Do you believe in the Jays?

On a recent board discussion on Blue Jay Way, someone asked if you really believed that the Jays had a chance. I'll put my long rant of an answer here. However, I was partly depressed because I lost my mp3 player last night by leaving it on a (coach) bus.
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First, no one can say with absolute certainty who is going to win this year. I know you may think I'm being facetious, but look at it in terms of a matter of probability. No one can answer "no the Jays won't make the playoffs again next year." There is a shot, even if it's in the 10% range, it's still could happen.

With that being said, and in my honest opinion, it's really tough to see the Jays ever making the playoffs. The Red Sox and Yankees are way too good for us. They both have money and are both developing terrific young players. The Jays spend a decent amount, though considering the cap of $100 million, you could heavily criticize the allocation of resources by JP Ricciardi. The Wells contract looks expensive in the last few years, though that is far away. BJ Ryan is a very expensive reliever. Not only that, but JP seems to acquire those free agents with his eyes and ears closed with regards to their medical reports. It's almost like he pretends it might not be a factor. It was known that Glaus, Burnett and Thomas were all injury concerns, and that BJ had a funky delivery and was due. The point is, spending money in an absolute vacuum may increase your chances to win, but the Red Sox and Yankees pummel us on that front, so we have to be even more shrewd with spending money.

The Red Sox and Yankees have been drafting better than us until this year and perhaps the last. JP wasted picks here and there (for example, on some of the aforementioned signings, and maybe the Koskie one), and blew several high picks on signability. Look at what the Tigers are doing. They drafted Maybin for a signing bonus of perhaps 400K more than Ricky Romero, and just traded him as the centrepiece for Miguel Freaking Cabrera. I know it's in the past, but I think that with JP at the helm, and the current economic structure (luxury tax, no draft slotting), as well as weighted divisions, the Jays are essentially screwed. The Red Sox and Yankees are going to make the playoffs almost every year, and if not them, an AL Central powerhouse. It is almost like the NBA, where the Western Conference is dominant and the Eastern one not so much (for baseball, like the AL over NL). However in basketball 8 teams make the playoffs, whereas only 4 do in baseball. A small change that could help is taking away the weighted divisions, and making the best 4 teams in each league make the playoffs. Baseball is usually slow to change though, so you can't expect something drastic like a salary cap or expanded playoffs (which would probably require a shortened season, even though 8 playoff teams would be really fun and lucrative).

It IS a delicate situation though. You can't just fire JP unless you can hire away a Brian Colangelo type guy. There are much worse GM's than Ricciardi. There are a few great GM's floating around right now, like Terry Ryan or John Schuerholz. The Jays could offer a somewhat big payroll, a good market, a good paycheque, and a supportive ownership group to try and sway one of these guys away.

It's also frustrating when you think that basically any other team has a chance but the Jays (and other AL East teams). If you haven't noticed, there is a lot of parity in baseball. Seven different world champions in the last 8 years (or so), with several new teams making the playoffs. However, the newest CBA actually heightened the level for luxury taxes, and there has been no discussion on slotting of the draft. With the weighted divisions, the Jays have to face these two teams very often, and have to hope that they both don't automatically make the playoffs. At least teams in the Central and West can hope to win the division in any one year.

What do I want from the games? Well, you can always watch them with tempered expectations, because certain good things will happen, like breaking out young players like McGowan, etc. You can watch for the good plays too. I don't agree with corpusse on his point about having an awful team. It would just desensitize you. It's better to have a somewhat competing, talented team...and even if you get good draft picks every year, it could take you 10 years to be good. Plus, you can still draft the Roy Halladay's of the world with the 18th overall pick. Also, you can always find a new team (which is hard for me to do personally because I've grown up with the Jays), but I'm a big fan of what Dave Dombrowski does for the Tigers. Look at how they draft over slot every year, getting Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin, and Rick Porcello. Why can't we do that? It'd be only adding another $5 million on the draft, easily affordable. It's pennywise, poundfoolish not to. They are also the closest team to us, and Dombrowski used to work for the Expos I believe.
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Now someone did respond and intelligently pointed out that the Red Sox and Yankees merely have an abundance of picks the last several years, and that the Blue Jays drafts are improving tremendously. That and the solid payroll makes me feel better about the future at least, since they are going in the right direction.