Stories and more about Shawn's trade from Toronto to LA
Before it all started
The Trade
Stories and more about
Shawn's trade from Toronto to LA
Before it all started
Doubletalk surrounds Jays' dynamic duo
CLEVELAND - LET THE games begin. With the Blue Jays' season ending not with a bang, but with a whimper, general manager Gord Ash has jump-started his most important off-season project, by making the same longterm contract offers to his two most valuable players.
Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado's baseball lives have intertwined like the ivy on the walls of Wrigley Field. Starting in '92, they have been teammates every year, at three separate levels of the Toronto farm system (Dunedin, Knoxville, Syracuse) and, for five years, with the Jays.
This year, they even arrived on the national scene together, as recognized stars. They have combined to drive in 255 of the Jays' 855 runs, slamming 85 of the club's 204 homers. Now, in the Jays' well-thought-out strategy for the next millennium, GM Gord Ash is preying on that closeness, hoping that, with one year to go until, at the same time (naturally), they become free agents, the two amigos will sign multi-year deals in Toronto.
``We're certainly going down parallel paths (with the negotiations),'' Ash said. ``Both have made it very clear they enjoy the other's company. We do recognize the fact that they are close . . . and they have a comfort level with that.''
The early line places odds at 30-70 the Jays can sign Delgado to a multi-year deal, 90-10 they can sign Green and 20-80 they will retain both of them into the next century.
``Do we want them? Yes. Have we made them a priority? Absolutely. Have we had meaningful dialogue? We believe we've started it, but we don't ultimately decide where their future's going to be,'' Ash said, answering his own questions.
The guaranteed offer presented to each player's agent is presumed in the range of four to five years, at $50 to 55 million (U.S.). Ash must get any deal done before opening day. He doesn't want a situation like Seattle had with the Big Unit two years ago, when they ended up trading a disgruntled and disruptive Randy Johnson to the Astros on July 31. Johnson sleepwalked through the first half, returning to form only after he was traded.
``In hindsight, I'm sure they did what they did because they thought it was right,'' Ash said. ``But they may have been better off trading him in the winter. It dominated their existence for that period of time.''
Both Green and Delgado are eligible for arbitration, a process which would net them (yes, even to an arbitrator they are interchangeable) anywhere from $10 million to $12 million for a one-year deal. Retaining both under those conditions would rocket Ash well over his near $50 million budget.
``You've seen contracts structured many different ways,'' Ash said, explaining his need to reach a multi-year agreement. ``Some back-end loaded, some front-end loaded, some off-loaded. There's all kinds of ways to do it and that'll be part of the discussion.''
Reading between the lines, the only way Ash can keep them both is if they agree to deals in which he can juggle front-end dollar figures. Barring that, he'll be forced to trade one or both.
``It is possible, depending on how the contracts are structured, to keep both Carlos and Shawn without having to give up pitching. It's too conceptual, too abstract to give you how it would work, but it is possible.''
We were buying it up to that point. It sounds like Ash is using head-scratching doubletalk in an effort to obscure the fact that two of the starting trio of Pat Hentgen, David Wells and Joey Hamilton, with guaranteed salaries totalling around $21 million in 2000, must be traded if Green and Delgado are to stay.
The Jays let Roberto Alomar and Jose
Canseco get away because of rancorous negotiations. If Green and
Delgado go, the organization will have a lot of 'splainin' to do
to its already skeptical fans.
Going....
Things that could have
helped him make his decision to leave
Bloodbath: Jays hack five coaches
`We feel like we wanted to have some experience'
By Geoff Baker
Toronto Star Sports Reporter
CLEVELAND - Blue Jays manager Jim Fregosi was apparently right when he said there would be no power struggle with management over his coaching staff.
It looked more like total capitulation by the Jays brass yesterday when Fregosi's entire staff other than third base coach Terry Bevington was relieved of its duties.
``We feel like we wanted to make a change coaching-wise, to have some experience level on the coaching staff,'' Fregosi said after his team's 7-3 win over the Cleveland Indians yesterday. ``It's got nothing to do with the coaches who are here.
``It's not a personal thing.''
But the reason that pitching coach Mel Queen, batting instructor Gary Matthews, first base coach Lloyd Moseby, bench coach Jim Lett and bullpen coach Marty Pevey won't be back next year has everything to do with Fregosi.
The ``we'' Fregosi refers to includes team president and GM Gord Ash.
But while Ash had the final call on the moves, his decision was really a concession and a show of respect for Fregosi.
The Jays field boss did not have the luxury of appointing his own coaches when hired as a last-minute replacement for the disgraced Tim Johnson in spring training. Most managers, especially veteran ones, hand pick their coaches when they are hired.
What makes this situation so unusual is that, because of Fregosi's late arrival, he spent six months working with the men he intended to replace.
All the coaches will be offered positions within the organization, but some are unlikely to accept.
Bevington has a guaranteed contract for one more season and he appears to get along very well on a personal level with Fregosi.
``To be honest with you, I'm pretty upset about it,'' Jays slugger Shawn Green said after hitting his 42nd home run of the season in a six-run third inning yesterday.
Green has worked with Queen for eight years, going back to when he oversaw the team's minor-league operations.
``He taught a lot of us how to play the game,'' Green said.
He also credits Matthews for helping him go the opposite way more. The homer Green hit off Jaret Wright was an opposite-field blast.
``He's been a big impact on the success I've had the last couple of years,'' said Green, who emerged into a 30-30 player (home runs and stolen bases) last season. His 42 homers and 123 RBIs stand next to 44 homers and 134 RBIs for Carlos Delgado, another player who credits Matthews for working with him.
Queen had a Cy Young award winner on his staff for three consecutive seasons after taking over as pitching coach in 1996. It began with Hentgen, followed by back-to-back awards for Roger Clemens, whose career was revived when he arrived in Toronto.
But the team's pitching faltered this season and the starters did not live up to their advance billing.
Queen has been with the organization since 1986 and still has his supporters in the front office. But there have been as many changes upstairs in recent seasons as there were on the field yesterday.
``I had an idea it might happen, but you're always hopeful,'' said Queen, adding that he'll take a few weeks to mull over a ``generous offer'' the team has made him.
Lett has been with the club for three years and worked under three different managers, Cito Gaston, Johnson and Fregosi. He'll return home to West Virginia after today's game and discuss his future with his wife.
Moseby is the former Jays star who began his coaching career at Triple-A Syracuse last season before joining the Jays. His newness to major-league coaching, as with that of first-year man Pevey, is what Fregosi was referring to on the need for experience.
Bringing in his own people will also give Fregosi a comfort level he did not have surrounded by men who were hired by his predecessors and Ash.
He has already spoken to some candidates and expects to announce an initial wave of hirings soon. Some of the candidates are employed by other teams and the Jays need permission to speak with them first.
``Realistically, a manager needs people under him that he knows what they (can) do and is comfortable with,'' Fregosi said.
By MIKE GANTER --
Toronto Sun
CLEVELAND -- The Blue Jays' coaching staff took it on the chin
yesterday while their charges were out putting a licking on the
Cleveland Indians for the second day in a row.
Manager Jim Fregosi and president/general manager Gord Ash
mutually agreed to let five of six Jays coaches go, although all
will be offered positions within the organization.
Pitching coach Mel Queen, hitting coach Gary (Sarge)
Matthews, bench coach Jim Lett, first-base coach Lloyd Moseby and
bullpen coach Marty Pevey were told prior to yesterday's 7-3 win
over the Indians that they would not be back in their present
roles next season.
The only survivor was third-base coach Terry Bevington, who
joined the staff after Fregosi took over from Tim Johnson -- who
was fired during spring training -- and was the only coach who
had a contract through next season.
"I don't want to get into why we want to make the
changes," Fregosi said. "It has nothing to do with
coaches that are here. If we did not feel good about the coaches
they certainly would not have been offered positions in the
organization. It is not a personal thing."
Fregosi said he wanted to bring in coaches he was more
familiar with and that the team already has talked to possible
replacements.
"Realistically, a manager needs people that he feels
comfortable with. That's why I say this was not personal. It's
not saying that one guy has not done his job properly."
In the clubhouse, that explanation worked for some of the
players but not for others.
"I don't like to be controversial but I'm pretty upset
about this. A lot of the guys are. I think it's a shame,"
slugger Shawn Green, said. "You get comfortable with
coaches.
"I'm going to miss all of them but Sarge (Matthews)
has helped me a lot," said Green, who hit his 42nd home run
yesterday. "You look at the results since he has been here.
He has completely turned around our offence."
Paul Quantrill, who called Queen the best pitching coach he
ever had -- the same words Pat Hentgen used minutes later to
describe Queen -- didn't like the decision but he said he
understood the reasoning.
"Mel has helped me more than anyone I have ever played
for, but as Mel would say, it's a business and it's (Fregosi's)
prerogative to hire his own people. I think any of us in his
position would do the same thing."
Both Matthews and Queen, who admitted
"disappointment" at the dismissals, said there were no
hard feelings.
"I'm not upset," said Matthews, who expects to
have a few major-league hitting coach offers. "Look at the
year the guys had. I take pride in the fact that a lot of guys
have had career years offensively here."
Ash's method has look of
madness
CITO Gaston is returning to the Blue Jays as batting coach under the guy whose butt he kicked in the '93 World Series. One has to wonder what master plan team president and GM Gord Ash is working under or if he's flying by the seat of his pants.
It's like when you were a kid and took a stick and poked it gently into the backside of a frog as he sat on a rock. When he felt pressure, the frog would jump. Otherwise, he was quite content just to sit and watch the world go by. Ash is like the frog on the rock.
In fact, when a Star columnist called the Jays general manager in Florida on Tuesday to ask him to confirm Gaston's return, Ash had not been ready to make the announcement. But because of the columnist's knowledge, and in spite of the professional way he conducted himself as a journalist, the Jays released a hurried statement announcing the hiring of three coaches, a totally unprofessional response.
The Jays may have levelled the playing field for the other media, but they are discouraging responsible journalists from calling to confirm stories. It's a dangerous game.
Okay, now, so let's get this straight.
In relative disgrace, with the bitter cloud of racist accusations against several media members hanging over him, Gaston was fired with a week left in the '97 season.
He then seemingly disappeared from the public eye, paid for '98 with the understanding that in September, after a summer sabbatical, he would be asked to work as a part-time hitting instructor, maybe in the Florida Instructional League. Gaston took the pay, but declined the play, preferring to travel, play golf and wait for a big-league manager's job.
The Jays replaced Gaston with Tim Johnson, who at one time applied for the vacant Red Sox job but lost out to Jimy Williams, the man replaced by Gaston with the Jays in '89. Johnson brought in hitting coach Gary Matthews, who has now been fired and replaced by Gaston after coaching Jay hitters to their most runs ever. Small world.
Make no mistake. Gaston was an excellent batting coach - in his day (1982-89). Now, 11 years after teaching hitting under both Bobby Cox and Williams, he is back after two full years out of uniform.
Matthews had presided proudly over the development of Shawn Green as a rising superstar. Gaston, on the other hand, was accused of stifling the rise of the 26-year-old as manager between 1995 and '97.
Cito never liked anything about Green, the player. He thought his feet were too big to be a base-stealer and his upbringing too comfortable to be a go-to guy. He didn't like his instincts in the field and ragged on Green and his other young players in the clubhouse as the Jays struggled in the post-Series years to find a new identity.
The capper came in '97. Green was devastated at spring training when he arrived at camp in the best shape of his life, with 10 pounds of extra muscle, only to be notified through the press that right field was a wide-open position.
Three years later, with a five-year, $55 million contract as an acceptable final contract and just one year away from free agency, Green holds the hammer.
Ash vows that his goal is to keep both Green and his running mate, Carlos Delgado, with the Jays well into the next century.
But Green admitted to The Star's Geoff Baker that he was stunned when he and agent Jeff Moorad were contacted on Monday by Ash with the news of Gaston's impending appointment.
Either Ash is unaware of the implications of Gaston's hiring on the previously scarred psyche of his top young gun or he doesn't care because he plans on trading him anyway.
``Rribbbittt!'' Jump.
TORONTO (CP) --
The Toronto Blue Jays have hired former manager Cito Gaston back
as part of the team's coaching staff for the 2000 season.
Gaston, who navigated the Jays to their two World Series
championships in 1992 and 1993 and was the team's longest-serving
manager from 1989 to 1997, will re-join the team as a batting
coach under manager Jim Fregosi.
Gaston is the winningest manager in Jays' history, going
681-635 in his nine seasons at the helm of the ball club. He was
fired in the final week of the 1997 season when the Jays finished
in the AL East basement.
Gaston replaces hitting coach Gary Matthews, who was fired
along with four other coaches in the last week of the 1999
season.
The Jay have also hired Lee Elia as the team's bench coach
and Bobby Knoop as the first-base coach.
Elia replaced Jim Lett and Knoop replaced Lloyd Moseby.
Elis, 62, had been the Philadelphia Phillies' director of
minor league instruction since 1988. Knoop, 60, was first base
coach for the Anaheim Angels from 1979 to 1996.
In other moves, the Jays announced Tuesday that Bob Engle,
Toronto's senior advisor, baseball operations, is retiring after
23 years with the major-league baseball team.
And Tommy Craig, who has spent the last 13 years as the
club's head trainer and joined the organization in 1980, won't be
returning in that capacity next season.
In a prepared statement, the club said Craig, 43, has been
offered another position within the organization.
Engle said his immediate plans involve travelling to Europe
with his wife, Barbara, next month.
Beyond that, he will decide on his future upon his return
although Engle will remain with the organization until month's
end.
"We thank Bob for his tireless efforts on behalf of
the organization," said Jays general manager Gord Ash.
"He was one of the instrumental keys in the initial startup
of the Blue Jays and has continued to contribute in both the
scouting and development area of our baseball operation."
By BOB
ELLIOTT
-- Toronto Sun
NEW YORK -- The past two seasons the Blue Jays' philosophy of
hitting has been simple:
Hit the ball up the middle.
Hit line drives between the shortstop and second baseman.
The home runs will come.
When the Jays gather in Dunedin for the 2000 season in
roughly 135 days, new hitting instructor Cito Gaston will be in
charge.
Gaston's philosophy has been to pull, pull, pull and, when
in doubt, pull the ball some more.
It should make for some interesting exchanges around the
batting cage -- especially since the Jays had a franchise-record
883 runs this season with their up-the-middle attack, under fired
hitting coach Gary Matthews.
In 1995, then-manager Gaston issued a decree to Jays
hitting coach Willie Upshaw to have batters pull the ball, which
led to John Olerud's trade to the New York Mets.
And what now for Gaston and Shawn Green, who has an
Olerud-like swing which sees line drives land in all fields? The
two did not see eye-to-eye in their former manager/player
relationship, which ended two years ago.
"I understand I still have a lot to learn," Green
said from Newport Beach, Calif.
"But I'm not going to change my approach. By that I
don't mean I won't make adjustments, you always have to make
adjustments as a hitter.
"At this stage of my career, I feel I've established
myself and I have a good game plan on how to hit. If there are
any conflicts I'm going to go with what I've been doing."
Green is coming off his first .300 season, having hit .309
with 42 homers, 123 RBIs and 20 steals.
Gaston's hiring is a bold and yet risky move by Jays
president Gord Ash. Is Gaston qualified? Yes. But is it worth
risking reopening the old wounds between Gaston and Green? No.
The hiring comes when the Jays should be making sure the
room temperature in the clubhouse is to the liking of both Green
and fellow slugger Carlos Delgado.
Both hold the hammer and the leverage in contract talks
with the Jays, as Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez do with the
Seattle Mariners. If the Jays fail to sign either Delgado or
Green, they can walk as free agents at the end of the 2000
season.
"I'm not going to base my decision on whether I
(re-sign with the Jays) on who the coaches are," Green said.
"Everything that happens will be somewhat of a factor in my
decision, but I'm not going to base a career decision on a
transaction."
Green said he got a call from Ash on Monday.
"You could say it was a surprise," Green said.
"It's no secret (Gaston and I) had kind of a checkered past
together.
"Gord told me Cito said he was wrong about me and he
wanted to have a meeting. That's an important thing. I'm glad
that it's a priority he would want to speak to me."
Jeff Moorad, who represents Green, was in New York to see
client Ricky Ledee play for the Yankees in the American League
championship series.
Moorad said he and Ash talked earlier this week about
Gaston's hiring and scheduled a meeting to talk contract down the
road.
"Shawn and Cito apparently had their differences in
the past," Moorad said. "I have to believe that Gord
Ash is careful enough to have dealt with that issue upfront. I'm
sure all sides will be able to figure out a working relationship
that makes sense.
"We have ultimate confidence in Gord doing what's best
for the franchise, as it relates to Cito."
Notice Moorad said he had the "ultimate confidence in
Gord ... as it relates to Cito."
The Jays may have five-year offers worth $48 million US on
the table to both Delgado and Green, but signing Green to a
multi-year contract to keep him in Toronto is a long way from
being a done deal.