>That's kind of why the Jays will be perennial 3rd or 4th placers. With the payrolls the Yanks and Sox put out, it's hard to compete when you're stingy. It's not like the Jays organisation couldn't afford to compete; they just don't seem to want to.

We went through that for years here in Philly, and then it changed, and you can see the results. FWIW, though, the Phils' recent quality is due in great part to building a really good farm system. A significant number of the great players (off the top of my head, Rollins, Utley, Howard, Hamels, Victorino, Happ) came up through the Phils' system. Plus there were enough more to trade for quality players.

>The other problem is the lack of a balanced schedule. Thanks to TV advertising and owner greed, the Jays are stuck playing far too often against the Yanks and the Sox. They'll never bring in a balanced schedule no matter how much clamouring there may be for it.

I don't think I'd favor a totally balanced schedule. It makes sense to me that you play your division teams more. That said, the current system is nuts. 18-19 games against each division (Thank you, o baseball gods, for putting Washington in our division <g>), and only 6-7 against each other team in the league. With interleague play, you sometimes have as many games against a team in the other league as against most other teams in your league.

The schedule they had back in the two-division, 6-teams-per-division scheme made a lot of sense to me: 18 against each division team, 12 against the ones in the other division. Not balanced, but an appropriate imbalance.

Tamar