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Monday, September 25, 2006
the blue jays
i wrote a lot of posts praising j.p. ricciardi last offseason. but one thing has become clear: the troy glaus trade was a mistake. they had a working situation with three middle infielders (adams, hill, and hudson) and two corner guys who could play third (hillenbrand and hinske). that's a lot of flexibility. what's happened is the worst-case scenario: the middle infield didn't work out, and hillenbrand turned into a nightmare. but the worst-case scenario is something you have to think about in a trade.
also, they really miss hudson's defense. and his bat was not that bad. and considering all the pitching problems they had, they could have used miguel batista.
troy glaus is just not that great. they already had the power bat they needed when they acquired lyle overbay. with adams, hill, and hudson playing mostly middle infield and occasionally third base, with hillenbrand playing mostly third base and occasional first base, and hinske playing all the corners and occasionally dh-ing, they would have had a strong situation to go with the producers in the outfield, at first, and at dh (johnson, wells, rios, overbay, catalanotto). they had catchers who could dh, too (molina and zaun).
anyway, the bulk of the impact was probably felt this year. things should get better in the future.
they still have the problem of the manager. i should have thought of these things when i rated the jays so high.
