Halladay).

I think the point with both Lopez and Izturis is that these were both considered very signficant prospects at the time of the trades for the Jays.  Lopez was 23 with all kinds of tools and had a great year in AAA once the Jays sent him down.  The return for this kind of asset in any kind of average world let alone an ideal world has to be more than Jason Arnold, an older prospect with mediocore stuff who ends up stalling at AA/AAA.  If they had gotten a Marcum or Janssen quality pitcher, at least you can point to some kind of return for a 23 year old first round pick with decent value.

The same goes for Izturis.  Although he had very little upside offensively, this is a guy who hit .269 as a 21 year old rookie in 2001 while playing very strong defence.  In other words, in present day context, he'd be the Jays shortstop for the next several years over John McDonald.  He had real value and the Jays got back two more pitching prospects who turned out zero return (Prokopec, Ricketts) and Ricketts was 27 years old.

It's fine to point at prospects after the fact and say, yeah, they were no big loss.  But the point is to leverage all the talent you have to continually improve the roster.  These are just a couple of the very significant assets over the years that the Jays did not manage to leverage into much of anything.  And that's as much of a reason for them still struggling to stay over .500 despite some of the best production of big league talent over the last decade.  Too many assets, mainly inherited assets, were lost for no return (Lopez, Izturis, Escobar, Carpenter, Delgado, and a few more I'm not thinking of).

Sure there have also been good moves made to counteract these losses, but the Jays under JP are much like the Jays under Gord Ash.  Too many significant losses and inefficient spending balancing out the good from the farm system or trades or signings.