Toronto Blue Jays: J.P.'s P.P.

This chart pretty jarringly illustrates the J.P. Ricciardi era in Toronto. Ricciardi came in with a great rep, having been Billy Beane's right-hand man in Oakland, but the shine wore off him pretty quickly as he greatly increased the team's payroll with no results on the field. B.J. Ryan (five years/$47 mil/two years missed to injury), Alex Rios (seven years/$69.835M), and Vernon Wells (seven years/$126M) were all signed to risky, back-loaded contracts by Ricciardi, and none of the three worked out. Nor was he able to draft or mine the bargain bins well enough to find talent for cheap, which would offset the poor FA contracts. In all, Ricciardi did about the worst thing imaginable by signing average- to slightly above- average free agents at high prices, which kept the team from fully rebuilding but also kept its payroll high without being relevant. In another division, this strategy may have produced a playoff appearance or two, but with the strength and financial power of the Red Sox and Yankees, only a full-scale rebuild would create the top-level talent they'd need to compete. Call that, oh, the Tampa strategy.

Mercifully, Ricciardi was fired last October, and a new chapter has begun in Toronto. His poor decisions lingered, however, as the Jays were forced to trade the best pitcher in the league for prospects, since no one was willing to pay Vernon Wells's salary. Let's examine this with another chart:

As you can see, the Jays are paying the majority of their payroll to guys who aren't helping the team (I included Lyle Overbay in there as an example of the kind of average talent a team in a great division shouldn't pay $8 million to). With all the flack the Red Sox get for paying Renteria and Lugo to play for other teams, you'd really think that every other word on Baseball Tonight would be about how the Blue Jays are paying ROY HALLADAY to play for another team, not to mention Ryan, who isn't even on a team.

So it's fair to say Ricciardi was a poor GM. But where did he leave the team?

Well, they'll still be paying Wells $24 million a year until 2014, but all Ricciardi's other poor contracts will expire before then. The problem is, they don't have a lot of talent hanging around. Travis Snider, Adam Lind, and Ricky Romero look to be solid pieces, all three 25 or younger and already solid contributors at the major league level. Brett Wallace, Kyle Drabek, JP Arencibia, and Zach Stewart are top prospects that should help out soon. But beyond that, the system is thin and has few high-ceiling prospects, and with the Rogers Corporation looking to spend less money, it's going to be tough to fill out the rest of the team with enough talent to compete with the big boys of the division.

It looks like this year could be a long one, and it remains to be seen whether new GM Alex Anthopoulos will make the right moves to contend. He has already made one deal that I question. His haul from the Halladay trade was respectable, gaining Drabek, Michael Taylor, and Travis D'Arnaud, even if he had to pay some of Halladay's salary this year. But then Taylor was traded to the A's for Wallace, who may be more of a sure thing and closer to the majors, but has a much lower upside at a more easy-to-fill position. While this may have been prompted by Taylor's path to the majors being "blocked" by Vernon Wells and Snider, Taylor looks like the higher upside player to me and is the kind of guy the Jays should be targeting and holding on to.

Will the Jays be able to add the stars they need, and will they hit on the top draft picks they're likely to get in the near future? That will be the key to any success they may have, unless by some luck the rest of the AL East becomes incompetent and/or poor, which is unlikely.