Blue Jays sign on for another year of the Initial Era

I was among the first to think that, like two lovers who had some good times but realized it wasn't going anywhere important, it was a good idea for JP Ricchardi and the Blue Jays to finally part ways.

Much like everyone else, I don't like JP personally. He seems like an enormously horrible person to have to spend any time with. He seems arrogant and vindictive, and the way he presents himself, talks down to people, creates dumb little controversies, and even the way he looks is enough to make anyone's blood curdle a little bit. He's not even on a level with a sleazy heel who mobilizes good guys against him in a good movie; he's much more like one of those annoying, obnoxious minor TV characters who's meant to get in the way and frustrate the good guys. I'm thinking less Tim Roth in Rob Roy, and more one of those by-the-book eggheads at CTU who keeps stepping on Jack Bauer's toes.

But that's not why I wanted to see him go. Even if one can argue Sports does sometimes resemble a Popularity Contest, its not like that for me. Especially with management. Rather, I wanted the Jays and JP to part because the JP era in Toronto just seemed to suffer from bad luck.

Even the decisions that turned out really bad, in hindsight, only really seem like bad decisions with hindsight. Reed Johnson? We had too many outfielders, and we just picked the wrong one to get rid of. Frank Thomas? Hey, if you want a big slugger from the FA pool, you're probably going to have to overpay, and he was maybe our best hitter in 2007. But sometimes, shaking things up can just change your luck a little. So, I looked at getting rid of JP like hitting some sort of Karma-Reset button.

I never thought he had done a horrible job, and I always believed the Blue Jays were better than they seemed, but was beginning to doubt whether they would ever preform to that level.

However, after Cito Gaston took over, they've been near the very top of the AL. The majority of that 10 game win streak occurred when we thought our playoff chances were done (we sort of fought our way back into longshot-position after we swept Tampa), and had some really lucky wins. But even if you don't factor in our amazing September, we were right up there with the Red Sox, Angels, and Rays in July, August and parts of June.

This is what changed things for me in terms of the JP issue. At some point - actually, it was a fairly blunt point, when Cito took over from Gibbons - we changed from an underachieving midlevel team to a very good team.

They're not the youngest team in the world, but they don't have any key players that are old, and they do have a lot of young players. In fact, we have a core of players that should be in their peak years (Halladay, Burnett, Wells, BJ Ryan), some players that are fairly new (Marcum, Litsch, McGowan, Lind, Snider, our bullpen), and a lot of guys that fit in between those two extremes. Our pitching staff can throw down with anyone over the next few years, and we have enough bats to complement them.

In fact, I'd say the Blue Jays are a pretty good team with a pretty good future. JP built them. Of course, in the AL East, we can never go into a season expecting a playoff spot, but I think we have the guns to swing with anyone. The obvious answer here is to stay the course.