JP Ricciardi has compromising photos of Ted Rogers

Building a winner 604
Advanced Techniques for Attracting Free Agents 101
-by the Gay Accountant

There is no magic formula for successfully attracting and signing big-time free agents. But here are some hints to help you and your team in your quest.

1- Quickly identify the player or players you want to acquire. By doing so, you can focus solely on that player (or those players), and court them by visiting them, giving them tours of your team’s city and building. Leak the identity to the media, so as to create a buzz among fans and media. These things will impress the player. Additionally, have your current star players sit down with the free agent(s) to offer a player’s perspective about playing and living in your town.

2- Ensure you win the bidding war for your targeted player by offering a contract that far exceeds the player’s market value, both in dollars and in years. Do not leak this information to media sources, as the media buzz will almost surely turn to backlash in regard to the unwarranted length and value of the contract offer.

3- When targeting your free agent, don’t waste time, effort, energy or resources ensuring the player is healthy. With modern medicine and training techniques, player injuries are a thing of the past, especially for pitchers. While nearly all pitchers do require ulnar collateral ligament reconstructive (Tommy John) surgery nowadays, they usually return from the surgery throwing harder than ever, and further arm injury is frankly the stuff of fairy tales. Oh, and closers with one year of closing experience should absolutely be given $47 million, while starters with a history of arm trouble (ha! Gotcha, there’s no such thing) and a career record below .500 should be given $55 million. If-- and we’re talking about an if the size of Jupiter-- they do get hurt, just lie about it. Sports writers and fans aren’t doctors-- or smart. They’ll never know the difference, and they’ll never know you’re lying.

4- Sit back, and watch your team dominate.

5- Should your team fail to qualify for the playoffs during the first five years of your five year plan, that’s OK too. Keep selling the dream. Again, sports fans aren’t smart. They’ll eat it up. If season six gets off to a rocky start, and those free agents’ health problems are actually real, well…

6- … just blast them on your radio show. Say you wish you’d never signed them for as much money as you did and question their actual skill level. Diminish their contributions and abilities, and question their commitment to play through pain. Hell, it’s not like your dumb-ass manager overworked the $55-million starter, and under-worked the $47-million closer and perpetuated the injuries.

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Look, J.P., I know I’ve been trying to tell everyone that will listen that you’re useless for most of the last three seasons. And you and I know I’ve been calling for you to be fired (John Gibbons, too) for just as long. But this, this really was something else. Publicly calling out your players is one thing, but apparently you haven’t noticed A.J. Burnett is one of the only guys that’s lived up to the contract you gave them (including IR Halladay and Vernon Wells). The guy’s been busting his ass on the bump, tossing more innings and pitches than most pitchers would ever even consider, and acting as a rare bright spot on this team that’s so badly underachieving. Without Burnett, you can kiss 2006’s second-place finish goodbye, and without Burnett, the Jays would only be dreaming of sitting 11.5 games back.

Ted Rogers, I beg of you, do the right thing, and rid your team and fans of the menace that is the Gay Accountant.