Ricciardi's Legacy of Deceit: The Lyle Overbay Story

I am an avid Toronto Blue Jays fan. I have grown up watching them, starting just before the glory days of two world series victories and sticking with them through the hard times ever since.

Much of Toronto's struggle, after leading the league in payroll and attendence for some time, boils down to the ownership. Labatt once owned the Blue Jays, and the brewery had no qualms with spending big money on big names and talented men to run the front office.

Then, the company was picked up by the Belgian beer giant Interbrew (now InBev), who seemed puzzled by the fact that they owned a Honkbal club in Canada. They slashed payroll and the top management left for greener pastures. What was left of the Blue Jays organization desperately tried to hold things together, but little could be done as New York and Boston quickly filled the big-spender void and began a new bidding war for the MLB's finest talent.

Finally, Interbrew managed to unload the Jays to Rogers Communications, who immediately put their own man, JP Ricciardi, at the helm. Famous for being the protege of the Oakland A's Billy Beane, who pioneered Moneyball. Ricciardi made promises about a five year plan that would see the team make the playoffs.

Instantly, he was hamstrung by his corporate overlords. Rogers had developed a marketing strategy based on the Blue Jays, and owning the team was only step one. The next phase was to own the SkyDome as well. However, the $85 million the holding company had picked it up for was just too steep. And if the team went back to being a winner and drawing over 4 million fans a year, the price would sky-rocket. Rogers couldn't take the risk that Ricciardi wasn't a snake-oil salesman and actually could do what he said he could.

That's right, Rogers wanted to do what was done in the movie Major League. Except move the team to Miami, they wanted to move the team to the Rogers Centre. And they succeeded. Ricciardi fielded a crappy team with a hack manager and the team drove down the price of the SkyDome to 25 million dollars. Note that in 1989, the SkyDome cost $600 million to build, with the government footing the largest chunk of the bill and the land being given away for free.

Deal of the motherfucking 21st century, and it was only the year 2005.

Well, back to Ricciardi. Now that the corporation unshackled him, he set about building a contender. In the end, he failed the task, but to be fair, the job he did wasn't as bad as some would contend. The Wall Street Journal contends, when you re-weight the team rankings to eliminate the heavy bias towards playing division rivals like New York, Boston and Tampa Bay, the AL East's 4th place Toronto Blue Jays of 2008 would actually have finished 7th overall in the MLB. The 2nd place Jays team of 2006 would have finished fifth overall.

(They mainly credit the NL's weakness on the DH rule, but I wouldn't underestimate the influence of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry as a factor in the AL's strength. Every contender in the AL will likely have to go up against them often, while the NL guys really only have to get lucky in the World Series final. And even if they lose, being an NL champion is good for business.)

Put in those terms, the Blue Jays under Ricciardi were a good crew, but the affluence of New York and Boston, as well as the arrival of the Rays as real contenders, proved to be too much. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Ricciardi may not have been a complete fraud, but he sure was an arrogant prick.

Now, my father has a saying that I hold more true every day I get older: "You don't need to know everything about someone to know enough."

Here's my "all I need to know" moment about JP: while pestered by the callers on a radio talk show about the availability of a Reds outfielder named Adam Dunn, Ricciardi unleashed a wicked tirade against the man's character, saying, "Do you know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much? Do you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much?"

Yes, JP, a man has spent his entire adult life playing baseball, going through years of making virtually nothing while playing games no one watches in the minor leagues even though he "doesn't really like baseball." What kind of bullshit thought process must anyone have to think of that to say? Unless they're making it up to cover from the fact that they barely know who Adam Dunn is.

Basically, I contend that JP never liked to admit his shortcomings or mistakes.

Another example was the clash between Shea Hillenbrand and Lyle Overbay. JP had signed Hillenbrand and have given him decent playing opportunities in the 2005 season, where Hillenbrand batted over 290 with 18 HR and over 80 RBI. In the off season, JP had brought on Overbay, an overpriced 1st basement who was a career 270 hitter and topped out at about 19 HR the year before, assuming Hillenbrand wouldn't mind playing DH.

Hillenbrand, displeased that he was being replaced at first even though he came off of a strong season, caused trouble to brew in the Blue Jays clubhouse. He was rightfully upset for a pretty good reason; he felt that he was a better first baseman than Lyle Overbay (and I'm inclined to agree). He also had a less good, but understandably upsetting, reason to be angry: DH's don't make as much money as position players. On the negative side, I heard that Hillenbrand was a bit of a drama queen and an asshole to boot, so I'm not saying he's either a good guy or completely innocent.

Anyway, Ricciardi prepared to dig his heels in and he began the lie that lingers to this day: Lyle Overbay is an excellent fielder. And so, as the Great Leader haveth spoken, it became the law. The Jays broadcasters, employed by the very same Rogers Communications that owns the team, parroted the party line, since they had long learned that critical thought would be punished. The local sports beat reporters, few of them more interested in Baseball than a sack of lawn trimmings, lacked the expertise to question the assertion.

You see, it's the perfect lie. There are no reliable statistics for fielding, especially when it comes to first base. Add to that, most errand throws that might have been caught by a particularly adept first baseman are charged as errors to the thrower instead of the first baseman and verification beyond anectodal evidence is impossible. The various sabermatricians that follow the Jays would have no way to refute the claim, and with enough repetition would come to believe it themselves.

I, however, have some intuition about the game and know what I'm looking at when I watch a first baseman field an incoming throw. And, I can say without a doubt that Overbay consistently plays it an unnecessarily risky manner. He tries to pick up one/two-hoppers late after the bounce even when he could trap the ball just after the bounce instead. Anyone who's played on a public field can tell you the problem with this: a bad hop, which is unlikely but not impossible on a big league field, means a wild throw.

This is one of the simplest mistakes a first baseman can make, but one that is often ignored in player development. Overbay's decent bat and the top-quality fields he has played on for years allowed him to get away with it, as the blame for this kind of error almost always falls on the fielder who made the poor throw.

You see, a great fielder doesn't just catch the throws he's supposed to. A great fielder also makes the plays he's not supposed to. And, for a first basemen, being able to scoop a poor toss in the dirt reliably is part of the ideal. Overbay is bad at this, even by amateur standards. I don't care, nor do I wish to comment on, about his other strengths and attributes as a fielder, you cannot say he is a great fielder when he doesn't even understand a basic theory of the position.

And so, after Hillenbrand was run out of town, we were stuck with Overbay. He ended up getting a 4-year deal worth an average of 6 million dollars a season after a career year at the plate he has failed to replicate since.

So, while enjoying myself at a home game, I give our man Overbay a hard time. In fact, it has nothing to do with his current suck level. It has more to do with the lie his career is currently based on, and the evil corporate machine that facilitated it.

Now don't get me wrong, Rogers is probably the best owner the Blue Jays could hope for or expect. However, just as being competant and moderately successful didn't make JP Ricciardi any less of a douchebag, being a relatively generous/supportive owner doesn't make Rogers any less evil.