Today we're gonna party like it's 1989

Due to popular demand (i.e. my brother asking for my reaction) today I'll throw my two cents into the ring on the recent re-hiring of Cito Gaston by the Jays (I guess the Blue Jays have gone the way of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and dropped the Blue off of their name).

Well, hiring Cito as a manager was a strange move by Toronto back in 1989 when they promoted him from hitting coach after the Jays started off 12-24 under Jimmy Williams. Cito managed to take that team and turn them into a division championship team that eventually bowed out to the Oakland A's in the ALCS.

Well, this year the Jays were under performing again and their GM decides to shake things up and re-hire Mr. Gaston again. The unfortunate thing is, since coaching Toronto in 1997 Cito never coached again, over a 10 year period (except for being a roving hitting coach in the minors) and at the time of the hiring was a special assistant to Toronto's CEO. This time around I'm not liking the hiring. As witnessed over the first 3/4 of a month of Gaston's re-hiring, the Jays are still playing sub .500 ball. Gaston seems more like a stop gap measure than anything substantial. I don't see him staying on past this season as they find out he will probably be ineffectual, so why do you hire him if he's going to be gone? Why not find someone who is in the mould of a manager, have him on for the rest of the season, then he can use the off season to evaluate the talent, make changes and work with the players during the off season. That's what the sensible thing to do would be, but alas this team is in Toronto and dysfunction seems to be the norm with the teams there.

The problem seems to be J.P. Ricciardi, the GM of the Jays. He was the one who decided to drop the "Blue" from the Blue Jays because "Jays" sounds younger and hipper. He also came from the Moneyball system of Billy Beane from Oakland and was supposed to bring Toronto from to the playoffs, after trimming a bloated salary system, bringing it down, then properly building a team. Well, he trimmed the Jay's salary from $90 million to $50 million in his first few years (ironically the time when they Jays started competing well with the Yankees and the Redsox.) Then he went and started signing huge contracts for players past their prime (i.e. Frank Thomas, now on tap for $10 million this year even though he plays in Oakland). Also the drafting that he has done has only yielded Aaron Hill. His #1 choice of Russ Adams as a shortstop never panned out. This guy is the guy to blame for the failure in Toronto. He rode in on the coat-tails of Billy Beane and Moneyball (and Theo Epstein's success in Boston) He was able to razzle and dazzle the guys who sign the checks and put Toronto in no real better shape than they were when he took over. If J.P. Ricciardi manages to last the season with Toronto I'll be surprised.

Now you'll have to wait until later to hear my thoughts on the Leafs, which is another fun franchise to watch and follow. That is if you like to watch train wrecks happen.