Well, it was most definitely a great week to be a Blue Jays fan. The blockbuster 12 player trade with the Marlins, and the signing of Melky Cabrera clearly signal that the Jays are going to spend money to try and compete with the big market teams in their division. At this point the Jays' payroll for next season is projected to be around $120 million, whereas last year they were around $75 million - essentially they are going from spending like the Colorado Rockies to spending like the Texas Rangers! (http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team/). Here are a few things I have been thinking about in light of these developments:
- I am really curious how much the increased attendance and television viewership for the team this year (at least at the early stages of the season) made this possible. You might look at the last couple seasons as being a kind of business case for Alex Anthopoulous, and Paul Beeston. Rogers says to the two men: "We will give you a moderate budget, and let's see what you can do with that. Prove to us that you can develop a strong foundation from a baseball perspective, and that you can drive increased interest from the fan base, and we will then look at giving you more money to work with." Using this frame of reference to analyze the moves this week, it would seem that AA and PB were able to say to their bosses: "Look at the buzz and fan support we were able to generate with a $75 million budget. Give us $120 million and we will be able to increase this support, and sustain it into the future". Apparently Rogers believed them.
- Somewhat related to the previous point, I wonder how much of the timing of this ramping up in spending was motivated by fear that if they didn't act, the franchise would lose momentum. Over the last couple of years the Jays' organization had been successful in getting fans excited about a club that was on the way up. This sentiment of renewal was supported by the excellent branding work that was accomplished through their uniform changes. Though their was a lot of momentum heading into the 2012 season, some of it was lost after the second half in which the team performed very poorly, and the manager was scooped up by the Red Sox. So the question is, did Rogers and the Blue Jays think that if they did not ramp up spending this off-season many of the fans who had increased their interest in the team over the past couple of years would not continue to support the club? A lot of people were impressed with how Alex Anthopoulous had conducted himself as general manager, but he could only tell the fans for so long that "increased spending will come" before people lose hope, and become cynical about the club. I think that had they not made serous moves this winter, there was a real danger of this happening with a lot of the fringe fans who had (re)engaged with the team over the last couple of years.
- It is going to be very interesting to watch Alex Anthopoulous operate with a greater war chest. Throughout his tenure as the Jays' GM he has made a number of creative, smart moves: trading Brandon League for Brandon Morrow, Shaun Marcum for Brett Lawrie, a whole bunch of spare parts for Colby Rasmus, etc. It might have seemed that his craftiness was the product of necessity, but even now with much more money to work with, he is still finding his own unique way to bring a ball club together (12 player deals with a fire sale trade partner, and buying low on an exceptionally talented LF who is tainted by a PED charge).
- Now that the Jays have a formidable team, it will be interesting to see how this tests the cliche that you often hear around Toronto that no professional athletes want to come to play in Canada/Toronto. I think that it is true that there are some barriers to getting players to come, but the bottom line is, if a player feels he has the opportunity to play on a contending team, and he will be paid as much or more than he would be on a comparable team in the US, there is no reason why they wouldn't chose to play in Toronto. The issue is just that there haven't been teems talented enough to fit this characterization in Toronto for a long time. Until you can get over the hump and be seen as a potential "contender", you get into a kind of "chicken vs egg" situation: in order to attract talent, you need to have a good team, but in order to have a good team, you need to attract talent. I think for this reason the trade with the Marlins is so important. This move instantly changed the Jays from being just another team, to being one that has playoff aspirations. I think it is possible that the Melky Cabrera signing might even be evidence that the Blue Jays have crossed over the threshold to become a "destination" franchise.
