If I was the owner of the Toronto Blue Jays, I'd have already called GM J.P. Ricciardi into my office for a bit of a screaming session, starting out with "Why the hell did you throw away $8 million on Frank Thomas?"
During the offseason, the Blue Jays re-signed future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas. The contract called for Thomas to make $8 million in 2008 and contained a $10 million option for 2009 that would automatically vest if Thomas amassed 304 plate appearances this year. This past weekend, the Blue Jays released Frank Thomas. They're still on the hook for the full $8 million, but no longer have to worry about him playing enough to earn the 2009 salary.
There are three possible explanations for this situation:
1. J.P. Ricciardi made a stupid decision during the offseason.
2. J.P. Ricciardi made a stupid decision this weekend.
3. Something significant happened in between those two points in time so that the contract made sense in the first place, but now seems so bad that it's not even worth giving Thomas a little more time to turn around his season.
And if I'm the Blue Jays owner and I'm out $8 million, I need to hear Ricciardi make a convincing case for #3. I don't see it. Was Thomas bad over his first 16 games? Definitely. But, Thomas has always been a slow starter; his career stats in April are significantly worse than for any other month. Over the last few years, he's been particularly bad. Before his release, Thomas had 72 plate appearances this season. Here are his stats through his first 72 plate appearances of each of the last three years:
year H 2B HR BB SO avg obp slg ops
2008 10 1 3 11 13 .167 .306 .333 .639
2007 12 2 2 10 13 .197 .319 .328 .647
2006 11 2 4 7 10 .169 .250 .385 .635
Those three lines are virtually identical. After a horrible start in 2006, he went on to have a very productive season, finishing with a .926 OPS and 39 homers, good enough for fourth place in the MVP voting and a contract from J.P. Ricciardi. After that horrible start in 2007, he went on to have another productive season, finishing with a .377 obp and a .480 slugging percentage, good enough for a new $8 million contract from J.P. Ricciardi. Now, after a virtually identical start, that same J.P. Ricciardi has decided that Frank Thomas is worthless?
5 comments:
Maybe this gives them roster the roster flexibility to sign Bonds.
scratch that extra 'roster.'
I was confused too, because why would they have put that clause in his contract if they didn't want him to attain it? Off the top of my head, I would recommend Seattle sign him. He would be a significant upgrade over Vidro, in my opinion. The only thing Vidro has going for him is he's a switch hitter.
Big Hurt's defense at first can't be that much worse than Delgado's.
Depending on how you define "regularly," Thomas hasn't played 1B regularly in 9, 11, or 12 years. He hasn't played a single game at first since 2004. Even if an NL team thought he could do it part time, he might not be interested in re-learning.
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