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The Rog's Rant

Blue Jays are at least willing to take a chance

It really is hard to say at this point if the Toronto Blue Jays signing of veteran designated hitter Frank Thomas was a good one or not.

Thomas has been a great player, one of the best hitters of his generation in fact. But the Blue Jays aren’t paying him $18 million for what he’s done, they are paying him $18 million for what he will do for them the next two seasons.

And really, what the Blue Jays need – and everybody knows it – is more pitching. They need a catcher. They need more infield help. They need to re-sign or trade Vernon Wells. Adding a 39-year-old designated hitter is not going to hurt you, but it’s not the top priority either.

That is why everyone will have to wait and see what else the Blue Jays are able to do in the off-season before making a definitive call on the signing of Frank Thomas. If that is pretty much all they do this off-season, then they’re not that much better off. If they manage to address some of their weaknesses in addition to that move, then they deserve some praise.

But either way, I salute the Blue Jays and GM J.P. Ricciardi for at least taking the first step any team or individual must take in order to be as successful as possible, and that’s is to take a chance.

Significant progress in life isn’t possible without taking some degree of calculated risk. You just can’t sit around and bemoan the fact that life is tough, and sit around and cry the blues that life isn’t fair.

Trying to compete with the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in the American League East is certainly tough, and it certainly isn’t fair either. The Yankees payroll is about $200 million and the Blue Jays is $70 million, so the Yankees (and the Red Sox too for that matter), have significant advantages over the Blue Jays due to that discrepancy.

So the easy thing to do would be cry about how tough it is and how unfair it is. The Blue Jays at least are trying to compete the best they can.

If Toronto is to ever find a way to make the playoffs playing in that division, the club is going to have to gamble. The Jays will have to over-pay a free agent or two or three, they’ll have to develop a solid farm system and they’ll have to get a little lucky maybe by finding a player that everybody else passes on.

And even if they do all that, the Yankees still have the ability to just go out and add more players, like Bobby Abreu and the late Cory Lidle, like they did last year to fend off any charge.

But you have to try and you have to be willing to take a chance. Signing Frank Thomas, who finished fourth in the American League MVP voting, is doing both.

How good a move is that signing? Ask me in April, when we see who else the Blue Jays manage to trot onto the field at the Rogers Centre along with Frank Thomas – who by the way is still a great hitter and a good pick up.

Adding him is either going to be an OK move, or a great move. But either way, he was worth taking the chance on.

And you have to take a chance every once in while, you just have to. You can’t succeed without taking the odd risk, and signing Frank Thomas at that price and at this time is definitely that.

Comments on The Rant of November 15 on Leafs re-signing Ferguson:

“He has the highest winning percentage of any general manager in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Certainly that alone gives him the right to some sort of an extension.” – Steve in Toronto.

“I’m not a fan of Fergy The Rog. He just doesn’t strike me as a bona-fide general manager at the NHL level.” – Chris in Pickering.

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