If you just came out of a coma, Matt Stairs is the short, pudgy, unapologetically balding Super Canuck LF/1B/DH who has brought unqualified joy to fans of a 2007 Jays club that is challenged in the run scoring department.  He looks like he’d be a great softball player; when acquired by Detroit in September of 2006 his new Tiger teammates reportedly greeted him to the club by leaving 3 neon softballs and a 6-pack of beer in his locker before his first game in Motown.  They can’t really be blamed.  If Matt Stairs was your dad, none of your friends would guess that he made his living as a pro athlete.

The Jays $128 million man and face of the franchise, Vernon Wells, is playing hurt.  Shoulder.  Has affected his swing.  This is what we’ve been told, first by hitting coach Mickey Brantley and then by a sheepish V-Dub.   He might require surgery in the off season, but he might not.  That’s all we know right now.   The player was reluctant to blame this injury on his performance this year, which was the honourable course of action.  Club brass, however, might be trying to pull the wool over your eyes and excuse V-Dub’s sorry 2007 for that familiar justification for all that’s gone wrong this season: injury.

Imagine the following scenario:

The Jays run out the final three seasons of JP’s contract with much of what you’ve seen since the start of 2006, namely flashes of brilliance, unfulfilled promise, meaningless September games, and a string of win totals in the mid-80s.  The Ricciardi Era has run for nearly a decade without producing a single playoff appearance.  Fan frustration grows, attendance stagnates, and TV audiences on Sportsnet drop off.  Major dollars are being lost.  “Uncle” Ted Rogers, never a baseball fan to begin with, grows increasingly restless with a major investment that’s failed to bear fruit and begins to ponder dumping the franchise he rescued  from the hell that was the disinterested ownership of Belgian beermeisters in 2000.  Something has to be done, and fast.