The No Stats, Toronto Teams Suck, Post

I am a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I am a Toronto Raptors fan. I am a Toronto Blue Jays fan. I saw, and remember, the Jays win their World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993. I firmly believe that I will not see a Toronto professional sports team (excluding the Argos) hoist a major championship trophy in at least the next dozen years.


I don't believe in curses or fate or destiny, per se, but I do believe in terrible management, poor decisions, and an entire city that is easily satisfied with mediocrity. 


The Toronto Maple Leafs have produced several entertaining teams, and have enjoyed some play-off success. Their current team is a lot of fun to watch. 


The Toronto Raptors have had a few great moments. Vinsanity was a blast while it lasted. The current team is so bad that I've turned down tickets several times this season.


The Jays have those two championships, and zero playoff births since. However, they had Roy Halladay, who is probably my favourite Toronto athlete ever (him or Steve Thomas or Mats Sundin, two guys my sister and I named cats after). 


Unfortunately, the Blue Jays are at the mercy of MLB playoff and salary rules and are stuck in a division with the Yankees, Red Sox, and the suddenly-great Tampa Bay Rays. The Jays have a great farm system, apparently. So far, guys have developed in the minors and then floundered after reaching the big league. Lind looked awesome, but has absolutely stunk the last two years. Same goes for Aaron Hill. Travis Snider is a disaster at the plate. Kyle Drabek can't pitch anymore. The Jays current roster is almost devoid of Jays draft choices. The best players, other than Ricky Romero, are all from other organizations: Jose Bautista, Yunel Escobar, Brett Lawrie, Edwin Encarnacion, Kelly Johnson, Brendan Morrow. Alex Anthopolous has made some awesome salary-dump deals with Vernon Wells and Alex Rios, but I give more credit to the stupidity of others than to his acumen. Plus, those deals don't make us closer to winning unless we use the savings to sign quality free agents. He gave millions to Francisco Cordero, traded Mike Napoli for Frank Francisco, signed Jeff Mathis, and allowed the team to bat Lind 4th/5th while hitting like a AAA player for the overwhelming majority of the last two seasons. He also failed to get Yu Darvish or sign a meaninful player this off-season.


The Leafs and the Raptors are owned by a corporation with little incentive to field a championship-caliber team and an apparent inability to assess and recruit top-level talent. The lack of incentive comes from the fact that Canadians love hockey, and Torontonians love the Leafs, like most of the world loves soccer. Ownership knows fans will tune in regardless of the product, and that we confuse making the playoffs with a successful season, despite the fact that over half the league gets in! Management isn't so hot either. I'm sure many fans out there believe that Brian Burke is a hockey genius, but I am not one of them. I'm open to the view that Burke is a good NHL GM, but I'm not sold that he's going to be the conductor of the Leafs' championship orchestra. If he turns Luke Schenn into Ryan Getzlaf, I'll expand my mind. 


Before Burke we had Cliff Fletcher, who made the Gilmour deal, which was amazing, and also made the Sundin deal, which was also amazing. But he didn't draft anyone good and despite the lack of a salary cap couldn't buy a winner. We had John Ferguson Jr., who famously gave Leafs fans the Jeff Finger, FOR FIVE YEARS. We had Pat Quinn, a fine coach but clearly NOT a competent GM. We had Ken Dryden, a terrific goalie/lawyer/author who might have been a great GM if not for the fact that he was basically forced to acquire veterans at the end of their ropes. 


Here are the Leafs' best draft choices in my lifetime:


Al Iafrate, Wendel Clark, Vincent Damphousse, Luke Richardson, Tie Domi, Felix Potvin, Yanic Perreault, Kenny Jonsson, Nikolia Antropov, Brad Boyes, Carlo Colaiacovo, Alexander Steen, Tuukka Rask, Viktor Stalberg, Nikolai Kulemin, Carl Gunnarsson, Luke Schenn, and Nazem Kadri. Find me a current or future Hall of Fame caliber player there, and those are THE BEST ones. That is just plain awful. Since I'm not looking at stats, I can't say for sure, but I'm confident none of those guys have cracked 100points or a +30 as a Leaf.


How do you go over 20 years without drafting a single superstar? By not taking scouting/drafting/talent-evaluation seriously.


The Raptors' GM is Bryan Colangelo. I'm getting the distinct impression that his best days are behind him. He did very well with the Suns. The Raptors? Not so much. He's been in Toronto since 2006. He made a couple decent deals, but also signed some terrible contracts. Linas Kleiza for 5 years and $20million? C'mon. Amir Johnson for 5 years and $34million? AAAHHH!!!


The Raptors' top draft choices under Colangelo:


Andrea Bargnani, Roy Hibbert, DeMar DeRozan, Ed Davis, and Jonas Valanciunas. Argh!!! Bargs is solid, although listing who we took him over makes me want to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs until my brain melts. Roy Hibbert is pretty darn good, but in a not-good-Colangelo moment, we traded him for an over-the-hill guy who hits like a girl (Jermaine O'Neal...look up his malace-at-the-palace punch. It looked vicious initially, but the guy got right back up. Seriously? A seven footer takes a running start, hits an fat, unsuspecting guy in the face with all his might, and the guy is unscathed???!!! hahahahahahaha). DeMar DeRozan has promise, but we are doing a really bad job developing him. Ditto Ed Davis. Bosh was solid, but we couldn't keep him even for max money because anyone with a brain knows this team is nowhere near competing in a meaningful way. 


That is a lot of failure for one city of sports teams. We're in the conversation for worst sports city in North America. We haven't had a championship game in 18+ years. We have one team certain to miss the playoffs, one team hopeful of squeaking into the playoffs, and one team highly unlikely to make the playoffs, in 2012. The Leafs still lack a goalie, a centre, or a defenceman with all-world talent. The Jays have no starting pitching behind Romero, and even he is probably due for regression in 2012. The Raptors suck, from top to bottom.


I want to be hopeful, to cheer blindly for the local teams. But when I have a few too many and I'm stuck with my thoughts and staring up at the ceiling, it's impossible for me to dream of a Toronto team winning the big prize.