Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Ricciardi gets fired


Not a surprise. Even if he had made the Jays more competitive with the Sox and Yankees, his utter inability to communicate with people, including the press and his underlings should have doomed him. When J.P. started, he had a good team of people around him, including our buddy Keith Law. Slowly but surely he began to alienate and drive away people like Law and others within the organization. In the past few years he has routinely thrown Jays' players and personnel under the bus as the team came crashing down around him.

People will cite the Yankees and Red Sox as the Jays' biggest hurdle, but the fact of the matter is that the Jays are worse off in 2009 on their own terms than they were in 2001 when Ricciardi was hired.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:27am (9) Comments

Who will be Towers’ successor?


I don't necessarily agree with the Kevin Towers firing -- I think he's always been a good GM -- but you never know what happens behind the scenes. Maybe it was someone else who was the driver behind the Jake Peavy trade and other good deals, and thus Towers shouldn't get the credit. Maybe he and Moorad simply don't get along. Whatever the case, I would be shocked if someone doesn't give Towers a job sometime soon. Of course, he's owed $2 million for 2010, so he can take his time and wait for the right opportunity. In the meantime, it seems like the Padres could make a really really good decision or a really really bad decision with his replacement:

Early speculation on a successor centered around Paul DePodesta, the former Dodgers GM who has been with the Padres since July 2006. He is in the first year of a three-year contract believed to be worth $800,000 per season.

Another possible candidate is Randy Smith, a former GM with the Padres and Detroit Tigers who is the Padres' director of international scouting.

If they go with DePodesta, they've made a wise move. If they go with Smith, Padres fans have permission to defect to the Angels.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:35am (4) Comments