January 19, 2006
Blue Jay Dollars
Richard Griffin looks at the Blue Jays payroll and sees Toronto is still underbudget. His advice to the Jays:
It's a manageable conundrum, but here's some advice for Mr. Rogers. Instead of signing another catcher to get to $75 million, the Jays might be better served to save the cash and spend it in July if they're in the wild-card hunt.
It's also possible that if the Blue Jays are in the pennant race come July, attendance and revenue will be up. And that may allow them to spend money at the deadline, even if they sign Bengie Molina now.
Posted by David Pinto at
07:34 AM
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I'd rather have Zaun than Molina to be honest.
I agree strongly with Marc. I think Molina's lack of contract is one of the better signs of rationality in FO's I have seen recently. The guy looked absolutely awful behind the plate last year and has been a bad hitter, except for last year, for his entire career.
Molina has a more consistent track record than Zaun, but they were basically a wash last year in terms of total value, although Zaun played more games. Yet, if Zaun's walk rate from last year holds up, his higher OBP will be of greater use to the Jays than Molina's.
Save that dough, Jays...Zaun's more than adequate.
If the Jays are going all out, why not sign Piazza? Seriously.
Piazza has a lot of value left. The scraps of the best hitting catcher in the history of MLB are better than most. Some AL team would be doing itself a huge favor by picking him up as a backup catcher/DH. Shea's a killer on right handed hitters...put him in a friendlier park, and in 450 PAs he'll hit you .260/.360/.500 with 30 HRs.
I think the problem is that most teams want their backup catcher to be a defensively solid guy - you don't want Piazza there in the 9th inning with a one-run lead and the other team's burner on first, you know? Look at the 2nd string catchers for most major-league teams, and they are pretty much all defense-first guys. PIazza would make more sense on a team that could carry 3 catchers, but nobody can do that anymore, not with 12-man pitching staffs.
This is why the Angels would make so much sense for Piazza. They could use another right handed stick and they routinely carry 3 catchers (which is maddening unless the 3rd guy hits well enough to DH like Piazza.)
piazza is going back to cali as an angel hopefully.
I heard a Blue Jays reporter from the Globe & Mail
interviewed today. Whether or not he was correct,
he thought Blue Jays payroll/spending was closely
tied to the value of the Canadian dollar vs the
American dollar. Whatever it is, he said the Jays have
had more money to spend this year because of it.
