kimchi_chigae wrote:Yeah. It's similar to what happened to Frank Thomas last season. The Jays released him and the A's signed him for the minimum.
What on earth is it going to take to fire JP already?!?
Well, he's running the Blue Jays with a payroll that ranks 16th out of 30 in baseball. They're definitely outperforming their payroll this year at least and you have to give the GM some credit for that, right? He's finding gems at a bargain up and down the roster (Lind, Hill, Romero, Downs).
So you would expect them to have the 16th best record?
RocketsDWM wrote:Awful move because of the money owed. At least put him on the DL again and try to work it out.
I think Beej forced Toronto's hand a little bit here. He was probably asked to spend sometime in Triple-A to try to work things out and probably declined, leading to his release.
Rumor has it the Newark Bears and Long Island Ducks could use a situational lefty in their bullpens Seriously though, if he can be had for the league minimum or not much more, there are likely a few teams that could use taking a flyer on him... and if he can't latch on with a Major League team, the Washington Natinals might be in the market.
RocketsDWM wrote:I think Beej forced Toronto's hand a little bit here. He was probably asked to spend sometime in Triple-A to try to work things out and probably declined, leading to his release.
Exactly. There is no doubt in my mind that BJ was asked to go back to AAA and declined.
swyck wrote:Also why would you have traded him in the off season ? They're trying to compete, they don't trade their closer.
I would have traded him because it's a bad contract for a reliever, and a decline from him could probably have been expected by the end of the deal. With Downs healthy, the bullpen is strong enough to lose BJ Ryan. But yeah, I can also see why it wouldn't have been a priority to move him. He came off a good year, and showed no signs of this kind of collapse.
Yes, good point, but I'd say the bad contract made him less likely to be traded during the off season.
He's definitely untradeable now, and you can't keep someone with that kind of productivity on the bench indefinitely. I agree with the later post hinting that maybe he refused AAA, and they just ran out of patience with him.
Cubs ink Ryan to Minor League contract Left-handed reliever released by Blue Jays on July 8
By Carrie Muskat / MLB.com
07/16/09 6:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON -- The Cubs signed pitcher B.J. Ryan to a Minor League contract on Thursday in hopes that the left-hander can help the team out of the bullpen later this season.
Ryan was 1-1 with a 6.53 ERA in 25 games with the Toronto Blue Jays before he was released on July 8. The Jays owe the left-hander $15 million, and the Cubs will be obligated to pay him a prorated share of the Major League minimum if he makes the team.
Ryan will report to the Cubs' Minor League facility in Mesa, Ariz., on Sunday and work with pitching coordinator Mark Riggins. When he's ready, he will join Triple-A Iowa, but there's no timetable.
"He's not ready [now]," assistant general manager Randy Bush said. "What's great is that he wants to do it the right way. He wants to go to Mesa, get work on his delivery. He wants to get himself back to feeling good about where he's at and how he's delivering the ball. When he's ready to go and feels sharp, that's when he wants to go to Iowa."
The Cubs have one lefty in the bullpen, in Sean Marshall, and no one available. Neal Cotts was on the Opening Day roster but underwent Tommy John ligament-replacement surgery on his left elbow.
"We feel there's a whole lot of upside for us," Bush said. "It should be a thing that can work well for both sides. He can go about getting himself ready at the right pace."
Ryan told the Cubs that he felt inconsistent work had contributed to his struggles this season. In 2004, Ryan struck out 122 in 87 innings for Baltimore.
"If he pitches anywhere near how he pitched with the Orioles and Toronto, he'll help us," manager Lou Piniella said. "But I think that's down the road just a little bit."
As a Cubs fan, I think you have to be happy about this.
Getting a guy like B.J. Ryan, and the most you're on the hook for is the major league minimum? I think you have to take that chance, especially when you're in such a ownership cluster<cough>, and thus are probably limited in the number of blockbuster moves you can make.
They did the same thing last year with Jimmy Edmonds and the numbers he put up after we got him were ridiculous.
The Cubs are so desperate for left handers that after getting the first lefty of the inning out, they rotated the pitcher out to left field for one out so that they could bring him back to face the leftie that was on deck.
This is one of those moves that I don't know how other teams didn't pull off. When has there ever been a lack of demand for left handed pitching?
Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Cubs have released B.J. Ryan from his minor league contract. Ryan wasn't scored upon in 5 2/3 innings at Triple-A Iowa, but had a 5/4 K/BB ratio and didn't believe that his velocity -- which had been in the 86-88 mph range -- would bounce back. At this point, it remains to be seen what the next step is for the once-dominant former closer.
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Seriously though, if he can be had for the league minimum or not much more, there are likely a few teams that could use taking a flyer on him... and if he can't latch on with a Major League team, the Washington Natinals might be in the market.
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