Full marks to the Blue Jays for acting fast on a fading Frank Thomas.
Not that anyone involved cares, but I give J.P. Ricciardi and John Gibbons full marks for the swift and decisive decision to remove Frank Thomas from the rest of their 2008 plans. Sure it will cost around $6.7 million for 'The Big Hurt' to sit at home and sulk, but it's not our money so who cares?
For the Blue Jays to honestly compete for at least a wild card spot this season, they couldn't wait for Big Frank to heat up. Last year, in a season where it appeared his sole purpose was to join the 500 home run club, Thomas was basically a non-factor over the first two months of the season, batting just .217 with eight home runs and 22 RBI over his first 55 games. Thanks to his sub-par performance, the Jays stumbled out of the gate at 27-29 and were already 10.5 games behind the eventual world champion Boston Red Sox. When the rash of injuries suffered last season were factored in, it was a deficit too great for the Jays to overcome and they finished in their customary slot of third place.
This season, it appeared like more of the same on their itinerary. Injuries had already cost them Scott Rolen, expected to be a major offensive contributor, forcing utility players to fill in. Thomas was still the everyday DH, slotted into the five-hole and, outside of a four-game span where he hit three home runs and drove in 10 runs, was not hitting. And when he was getting on via the walk, he was clogging up the bases and providing no protection for Alex Rios or Vernon Wells.
(By the way, there's an urban legend going around -- mostly on the post-game call-in show -- that Thomas was a notoriously slow starter. That, in fact, is a myth. Over his 18-year career, he's a .281 hitter in the month of April. The only three seasons where he started slow were his last three. Remove those from the equation and Frank is a .298 career hitter in the month.)
This is clearly not the year that the Jays are going to sit back and wait for things to come to them. After losing Friday's game, where they sleepwalked through an 8-4 loss to the Tigers to see their record fall to 8-9 on the season, Thomas went 0-for-4 with his average falling to a woeful .167.
Overnight, the Jays decided that it was time to take Thomas out of the line-up for the time being and see if someone else could do better. Manager Gibbons informed Frank of the decision when he arrived at the park on Saturday after which the hulking DH pulled a disappearing act. He didn't take part in pre-game batting practice, wasn't seen on the bench during the game and didn't come out to shake hands with his teammates after the Jays downed the Tigers 3-2. Despite not being seen, he was able to communicate to MLB.com that he thought something sinister was in the works; that he was being sat out because of the much-talked about vesting option that would see the Jays on the hook for $10 million next season if he reached a requisite number of plate appearances this season.
Did the money have something to do with the developments? Well, yes and no. The swiftness of his release removes the appearance of any impropriety, especially when Ricciardi and Thomas came to the agreement before Sunday's game that it would best for all involved for the player to be released and see if he could find a better situation elsewhere. The Jays couldn't wait for Thomas to find his stroke, although it had been whispered since spring training that he could no longer get around on fastballs and basically turned into a guess hitter. Thomas, who left Chicago after the 2005 season in a war of words with White Sox GM Kenny Williams, took the high road and said all the right things, knowing that there's not a big market for a 40-year-old DH with diminishing power that clogs up the bases.
Are the Jays a better team now that Thomas has left? No doubt about it, in my mind. Matt Stairs, with the odd appearance by Rod Barajas, can more than handle the DH role. Catching prospect Robinson Diaz arrives on Monday to take Thomas' spot on the 25-man roster, and with Scott Rolen now rehabbing in Dunedin, more moves are on the way. Adam Lind is hitting .360 at Triple-A, and probably would have been with the big club already if not for a stiff neck.
The bottom line is, too much is at stake this season for the Blue Jays, management and bench staff specifically, to sit back and hope that their slow start could be made up later in the season. Pro-active instead of reactive was the only way to go. Games lost in the first month of the schedule are infinitely harder to make up in the last month so the bleeding had to stop now. We might look back at the weekend as the turning point on this season if the Jays are able to get into thick of the playoff hunt.
And don't shed any tears for Frank Thomas. He gets to sit at home and receive what is left of his 2008 salary while hoping, because his pride won't allow him to realize that his Hall of Fame career might be over, that his phone will ring and someone might need his diminished skills. We should all be so lucky.
