Rogers bets Mayan civilization was right as it opens pursestrings

Christmas/Chanukah comes early for Blue Jays fans

What an off-season it has been, and it's only mid-November.

At the end of the season, I lamented that the Jays would limp into next season and would perhaps get their payroll up to $100 million next year. They would sign a couple of mediocre pitching talents,  maybe resign Villanueva to get the #5 starter, and get a mediocre 2nd baseman to replace Johnson (who will sign somewhere) and shop for an good LF to replace Davis/Gose/Thames/Snider.

I said that Rogers wouldn't spend money, that they have budgets to maintain and that they have to show a profit, and that Anthopolous (the economist) and Rogers (the conservative wireless giant) was too conservative to put a splash in the market.

Fans were lamenting about how lame their Blue Jays would be next year, and with no NHL going on, much more attention is being given to the Jays because well, the media needs to fill space, though the Argonauts are helping.

And up until the beginning of last week, things didn't look great. Farrell and half of the coaching staff was stolen by those bloody Red Sox for Aviles. Davis and Oliver were re-signed and for some reason Davis accepted $500K less than his option. Fans were frustrated that the new manager was not filled. To Cleveland went Gomes and Aviles for Esmil Rogers who had a successful stint in Cleveland and stunk in Colorado.

In came minor leaguers Jeremy Jeffress, Neil Germano, and Bobby Korecky. A minor splash was made in signing Izturis, who is defensively a substandard choice to replace Kelly Johnson and offensively is consistent and can switch hit (quite comfortably). I think he will do well if he can get regular play.

Still, not a heck of alot going on in the Blue Jays camp, and with managers to hire and with holes to fill at pitcher, utility infield / 2B, and LF, fans felt a great deal of miscontent as the off season started. With no NHL on, it was pretty easy to focus on baseball.

I was wrong.

And don't forget folks, we're only at 16 days since players declared their free agency!

So, imagine the shock when the epic trade was announced. Out went Escobar, the maligned, homophobic (well, perhaps not homophobic), boneheaded shortshop who really didn't mature in Toronto as we might have expected. Out went Hechavarria, the young promising shortstop who I am sure will dazzle defensively if he can get his bat working (and there is no reason to suggest he wouldn't). Out went Henderson Alvarez, the two pitch #5 pitcher (who was promoted to #2 this year thanks to injuries). Out went Jeff Mathis, who while defensively superior to JP, was just awful at the plate. And off went excellent prospects in Jake Marisnick, Justin Nicolino, and Anthony DeSclafani.

DeSclafani boasted a 3.38 ERA and a WHIP of 1.382 in Lansing over 21 starts and is at least two years away from the Majors. Nicolino is a lot more promising, with a 2.33 ERA and a WHIP of 1.070 over 28 starts. Expect to see him in the majors in 2014. And Jake Marisnick may have panned out for the Blue Jays, but with Gose and Sierra in AAA Buffalo and already showing capability in the majors, the depth chart might have been a bit too murky for him. Jake did not have a great end of year in New Hampshire, but if he does well, you might expect to see him in 2014 as well.

To me, Hechavarria was the biggest downside to this trade. In his last 29 games (27 started), there was only 3 games that he did not record a hit, and his line was .287 / .309 / .415. Defensively, he is great, a potential gold-glover, especially in his position as shortstop. This guy I think will be a starting major league shortshop for a long time, and I think he has much more potential than Jose Reyes and certainly Yunel.

On the flip side, the Jays brought in (from worst to best):

John Buck: His career year was in Toronto in 2010, when he hit .281 / .314 / .489. If he stays on the club and doesn't get flipped, he will be platooning with JP Arencibia. Travis D'Arnaud will at least start the year in Buffalo as he proves out his rehab. I expect that one of JP, Wilson or John Buck will be flipped during the off-season and I hope it's not Arencibia. Arencibia showed great defensive improvement in 2012 and his bat was just smoking before his injury in late July, going .321 /.356 / .714 over 18 games. If Buck can maintain a .300 OBP, he will have some value for the Jays. For $6M I am not sure if the Jays can trade him away.

Emilio Bonifacio: This guy is true utility. Over 393 games started, he's started 141 games in the outfield, 116 games at 3rd, 81 at short, and 65 at 2nd. Defensively, he is decent, but he didn't get much infield experience last year. He could be a utility infielder to backup Izturis or Brett Lawrie. He is definitely a fourth outfielder, and perhaps even a 3rd outfielder if Colby has another crappy year. His utility is his speed and his switch hitting bat. With 101 stolen base opportunities last year, he stole 30 bases (caught 3 times). Compare that to Rajai who stole 46 bases in 118 opporunities (but got caught 13 times). I'm happy about this guy.

Mark Buehrle: This guy is a pure workhorse with 200+ inning years for the last 12 years. Yes, he will be 34 next year and will be paid $11M (and $18M in 2014, $19M in 2015). But the guy is a dependable, sub 4 ERA, sub 1.3 WHIP, golden-gloved pitcher. He will be the Jays' consistent #3 starter for the next couple of years. He will take the pressure off of Romero, who is no longer going to be the ace of the club. There is simply no downside to this southpaw besides his age.

Josh Johnson: The Jays will pay Johnson $13.75M next year. In his comeback year after Tommy John, he threw 191 innings with an ERA of 3.82 and a WHIP of 1.28. If he comes back to form and pitches like he did in 2010, the Jays will find themselves with a bona fide ace. The guy doesn't give up home runs. He can strike people out at the rate of 8.2/9. He has power pitches in his fastball, slider, curve and changeup). His problem of course is injury. If he can have an injury-free year, he will impress with better stats than last year. Wow.

Jose Reyes: The Jays have acquired an all star and bonafide lead-off hitter. He has career splits of .287 / .347 / .433, playing in all but two games last year. Defensively, he is an average shortstop. But his strikeout rate is among the lowest in MLB (around 10% through his career), meaning that he is going to put alot of balls in play. This sets up nicely in the AL, where he can reliably complete a hit-and-run and is ideal for putting speed at the bottom of the order in Bonifacio, Rajai, or even Brett Lawrie. And this guy is consistently good. Yes, there are injury concerns -- Reyes will play 90 games on turf (81 at home + 9 in Tampa) which might be hard on him. But he is in the prime of his career, and Rogers is paying big bucks for him: 10 million for 2013, $16M for 2014, and $22M for the three years after. And once again, this is a switch hitter, equally able to hit from both sides.

And finally, last but, certainly not least, the Jays signed testosterone laden Melky Cabrera. The Melk Man stands to earn $8 million next year and will be the starting left-fielder, filling a hole that was never filled in Thames, Snider, Davis, Sierra, Gose, and even Adam Lind. The $8 million question is "which Melky is going to show up?" It's hard to tell what impact Cabrera's PED taking had on his stats. Perhaps he will be the Kansas City version with a .305 / .339 / .470 line. But he might turn out to be the Yankee Cabrera (or worst yet the Braves Cabrera) with a .264 / .321 / .377 line over four seasons.  Certainly, if the Cabrera who shows up is that version, the Jays got a bum deal. But Rogers and the Jays won't know until they try. Once again, Melky offers great switch-hitting stats, hitting pretty much equally from both sides. And he will have another fresh start in Toronto. Let's hope it's a good one.

So, the Jays have put it all on the table. Last year, the Jays were able to attract 12% more fans per game over 2011. There was alot of excitement at the beginning of the season with the fantastic spring training and the youth of the team.

So what's left to fill? The Jays' payroll is now inflated to over $120 million. The starting lineup now looks like:

Reyes 6 (.295 / .342 / .440)
Cabrera 7 (.295 / .328 / .432)
Bautista 9 (.259 / .377 / .528)
Encarnacion  DH/3  (.271 / .359 / .504)
Lind 3 (vs RHP) (.272 / .329 / .460)
Lawrie 5 (.289 / .342 / .465)
Rasmus 8 (.237 / .312 / .427)
Arencibia / Buck 2 (.232 / .278 / .451)  / (.219 / .298 / .384)
Izturis / Bonafacio 4 (.267 /  .333 / .360) (.275 / .336 / .350)

The lines above are predicted by Bill James and are available here.

On the bench is Rajai Davis. But then who is the final person on the bench? Looking at the roster, perhaps David Cooper might be a fit to play 1st or DH against LHP. Or perhaps it's going to be Moises or Gose, both who really aren't ready.

On the pitching side, the starting rotation now looks like Johnson, Morrow, Buehrle, Romero, and Happ. The bullpen consists of Oliver, Santos, Janssen, Delabar, Lincoln, and two of Jenkins, Perez, Loup, Cecil, and on the outside Jeffress and Rogers.

Certainly the Jays will be an exciting group next year. They are much faster with the legs of Davis / Reyes and Izturis or Bonifacio. The #1 and #2 hitters are huge upgrades over last year.

But why?

Why did Rogers spend the money? Well, the reason is many fold, I think.

First, next year, all teams are going to receive an extra $28 million dollars in revenue from revenue sharing due to renegotiated TV contracts. All teams will therefore spend much more in 2014, players will become more expensive, and therefore the $20 million or so in extra outlay is a one year expense. The Jays would have budgeted $120M in 2014 anyway, because they were already going to spend $100M this year and will receive a boost of $28M in 2014. It seems reasonable to jump the gun this year. Rogers also received $36 million (according to the Globe and Mail, a number that Beeston denies) in TV revenue from SportsNet last year according to Forbes and that number only stands to grow.

Secondly, the Jays now know that the fans react to a good team on the field. Attendance numbers jumped 15% last year before settling down to 2011 levels when the team's injuries put them out of reach for contention. TV and radio numbers were also great. So, putting the talent on the field will fill seats, and bring in more TV and stadium revenue. And with no hockey in town -- yet -- the Jays fans are paying very close attention.

Finally, there was a promise from Beeston made to his season ticket holders at the State of the Franchise meeting in January of this year: "In the next five years, I would expect that we would be in it two to three times," Beeston said. With his contract up for renewal, it was time to make that splash.

Forbes makes an interesting point. Sabermetrics points out that each WAR costs about $4 million on the free trade market. Anthopolous in this set of trades paid $56 million for a 16.8 WAR or about 3.2 million per point: cheap.

Certainly, the excitement for the Jays is now there. The money's been spent, and the fandom is reenergized.

Now, time to hire a manager.

Were the Blue Jays doomed from the start?

What went wrong?

The Jays season looked promising enough: a great spring training at 25-7, with good performances by a number of starters, good performances by the starters, and a fairly healthy team, with McGowan the only culprit with a sore foot. The team was stronger than last year, with Brett Lawrie being the regular third baseman, a decent hitting Adam Lind, and a strong Colby Rasmus in center field. Bautista was back, and Encarnacion was also hitting well. Arencibia was back for his second full season, defensively much better. Anthopoulos went out and got proven bullpen in Darren Oliver, signed Casey Janssen to a two year extension, got back Jason Frasor, and acquired Cordero who had 37 saves for the Reds last year, and Sergio Santos who had 30 saves for the White Sox. Things were looking up.

And the fans bought into the hype too, buying 22% more tickets than last year (the rest of the league is up 4%) on the hopes of a team competing in the AL East vs a hurt Red Sox, a rebuilding Tampa Bay, and a mediocre Orioles team.

The team really received a one-two punch that did them in for the season. The one punch was losing three of their starters in one week, which I believe led to the demise of Ricky Romero due to the intense pressure for him to perform (the pressure he put on himself -- after the win at Miami on June 22, he has yet to win a game. The bats came to life however and left the team around the .500 mark with hope really slipping away game by game as they stayed roughly five games back of the wild card mark.

But the #2 punch happened on July 26th, when Arencibia broke his hand and Lind left the same night with a sore back. From that point, the team has hit a breaking point. Add to that outages by Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus and you have a team full of not-ready-for-prime time players to fill the spots. It is easy for good pitchers to pitch around a team when you have only four major league players in your line up. Snider's trade away didn't help team morale either.

Now the fans are blaming AA and Rogers for not spending the money on the Jays. Clearly, Rogers is afraid to sign blockbuster agreements. They dumped Vernon Wells' contract (fantastic move) and Alex Rios (good move). Bautista and Encarnacion's contracts are steals and most MLB analysts thing that those contracts are extremely good values for the Jays. They traded away Halladay. And I've explained in another post that the Jays activities represent about 1% of the total action within Rogers Communications, Inc, but the expectation is that they will be profitable. So, the fans are right. The only way that the Jays will spend some money is to build up the team slowly through value, and the team has indeed been making strides in that direction with their payroll slowly on the uptick to correspond with their revenue. The blame is fair, but do you want the Jays to be the New York Yankees? Do you want to spend an average of $63 for a ticket (current is $26)?

My view is that AA took a risk in not signing a veteran onto the pitching staff -- the rotation was too young, with three rookies and new rookies, and a fragile Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow. His gamble failed. A veteran might have not been a good value on paper, but might have stabilized the rotation. I can't fault AA with the initial bullpen choices. Having both Santos and Cordero imploding was not predictable -- it was just bad luck, and it took Farrell time to realize that Janssen and Oliver was up to the task of closer/setup after giving Cordero a reasonable amount of time to prove himself (and fail). Add to that Perez's season ending injury which complicated matters. The depth at relief also took time to resolve, and the Jays pretty much tried everybody on the AAA and AA farm to see if they were ready -- all kinds of relievers came up from AAA and went back down. Chavez, Beck, Carreno, Coello, Andrew Carpenter, Crawford, Pauley, Richmond -- none were ready. Finally, the Jays settled on Loup and had to trade for Lincoln, Delabar, and Lyon -- because no one from the farm was able to step up to the task in the bullpen. And on the starting rotation, Cecil and Laffey make decent #5 starters to replace Drabek and Hutchinson, but there really was no one of Morrow's calibre that was able to step up to the task.

On the hitting side, Lind failed until his return from AAA. He went on waivers and no one claimed him. No one stepped up to the task of being a star left-fielder, and just went it looked like Snider was up to stay, he was traded for the necessary relievers. There were slow starts by Rasmus, Arencibia and Bautista, and both Escobar and Johnson have be somewhat lacklustre. Only Edwin has really really impressed.

Let's face it though -- the injuries would have been insurmountable to any team. I am sure the Yankees would be on a major slump if they lost Cano (their best hitter), A-Rod, Texiera, Granderson, and Russell Martin. The injuries are the culprit here.

And it is clear that the depth of the farm is not there. Many have come up from AAA and AA to pitch and have failed, necessitating AA to go out and trade Snider and Thames. The AAA hitters who have come up have all failed to impress with the exception of Moises. Had the farm been ready with major-league ready relievers and hitters, the Jays would be all right.

So, you ask the question, did AA make bad acquisitions and overhyped the farm system, or did the players fail the Jays in their performances in the MLB? I would blame the players. The farm system has improved vastly over the years in their records and their independent ranks as prospects. But really, the end indicator of the value of a player is their performance in the majors. So, I can't blame AA for the farm acquisitions, but I will blame the players as a whole for failing to step up at the major league level.

In the end, the Jays season went wrong due to a vast and unheard of number of injuries. And the players really didn't step up before the pitchers went down in mid-June. Besides Anthopoulos acquiring a veteran pitcher in the offseason, I really can't fault him for doing anything wrong. And as long as Rogers continues ownership of the Jays, and they will for a long time, their spending will be conservative in nature. I really believe that the Jays will pull the trigger at the trade deadline if they believe they will make the post season -- the increase in ticket sales, playoff games, and ratings will recover the cost -- it makes economic sense to do so. But it makes no sense to Rogers Media to spend $150 million on player salaries when the team is only pulling in $160 million in revenue. Until that point in time, expect AA to stay the course and make spending decisions based on value, not on emotion.

Rogers Media and the Boo Jays

Blue Jays and Rogers Media: a connection you can't ignore

Many years ago, media companies began merging into oligarchies. In the United States, for example, General Electric bought NBC. AOL became AOL Time Warner. MicroSoft teamed up with NBC to form MSNBC. Viacom, who owned CBS, bought Paramount, which owned Canada's Wonderland, and for a while, you would watch commercials for Viacom properties while you waited 45 minutes to get on the Bat. Alas, I digress.

Rogers Communications inc. started in the early 1960s as a radio company based in Toronto, starting with CHFI (98.1 FM) and CFTR (680 News). By the late 60s, they expanded to television, and in the early 80s they expanded to Wireless (remember Cantel?).

Then, in the 90s, Rogers bought MacLean-Hunter, and finally, in 2000, they bought the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays haven't made the playoffs in the past 11 years.

Today, Rogers has really three divisions that are all tightly related: a wireless division (we all know Rogers Wireless and Fido), a cable division, and finally Rogers Media. Based on last year's results, Rogers Wireless is extremely profitable, with 3 billion in operating profits on 7.1 billion dollars of revenue based on 9.3 million subsctibers. Those of you who say your wireless bill is too expensive are right. The problem is that Bell and Telus won't lower their prices either (the oligarchy). Rogers Cable is pretty profitable too, with 1.6 billion of profit on 3.8 billion in revenue (of course, the competitors won't compete in Canada either) based on 3.75 million subscribers. And finally, there is the Media area, which has just 180 million dollars of operating profit on 1.6 billion dollars in revenue,

What is Rogers Media?

Well, they own and operate CityTV and OMNI (which is why you see commercials for CityTV while watching the Jays). They own 9 specialty channels (including SportsNet) and own pieces of four other TV stations. Television produces 41% of operating revenue in 2011. The Shopping Channel produces 16% of operating revenue as well.

They also produce 54 consumer, trade and professional publications including of course Chatelaine and MacLeans. Publications produced 17% of operating revenue in 2011.

And there's radio with 50+ radio stations across the country, including the beloved Fan590 and the rest of the Fan Radio network, but also 680 news in Toronto.

And finally, there is a division called Sports Entertainment, which are the Blue Jays and Rogers Centre which produced the final 10% of operating revenue.

So as a whole, the Blue Jays and Rogers Centre had about 160 million dollars of revenue of the total of 14.5 billion dollars of revenue, a little bit over 1% of the entire Rogers empire.

One point of all of this is that the Blue Jays operate as part of the great whole of Rogers, and the goal of Rogers, and therefore the Blue Jays, are to be profitable. The Jays are not going to operate at a loss. In fact, they are probably expected to have a profit margin similar to other divisions at Rogers Media. That precludes management from spending big bucks like the Yankees and Red Sox. In fact, the only other corporations that owns an MLB club is Nintendo's majority ownership of the Seattle Mariners and Lerner Enterprises' ownership of the Nationals. What this means is that the people responsible for the pursestrings of the Jays are not really connected to the Jays. The Jays report to Rogers Media. Rogers Media reports to Rogers Communications, and the Jays are really a small part (1%) of the entire picture.

The other point of this is the synergy that exists uniquely within the Blue Jays. The Jays broadcast on the Fan Radio network and on SportsNet exclusively, both Rogers properties. Opinions on the Jays are broadcast primarily on Jays owned media outlets. This stifles the independent voices of the club. Radio analyst Mike Wilner was censored for a weekend for criticizing Cito Gaston. For all other clubs, radio rights are given to a radio network who are free to make comments without fear of censure. The same is true for television rights with the exceptions of YES (Yankees). As a result, the Jays broadcasters are encouraged, whether directly or indirectly, to stay on message, and if they aren't, there is always the suspicion that they are. The Blue Jays radio network and SportsNet will prop up the Jays, as a positive outlook gets more customers, and more customers mean more advertising revenue for Rogers Media, which is the company's mission. Once again, the goal of the Toronto Blue Jays is not to win a World Series. It is to be profitable. Shi Davidi, Mike Wilner, and Scott Carson are paid shills of Rogers, as are the Blue Jays themselves. They're all part of the same club, with the same goal.

For myself, that means that I take everything that comes out of Sportsnet.ca, the Fan 590, or Sportsnet TV with a very critical eye.

Once you realize that the goal of the Blue Jays are to win profitably and that most of the opinions that you hear on radio and TV are just part of the Rogers empire messages, you might understand the workings of the Jays more. Alex Anthopoulos won't buy big talent because it isn't profitable in the short term to do so. The Jays will always sound better than they actually are because the television and radio outlets prop them up.