Blue Jays trade analysis - part deux

Yesterday I wrote about the Jays recent trade and warned fans not to have high expectations, based on the results of some other blockbuster deals or big signings. I outlined several examples over the past 10 or so years where teams added major parts in the offseason and didn't get the results they expected.

That's all well and good, but just because some big trades don't pan out, doesn't mean that they all won't.  So today, I'm going to look at the specific players involved in this trade, and analyze how much of an impact they can be expected to provide.

The players the Blue Jays received were Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio.

Blue Jays blockbuster = World Series?

The Toronto Blue Jays pulled off a blockbuster deal and have added 4 all-star players to their roster.  Money aside (Rogers still has a few excess billions), the only cost was  a controversial shortstop (whom will be replaced by one of the premier shortstops in the league), an under-performing pitcher and some prospects.  And although some of these prospects might pan out in future years, it’s not as though any of them were the kind of prospects that your average baseball fan was following in the minors – a la Bryce Harper or Jesus Montero. In fact it wasn’t even the top organizational prospects – but their consensus #2, 5 and 8 guys.

What does any of this have to do with Baseball in Alberta?  Well, if these moves help the Blue Jays win the World Series, the impact will be felt at the local level.  There will be a resurgence in fan interest, like there was in the early 90s, and it will cascade all the way down to cities building more youth baseball diamonds, more revenue for independent teams, more players wanting to play, attracting more qualified coaches north of the border and so on.  So, yes, this trade could have a major impact on the baseball landscape in Alberta, from Little League to the WMBL to semi-professional franchises to potentially attracting minor league teams back to our province.

So… will this trade:

- make Toronto a better team for the immediate future? Absolutely. 

- help the Jays' chances of making the playoffs? Probably

- bring the World Series trophy to Canada soon? Nope!

Look, I'm sorry. Even though I'm a Red Sox fan, I'm involved enough in Canadian baseball to know that the Jays winning will help the baseball industry nation wide, and I'm all for that but I just don't see these moves making that kind of a difference.

There are two ways we can look at this:  Look at individual player's impacts, or look at what history tells us about the fate of teams that made huge acquisitions, bolstering their rosters in hope of attaining that elusive championship.  Today I'm going to start by looking at history for some parallels.  In my next post, I'll analyze this specific trade more closely.