Ricciardi's Spending Binge Of '06 And '07 A Failure

The Toronto Blue Jays are now in last place in the A.L. East and
it will be difficult for them to improve their relative position as the
season progresses. Tampa Bay and Baltimore are vastly improved.

The costly acquisitions of veteran players such a Tory Glaus, A.J. Burnett,
Lyle Overbay, P.J. Ryan, and now Frank Thomas have had poor results.
Yes, last year the Jays finished second behind NY but the team was still
an also ran. Now it is the pits.

If you look at Ricciardi's deals for veterans instead of spending the money
on
the farm system, which is still in poor shape, you see where he went wrong.

He traded gold-glove second baseman Orlando Hudson to Arizona for slugger
Troy Glaus. But today Hudson is batting third in the Diamonback's order and
has more rbi's than Glaus. Troy is a pretty-good ballplayer, but what he
does
with his bat he often undoes with his glove which was seen in the recent
Texas
Ranger series. Also he cannot run like Hudson or former Jay Filipe Lopez.
One could ague that the trade was a saw-off except that to
get Glaus from Arizona cost the Jays a ton of money. So, advantage Arizona.

A.J. Burnett, another costly expenditure for Ricciardi, has not done much
for the Jays.
This deal could be made much better, if Burnett who has terrific stuff for
about two
innings, were made Toronto's stopper. But if he continues in the starting
rotation
the frustration will continue. Whatever happens it would seem that the money
expended on Burnett was not well spent--the Jays should have emphasized
their youth movement.

The Frank Thomas acquisition was much hyped in the off-season. But his
performance
as a D.H. has been disappointing. John Ford Griffin currently at Syracuse
would most likely
have as many rbis as Thomas if he had been given the D.H. job. And another
ton of money could
have been saved.

Right now John Gibbons should remove big Frank from the cleanup position and
have him bat lower in the order. Also he should be platooned, facing only
opposing
let-handed pitching.